for how else could i be haunted
months after you've gone?

at first
it stung
wandering through this world alone
after belonging to you for so long
every song cried out your name
i had to plug my ears for peace and quiet

and then slowly
and with tremendous subtleness
it got easier
the nights were not plagued with memories
i reclaimed the streets we once walked on
i created my own religion
away from you
and everything you reminded me of

i found solace in getting to know myself
when the host is gone, who is the parasite, really?
i climbed into myself and found
all the things you loved about me
and all the things you learned to hate

it takes a long time to forgive someone who broke your heart
but a longer time to forgive yourself for allowing it.
the heartbreak didn't scar me;
instead, it was like the time i sprained my knee
in the second grade
it felt like i was dying in the moment
until
weeks later
it didn't

and now the only reminder i have of that day is the soreness i feel every winter when it's cold
and my body remembers what my mind forgot

I look for any excuse to get in the car nowadays.

the bed I once found comforting feels lonely and cold
and I have to remind myself I've always been the only person
who sleeps on it
it's like I miss someone who never existed,
a slim shadow from another dimension of something that once
brought me warmth

I fall out of my bed
a puddle of last night's tears
slipping into the shower counting on the same broken promise
that I'll feel better when I get ready
because how can you hate yourself when you look beautiful?

trying hard to find an outfit feels hypocritical
no one's gonna see me
no one's gonna care
I'm just putting on something
because I want to feel like I'm the main character of my own show for once in my life
I want to feel that this day is mine to conquer

so I climb into my car
the only safe space I have left
untainted by the tears that have been shed over text messages
and fights between my sister and me
it's like rolling down the windows clears the air inside and
in screaming lyrics to the same three songs
I finally breathe

many poets attempt to dress depression up to be
a fancy visitor in a gloomy suit,
like some rich guy from the forties
with the cool hats

but that's not it at all.
now, given, everyone experiences depression differently,
but to me it feels like it's entangled into my every breath

i feel like the tree wrapped in poison ivy i found once
when i was a kid
and i grabbed one of the leaves like an idiot
and rubbed it on my face because
"the leaves are soft, mommy"
and then i had to stay home for like, a week, until
the rashes went away.  

and, so,
it is part of my humor now,
and my breath, and my laugh, and my every blink,
and even when i don't think it's there, it is-
and it's not always destructive.
sometimes it gives me a break from the anxiety and i can just sit back and let myself be mellow and tired

THUS
it's okay that i am depressed
and for the longest time i thought
it was a part of me
and getting rid of it would be getting rid of a part of me
but i have come to realize
that the healing process
is CONSTRUCTION only
and nothing will be destroyed as i get better.

rather,
flowers will grow out of my volcanic ash
and the fog will only linger in a way that makes a day look beautiful
and I get to decide what i do with this palace of a brain that was granted to me.

that's what i think about tonight.

one of the things i'll never get over as a depressed person
is the feeling of utter e m p t i n e s s...
you don't know it till you feel it
and you don't feel it because it's absence of a feeling that you feel

suddenly nothing makes sense and you yearn for a pen to scribble your thoughts down on a piece of paper that you will never let anyone read anyways so what's the point

your questions stop having ?s at the ends of them and the threads in your heart are undoing themselves until you have annihilated your chances for sanity

you listen to music you wouldn't normally like to listen to, but your person of interest told you to listen to them so you do

and taking pills becomes a habit and sometimes you forget why you even take meds because i thought for a long time that feeling like a gray cloud 24/7 was normal until someone put it into a box and labeled it

"chronic depressive disorder"

i am the moon but less beautiful
simply mirroring what is thrown my way

i am the moon
only a part of me is available for your eyes
the cold, shrouded depths of me are hidden away from you

you love the moon
because you love the scant silvery light
and not the bite that life has taken out of me
leaving me as a lonely crescent

the One thing i like about feeling down
is how the feelings in my chest
rip open the phosphorus coat on my
match of a heart
letting everything out with the beautiful destruction and chaos that comes with fire.

fire. fire. flames and fire. how magnificent a sight it is to see myself blow up into tiny shards of lava rock.

a cactus and a boat
were millions of miles apart
when the boat suddenly smelled the danger and went all those miles to see the little cactus

the cactus had grown up hating affection
rejecting every single touch
and the boat was determined to change this

so the stupid stupid stupid boat went onto the land
and somehow got all the way to that cactus plant
and when it got there it expected a hug and all it got
was ****** arms and a broken heart

i HATE IT when songs talk about your eyes being stars
and how spending time with you feels like a dream
and the feeling of butterflies in my stomach when i'm with you
because that's NOT IT AT ALL!

your eyes are the color of
leather and wood and soy sauce
and they're not remarkable but
i could stare into them all day anyway

my days spent with you are an utter nightmare
i can't reach for your hand without feeling like
my heart is literally going to stop beating
and the moment when you smile at me
it feels like i'm falling three-hundred feet downward
with nothing to soften the blow

i don't GET butterflies in my stomach when i'm with you
i get wasps stinging my insides!
don't you understand?
you crush me in impossible ways
but i guess i'm okay with
becoming half my size

no. 1: nothing is ever elemental
it's never only this or only that
which is probably why we overuse the word
B I T T E R S W E E T

no. 2: it's better to tell someone you love them than to not
at least if you die now,
you won't regret leaving those words on the edge of the table
a glass of milk unspilled

no. 3: this world is too beautiful to explore alone
that's why i go to the movies with my friends
and lay in the grass with my sister,
counting clouds and singing songs from the '00s

things hurt the most
when they're unsaid
and implied

you don't have to tell me
you don't love me back
because your silence is enough for me
but it's okay that you don't love me
because i don't love myself either

it stings knowing this
but i forgive you all the same

i like you
the way i like burning my mouth when i hastily
fork up my mother's freshly made pasta

i like you
the same way i like feeling my pulse in my fingertip
when i get an open wound,
the regular thumping a reminder
that i am very much alive

i like you
the way i like hearing a dissonant chord
knowing that it is an acquired taste i have

I LIKE YOU
in a way i've never liked anyone else
i like twisting my hands into yours
until we're a blend of colors that can't be ignored!

I LOVE YOU
the way you love someone
when they're in every piece of you
and no WAY could i let you go without
losing a part of myself

Thoughts have a strange way about them;
They twist and turn in your head
UNTIL
You can’t decipher the silk
From the porcelain.

Vines tangling about,
Do you hear my call?
I need you to stop seizing every second of my day.

Aware I remain of my role in your creation
How I wish I could have remained a single particle
In the dusty abyss of stars
Unable to make choices,
Unable to ruin lives.