Dear Talia,

I don't want to be a tortured artist.
I don't want to be depressed and I don't want to be anxious.
Competitive sadness and disorders treated like accessories disgust me.

The world glamorizes mental illness, and I don't understand why. There is nothing romantic about being mentally ill just like how there's nothing glamorous about a broken wrist or a torn medial collateral ligament. There's nothing romantic about constantly being afraid that the world will fold in itself and **** you with it. There's nothing romantic about feeling like you could break down and cry at any moment.

This is the first piece I've written while being medicated.

I want it to be Christmas already.

The world dreams itself a halo, but can only attain horns. The halo is an illusion and the horns are an idea.

I'm due to take another Lorazepam. Would I look cool to the kids who idolize dysfunction and misinterpret pain as style, if I were to take one of these, with water and a distant glance, in front of them? Geez, to have their approval would to have everything and nothing at all.

I'm not sure why I've written as much about this as I have.

You.

It is 2:48 am and all I can think about, in this moment, is you.

I can't wait to spend Christmas with you. I can't wait to wear bad Christmas sweaters, and be the couple everyone hates, as we sing Christmas carols and spread holiday cheer.

I wrote this poem a few minutes ago. Sometime around 2:30 am. I'm not sure. I'm exhausted:

I sat on the edge of my bed, and on the edge of my life,
medicated to the point of pointlessness. Soft.
It was the nineteenth, not the twentieth,
and I wished I saw the fireworks with her fifteen days earlier.

My gasps tore the shingles off of the house.
And they hung suspended above the hole in the roof.
And God stared down into my room, as the shingles swirled skyward.
"I see you," I said, "but I don't believe in you."

I left home and ran until I was a dream that had passed itself.


I hope that was okay.

I love you.


Yours,

Joshua Haines

The idea seems silly
Getting over you
Considering the fact
that I've never been under you
or you under me
for that matter

My fingers trace
your contours
in my thoughts.
The highs and lows,
your inclines
rise and fall.
Spaces in between
grow distant
from ridge and valley
to coastal plain.

Through uncharted territory
I follow the beaten path
till trail turns to sand
and desert meets ocean.

Contours fade
and wash away.
You slide into
the deep blue
and cross the border.

r ~ 7/5/14

The cat is being poisoned
My toenails are falling off
This house is haunted
And the fear is getting me down*

………..

Two children play with the hospital coffee machine, tearing open teabags and sprinkling the innards into pitchers of milk.
“This is how you tell fortunes.” The little girl says, watching the tea float.
“No it isn’t.” says the boy.
I want to go over and talk to them but my pyjamas have a bleach stain on the crotch that looks like I’ve had a *******. I am afternoon fog. My back is sweating.
I wheel myself over to the window with one of the hospital Bibles tucked between my knees. Inside the back cover someone has written:

THIS BOOK WAS MADE FOR SAVING
AND THAT’S JUST WHAT IT’LL DO
ONE OF THESE DAYS THIS BOOK
IS GONNA SAVE THE LIKES OF YOU

The kids behind me argue about fortunes. For a moment I let my head drop and my eyes close, but
**** **** terror ****
My cat is being poisoned,
And my toenails are falling off

will we ever share clothes again

will we ever gallop up the stairs
with big elbows and a drink

will we complain about the gum studded streets
and swap tales of our mothers

will we wrestle to music this summer
and compare our white arses,

will we wake up still drunk?

will we get our hands on each other's faces,
will we steal cigarettes,
will we ****,
will we text,
will we worry about each other's coughs?

will we ever swap clothes again?

I'm sorry
for my glamorous sizzling brain circuitry

I'm sorry
that I never warned you about the summer

sorry
I'm so sorry
for my own bones

sorry that I'm not quite the ticket

sorry if I'm not a good neighbour

sorry
I'm going up the wall

I'm sorry
if I wish this would go away
and give me the future that I'd always been promised

I'm sorry
I'm so sorry
but I can't cut out my own mind

and even if I could
I wouldn't

I bury into the memory foam with a
Strange boy's finger up my ****.
Stubby white soldier,
Cherry ****,
Phone off.

Lily- pads wind their way towards the bathroom
(pizza boxes, six pizza boxes)
"skip carefully towards the ****** stash
or else you'll sink...

they're under the sink

...uh, uhhh, come back and

sink your way in"

Welcome to the Bad Life Bingo!
Every hour is the end of the world,
There's nothing to play for
and no time to play it in...

...I am shaking off this dry truth
with a flannel that has seen better days.
My english tan is coming off
and nothing works.

He tries to light a joint in my bed

the zippo strikes three -
click - fzzzz
click - fzzzz
click - fzzzz
and you're out .

A young Japanese boy
No older than 4
Fell behind his father,
Stumbling over the escalator leading
To our train.

First kid in a long time
To return my glance
With a wide-eyed grin.

He even stopped for a while,

Much unlike the ****** trains.

Some people feel like places. And these people are vacations. These places are people. Freckled wall paper. Foyer tunes whispered. They are supermarket candles. Wavering flames by way of unsealed windows. They are blinds, these places. And you see through. And you hope through, these people. Pulling back curtains of brunette hair, applause deserved. Delicate, delicate. The slightest noise could alarm clock and send you back to work. Silent, silent. It's rest. Try hard to relax. She's a mole between *******. She's scar tissue on an ankle. And this place, this place smells of honey; tastes like almond milk. "In a perfect world what would you do tonight?" Sleep in this place. Wake inside this person. Simple. Clean. In a perfect world, morning sewed with lavender clouds, tall grass, and a watercolor sun unseen before. And this place likes eggs over easy. And this person warmly invites like white lenin.