My therapist recently asked me "have you ever tried mindfulness?"
I laughed a bit, thinking of the week-long mindfulness camp I attended for suicidal adolescents. I went twice.
This peaceful brain training is essentially giving us a sanctuary to retreat when the world is too loud.
We would eat skittles and describe their flavor and textures. We would focus on our breaths. Make beaded art. Tell collaborative stories. Follow guided meditations laying on unfamiliar gym floors, giggling a bit as we soared through clouds.
I remembered my dedication to mindfulness and the rich peace I felt from finding the present moment.
Now that my anxiety followed me into adulthood, I was willing to revisit. It's kind of a stupid challenge since the present is always here... and yet, it's still a challenge.
I look out my dusty, sun filled window decorated with three vases of dry arrangements. My mind starts to posture into how warm and antique this image feels. My eyes well up with tears as I hear birds sing and trees sway.

I overthink,
It's a regular process,
I overthink,
Is it more than just a regular process?

I overthink,
That it is common,
I overthink,
Too much for myself.

I overthink,
I can barely help,
The wounds on my hands,
prove me wrong.

I overthink,
yet this is not mirage,
This is reality,
So this is not thought.

This is not overthinking,
this is true,
It's not me who is overthinking,
It's you.

Why be a Counselor?

“Why be a counselor?” People often ask of me.
“The pay isn’t high, and the paperwork is beyond belief.
The stress you must have, dealing with people’s problems all day”.
So, I look at them, and I try, my best to explain.
“The pay won’t make me rich, you are right about that.
The paperwork's insane, and we always need more staff.
Yes, people come to me with a lot to explain.
From broken homes, trauma, and unimaginable pain.
But you asked, “Why be a Counselor?” so let me share with you.
Why I continue, to do what I do.
It’s the light in people’s eyes, when they first find that hope.
When they empower themselves, and finally learn to cope.
It’s watching them find a new life, one they actually want to live.
It’s the joy of the families, as they reunite and forgive.
It’s that one day you wonder, “am I really making a difference in what I do?”
Then your email reads; “I am happy and well, and I want to thank you.”
“That’s when you know…” I say with a tear…
“There could not be, a more rewarding career”.

-Monique Renee Smith

faux leather cracking, mauve in between
soft swoosh and wheels creaking
14 minutes and 38 seconds
your back stiffening, careful not to lean
too far back, in case the couch swallows you

why would you put such a small picture
in such a large frame? a sigh
you can’t run away from your anxiety attacks
you know

I know.

this is nothing like the movies
the bathroom is out of order
and there are barely any notes
on her clipboard
45 minutes and 22 seconds
let me know if the sadness gets worse, alright?

alright.

a child is gagging in the waiting room
you rush out without the copay
but you’ll be back again, soon.

It's time for a tale of my school's counseling system
And how it effects the students within
So to all of the counselors who ask "why don't they come to us?":
Here are the stories we take to the bus

First of all, it happens that you're never in
And without you there, how will they talking begin?
We get that you're also the hall monitors
But the way things are, you won't even let us be heard

And honestly, don't even get me started
On the stories students had once they departed

I had a friend, C, who's a bisexual girl
And, of course, that yields problems in this world
In middle school she dated another girl
In the "oh my gosh, we're holding hands" sense of the word
And one day, when it became all too much
C told her counselor about the dating and such
A day later, C and her bae were called in
And, I should note here, bae's parents saw the rainbow as sin
Turns out the counselor had told both their parents
That their girls were dating, despite the problems apparent
After that C never saw bae again
And that is how counselors treated my friend

My bestie, S, had many problems at home
She would avoid being stabbed by running outside into the snow
So one day she went to talk mental health
But her counselor gave her something else
When S, a philosophical joker, mused the meaning of life
The counselor told her it wasn't worth the strife
The woman told her that she had not place on this earth
And general statements that were all rather dearth
And S thought as she walked out an away
"What if somebody suicidal walked in today?
At least that's not any kind of issue for me."
And that's how our counselors treated my bestie

The final anecdote is a bit personal:
I'm the girl who did this, after all
Things had been getting more tense at my house
My mom's shouting outbursts made me want to vanish like a mouse
Even on a vacation to Virginia Beach
These problems always happened to be within reach
And afterward my mom would try to make things smooth
But her words only made me more and more confused
So I went to Mr. R after months of stressing
Hoping I could find solutions to a problem that was pressing
He told me I should be honest with my mother:
That I should tell her I saw as terrifying what she saw as a bother
So I did just that in the late afternoon
Wishing it to work, but not raising my hopes so soon
And of course my words fell on deaf ears
My mom told me I was irrational for my fears
And later still, in future nights and future fights
My mom had a new verbal weapon: yelling at me for my fright
Saying "don't you cry, I'm not hitting you"
It took me the rest of the year to figure out what I could do

But there is one thing that I hold dear
Given to me by my counsellors here
For if my counselor hadn't said that to me
You wouldn't be reading the poems you see
My way of dealing with my problems was verse
At first in note margins, than this site on the virtual universe

So to all you counselors who asked why students never come to you:
We've found other places to do what we need to

"And how does that make you feel" she asks, pen poised over clipboard.
I want to scream at her, tell her that mere words could never hold the weight of what I feel
But instead I stare fiercely into her eyes and say...
"how does it make you feel, to know you can't save me?"

problem:* for the longest time, i was in the mindset where *i did not want to die, i just simply did not want to exist.

experiment: this summer, i did just that. i severed ties with most of my friends, cut off communication, and burned down a lot of bridges.

outcome: i lost a lot of friendships but i found parts of myself.

summary: i had two months of inexistence and it sparked with me a desire to live again, a fire within me that had been missing for quite some time now. it taught me how to be okay by myself, but it also taught me that it’s okay to allow good friends to help you better yourself.

error analysis: it’s not okay if you purposely burn bridges down and end friendships on bad notes. they’ll haunt you later. so leave friendships on a good note. if they’re a real friend, you won’t be leaving them; you’ll simply be putting a pause on the friendship. it’s okay to take time for yourself, and it’s also okay if friends want some time for themselves. you should not ever apologize for wanting time for yourself, nor should others.

solution: if you wish to inexist, then isolate yourself for a while. make yourself comfortable being alone. once you are able to be content in isolation, you will naturally want to exist more, both inside and outside of isolation. *allow yourself to let people into your world again.

I've scheduled an appointment about 3 different times but, cancelled for each.
I didn't think there was any purpose in laying down the voices in my head for a stranger
When I've spent so much time building cement walls of silence between anyone who has ever gotten too close to me.
I have spent this lifetime creating sound proof dream catchers of my screams.
I am not known to grab hold of clingy hearts
Because, it's hard to hold on to things that are trying to do more than grasp me.
I say goodbye or pass them along as often as the tide comes into the shore.
But, I do not come back as it does.
But, the voices in my head do.
The doubts they hit me like teeth to concrete
The anxiety hits me like 10 ft deep waters with no air to breathe in
And I am not the swimming kind.
I am a runner, so it is hard for me to live in water deep enough to drown in.
I have created water deep enough to drown in.
I have become so controlled that I am numb to hands
And I fall to words so easily.
I scare me
My voice scares me
My thoughts scare me .
Night hits like the sun after a storm
And I can't figure out which one I am or which I want to be.
I have created a tornado of this mind
A wildfire of this heart
And a tomb of this body
And I don't know if I have self-shattered too profusely
And too quietly to fix it.
So I am here now,
You ask me why,
                              And I am here because now
The broken pieces can't be ignored anymore,
It's not getting easier in the morning anymore.
It's getting harder to wake
And I don't know how many more days I can be here
Like this...
This is my last chance to fix it
                                          fix her
                                          fix me.