Sometimes I think I’ve got a grip
a handle on my feelings and this life
turns out I’m wrong and I don’t have a clue
I know it’s just going to be like this
so I’m trying to grow with my sadness
be friends and treat it as I would like someone else to treat me
aging is just watching the days go by and wondering where they went
just as fleeting as happiness
my habits help and hurt me
smoking too many cigarettes and getting higher than the clouds
just to float away like smoke stealing my breath
Life can be so good I want to hold on to it and scream at the top of my lungs how great it really is
but it all gets heavy and I drown in the burden of being a person in the universe
Giving my sadness a name and growing through it and with it
all the meds and deep breathing, the struggles I’ve been through
turn me into who I am going to be tomorrow

it could be that I’m turning 24 soon but I feel like time is slipping
unlike most people I hate my birthday
I hate getting older and feeling like I’m running out of time to be young
every year it’s a depressing reminder that youth doesn’t stay for long
that I’m actually an adult and there is no stopping the future
I used to think when I was younger that I’d feel differently as I got older, that I would be happier, that the depression would go away and so would the anxiety and the feeling of not knowing what the hell Im doing
because adults are supposed to have it all together
but now I can look at life like none of us know what the **** we’re doing and we’re all a little sad and messed up

Some days I do not have the strength to keep moving
I blank out, completing forgetting what I was pursuing
Constant thoughts of "What am I doing?!"
Wishing thoughts in my head would stop cooing
I feel like my energy has been drained
The relationships I have all seemed to be strained
My heart is just overwhelmed and pained
I wish I didn't feel so constrained
and that my emotions were something that could easily be contained
I wish there was someone who could be blamed
But there isn't and it feels like nothing is ever going to be the same

Days of happiness dance around
my ever-present mental frown
while a smile takes over my face
to disguise my lack of emotional grace
My mind is captured by stormy sounds
threatening to leak out of my face
and fall apart once they hit the ground
they're splashes of what it's like to be drowned

In your darkest days
I became your light
But in mine you
Never were
I wonder.

Today marks 133,920 minutes and
the answer still isn’t clear.
Unfortunately, it never will be
because poetry doesn’t have one.

No rhyme or structure
nor 14 stanza song
can make it easier to
solve this meddling art.

Only 336 hours to go
maybe you’ve got an idea for
what all the math in this poem
actually signifies or -

The message it might have
and the meaning rooted in
this 23-year-old brain
who is struggling as well.

Still, after 106 days
when the final day is here
we’ll all scratch our heads with a shrug,
and say, poetry is never clear.

When my school closed, I was in 5th grade,
We all stood outside with balloons.
The older kids understood,
The younger ones just played
The principal made a speech to say
How wonderful this place had been
And the amazing things we'd do someday.

They played a couple songs through stereo
I can't remember which one's by name
But the ending, I do remember just the same
Each of us with a balloon, released that day.
But the story you didn't know was one I've never said
I untied my string, quickly, the balloon floated away.

I ran to the classroom, and cut it up
Thirteen pieces for thirteen classmates.
Waiting for everyone to come
But, wouldn't you know, no one came.
I kept my piece for many years
Throwing it out all but recently
My meaning was left at Saint Mary's
And none have heard that until today.

It's been a long road,
I've been walking-
Don't know what's gonna happen,
these past days,
I haven't been sleeping.

Don't stop-
Don't go-
Don't really wanna know.

Lord, I'm crying out for you,
to come to my rescue-
and save me