⚠️Trigger Warning: The following poem contains subject matter pertaining to self-harm, suicide, and voluntary psychiatric hospitalization⚠️
~

This is not my first heartbreak.

I've had many,
and I've certainly had worse.

Although,
at the time,
my heart would have plead
irreparable.

(If only I knew
what was to come
two years later--

but there's a poem
for another day.

In fact,
I believe
you've read it.)

This is the first heartbreak
I feel everywhere--
a cataclysmic aching
that I am certain  
will reduce my pulse to  
flatlines.  

This is my first anxiety attack.

My fingernails scrape violently
at my collarbone
as if they are looking to fulfill
some distant, unadulterated urge
to tear myself apart.

(They are digging
for what whispers beneath--

a dying thing.)

But I cannot
escape
this Incarceration;

I cannot
escape
the shuddering confines
of my own body.

So
I tear away
my clothes
until I am left
in just my underwear.
rocking myself back and forth
like the mad girls
do in the movies.

(Is it true?

Have I gone mad?)


I run the shower
even though I don't have
any intention of showering.

I do this only so my mum
doesn't hear me sobbing,
the sounds of which
are concealed by
the water's blaze.

The room fogs over--

and all the world
is a mist.

and suddenly,
I don't know
what to do with myself.

and suddenly,
I don't give
an absolute ****
about what happens to me
anymore.

For this simple reason, I decide to go to the hospital.

Take away my  
dignity.

Take away my
independence.

Just promise-
******* promise me--
you'll take away the
pain too.

You don't
(of course).

"Please don't tell me you're here because of a boy."

This is one of the first things--
perhaps even the first thing--
the doctor says to me.

"What? Did you think the two of you would ride off into the sunset and live out the rest of your days on some faraway island?"

(Something to this extent,
yet still not an exaggeration.)

See,
to doctors,
broken hearts
are a ridiculous waste of time.

They prefer to deal
in broken things
they can easily
cast and bandage
in fluorescent colours
upon which all the people
you know can then sign,

"Get well soon."

But there is no one to sign
get well soon
across the
war-torn
latitude of my chest.

Because no one truly believes
there is anything for me
to recover from--

they can't see it,
so it mustn't be real

(right?)

Thanks
for cutting a girl down
when she's already bleeding,

(literally,
and I've got the scars
to prove it.)

Doc,
don't ya know
it was never about
just a boy?

It was about
yet another instance of
rejection
I was forced to add
to my repertoire
of not-good-enoughs,
yet another loss
magnified
by my ailing brain.

(what came first--
the plague,
or the boy?

Do I even have to
provide a ******* answer
to such an obvious question?)


Doc--
I know what
type of person you are:

an egotistical *** hat
who thinks mental illness
is inferior
to Physical Illness

cuz

it's all in my head
it's all in my head
it's all in my head

right?

Doc,
what if I told ya
"It"
is always trying to **** me?

What if I told you
"It"
wants nothing more
than to reduce my pulse--
my broken heart--
to flatlines?

Would you take back what you said?

(probably not).

Why do dictators like to finger the globe?
Shoot the ******* dead, before they become world known.
Should we strangle the gangster and forget about a police probe?
Now in Ferguson, it's happening daily and getting full blown.

Do you think about how others live?
Or look away from others in society your with.

What sort of human can make another's jaw drop and body flop?
Get in the ring, put on your gloves and see who comes out on top.
Will the man on the moon ever show us his dark side?
Maybe the little green men have got something to hide.

Do you think about how others live?
Or look away from others in society your with.

Do clowns sometimes cry and does their eyeliner run?
Maybe there black or white and some might even carry a gun.
Do prison girls like the jail uniform stripe?
Surely they wish for a pink blouse, but never gripe.

Do you think about how others live?
Or look away from others in society your with.

Why do banks, shareholders and politicians always have money in reserve?
While the workers, pensioners and babies don't get what they deserve.
Since when should new immigrants be able to paddle to shore?
When skilled workers from afar and new brides are drowned in red tape, for sure.

So just think about how others live?
Also look at all others in society and give.

It is said there is life out of Earth,
Not just moss or some germ livin’ in filth;

There are beasts very smart in Syluthaarme,
A big rock with a vast digital farm,

Where they work not at all or too hard,
Have one ear, but three legs, walk backward,

Got one eye gazing far far away,
And complexions of more shades of gray

Than is seen here on Earth. Among the mass
Live a few who belong to no class,

But pretend that they share illusions
The less smart breeding mass envisions.

An asylum it is for the sane
In the insane’s needed stead feel the chain.

Do you see the boy?
Skipping and jumping under the sky?
Laughing like he has no fear in the world.
Holding hands with air.

Do you notice the way he moves?
The way his feet jerks and grooves?
Moving so unnaturally,
Laughing like there's no end in things.

Lovely schizophrenia, isn't it?
The way it came from his mother?
The way he cares for someone else
Suffering from the same mental illness.

Delusions, fabrications, dreams that is unreal.
the way that he perceives the world makes me really feel.
Uncomfortable, yet I don't think that he asked me to feel
Pity for his condition.

Laugh of a thousand children,
Asking for a better future,
Those ones that seek the asylum,
And look forward for capture.

I have spoken with young men,
who were forced to up and run.
Seen the wounds they carry,
from the barrel of someones gun.

I have Spoken with women,
women with tears in eyes that burn.
As they relate what was done,
because they wanted just to learn.

Ive seen teenage girls running,
in fear for their own lives.
Because someone has told them,
they must become someones wives.

I sat with the old men,
whose spirit would not yield.
And heard how rains of bombs,
were dropped upon their field.

I have heard the many stories,
of families torn apart.
Heard of those still missing,
and the pain in fragmented heart.

I've heard of persecutions,
because of the differing of views.
The scores of people disappeared,
without even making evening news.

I met with many others,
and watched and heard them pray.
Running in fear because for them,
it means death to live your life as gay.

I have talked with the children,
all facing life alone.
Parents not seen,
since the houses all got blown.

These most horrible of all things,
most of you will never see.
But someone needs to tell you
these are the lives lived for many a refugee.

you listen to what passes for the TV news
you read some
but not all
of social media views
you notice that
despite all internationalism
it‘s mostly old sensationalism
combined with more or less suggestive speculations about
how many people may have died in forest fires
to what imaginable depths the president aspires
whether the North Koreans have more rockets
     despite the wonderful achievements
     of the national superdealer
who of the leader‘s staff might be the next
      to lose her job or his credentials
etc. etc.

in short
the world has mostly shrunk
to domestic politics and power games
plus a few places on the globe where
U.S. soldiers still are dying
     in order to protect their country‘s interests
     in oil, assorted mineral resources
     or allies of political expedience
or a few thousand refugees from countries plagued
      by persecution or dictators are
      marching for weeks to claim asylum
           in the home of the brave and the free
           under the statue of liberty
     only to discover that they are seen
     as an invasion threatening
            that blesséd city upon a hill

visions have grown smaller
more petty voices dominate the talk

a nation made of immigrants
faced with the poor who flee from their oppressors
decides to close its borders to the immigrants‘ next wave
oblivious of the times when they themselves
still searching for a better life
found a new place where they felt safe
led by the statue‘s torch that shone its light
upon a poet‘s words of welcome:

"Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"