Like an old friend inviting you to come inside.
Familiar. Comforting.
It will grasp you in its arms and hold you close;
And when you're ready to leave, it wont let you go.
You will beg and plead to be happy,
and it will put up a fight.
It will make you think that the only way to escape it is to take your own life.
If you are lucky, you can break free;
and it will sit and watch you from afar.
Calling your name.
Welcoming you back into it's arms.
It will intrude your thoughts.
Make you think you are worthless.
That you're better off dead.
Just keep telling yourself that it's all in your head.
Keep moving. You will get far.
Depression is not who you are.

Everybody
loses something -
keys
and
coins
and
letters
from
old lovers
It takes
nearly
a lifetime
to lose
these things
for good -
So
what is
the soul
allowed
to keep
I wonder?

Why Men Cry in the Bathroom

For so many reasons.
I will tell you the why.
I think you know,
Or perhaps, you think you know.

Men are always O.K.,
Even when not.

We expect the worse,
Accept the worse,
Nonetheless,
We are forever unprepared.

Wearily, we cry,
In the bathroom, in private,
Lest sighs slip by,
We be unmasked,
Early warring, strife signs warning.

Copious, tho we weep
Before the mirror confessor,
It is relief untethered,
Unbinding of the feet,
An uncounting
Of beaded rosaries,
Of freshly fallen hail stones,
Of night times terrors
By dawn's early edition's light,
and welcomed.

But look for the mute tear,
The eye-cornered drop,
*** tat, that never drops,
But never ceases formation and
Reforming, over and over again,
In a state of perpetuity of reconstitution,

The tippy tear of an iceberg revealing,
And I see you peeping, wondering,
What is beneath

Look for:
the torn worm-eaten edges of spirit,
thrift shop bought, extra worn,
grieving lines neath the eyes,
where the salt has evaporated,
discolored the skin.
worry lines,
under and above,
browed mapped, furrowed boundaries.
the laugh line saga,
where better days are stored,
recalled, as well as recanted,
publicly, privately.

Why just men?

I don't know,
Perhaps,
it is all I know.


Jan 6, 2013

it's about the time of year
that i get sad again
it's about the time of year
that i found out you were dying,
i didn't know if you'd be here at christmas

it's about the time of year
where you started slurring words
and forgetting things too,
but you bought me those boots for christmas
and told me about them a month early
you were so happy about them

it's about the time of year
where i can't breathe
i don't know if it's because of asthma
or if i'm imagining
how it felt to breathe like that

it's about the time of year
where i'd imagine i was on a boat
in the middle of a faraway lake in the UP
i'm a child again and she's much younger too
she's not sick, she's not dying

it's about the time of year
where cancer took my nonni's brain
and made her forget who she was
and how to do things

it's about the time of year
where i cried myself to sleep every night
and prayed to God,
that he'd take anyone but her, take me instead

never trust a poet's words
they sound sweet at first
but you'll notice the emotion in their words
it all sounds too...
fake
"i love you like the sea loves the shore"
becomes too scripted
you hear the small tinge of love actually left in their voice
hoping
hoping it could mean something
but it doesn't
it never does
it's just the way they say it
one day, after they have left
you will find their poems, and they will be the exact words that they had said to you
once long ago