I want to scream until my lungs give out,
collapse on the floor,
tear off this paper-thin smile
and spit out the lie of “romanticizing life.”

“It’s just you and me again,” I mutter,
staring at the mirror, a blank, colorless canvas.
Eyes hollow, face streaked with tears and a half-formed grin.
F*ck, you’re unbearable. I want to punch you so bad.

If I stop, is it release or just cowardice?
The thought drifts away like smoke.
I drag myself upright,
patching the cracks with silence,
fastening the mask once more.

The mirror waits,
its hollow twin whispering,
“If not you, then who?”
breath heavy, fingers trembling on the doorknob.
Feeding myself lies before stepping out.
“It’ll get better…” I promise myself
like a broken prayer
time and time
and time
again.

Sometimes when I look outside,
And see the Sun drowned by dark clouds,
I can’t help,
But feel my mood being dragged down.
Some days are shrouded in a,
Monochromatic shade of grey,
And at times, while it might not be ideal,
It’s okay.
The Sun will find its time to shine someday.
However,
When that melancholy grey takes over,
I can feel my heart take a dive,
Darker thoughts creep into my mind.
“Are you being proficient at life?
Or are you wasting your time?
Your accomplishments mean slim to none,
In the grand scheme.
It won’t help you run,
From the inevitably closing gap between,
You and responsibility.”
It comes fast,
It lasts,
It doesn’t just come to pass,
One lap.
It stays,
And it won’t ever go away.
Oh, what thoughts can be stirred from a monochromatic shade of grey.

Everyone’s the hero of their story,
Everyone believes they’re in the right.
Unless they hate themselves,
So they push away everyone else.
See the sights and hear the sounds of sonder,
It’s honestly refreshing if you take a moment to ponder,
How everyone is aware like you,
Though they may not see the world like you do.
How I wonder,
All thanks to sonder.

My breath, light as feather, words like dust—find it best
not to speak too much, lest I seem soft as a feather duster.
Dreams of a perfect body, shadowed by many premonitions,
permissions granted only by the mountains where I took life
by the heel—miswriting heal, and climbing that endless hill
toward closure.

I saw a fish in a teardrop, a sad smile crossing its face; and it
weighed the world on its scales. The river’s currents glistened
with depression— so I pushed upstream, crying a mountain’s
worth of water.

I fought not to wash myself away, lying beneath it all, while
an angel kissed my twisted hair; locked my thoughts in place.
Perfectly ready to die, dancing to a song of reoccurring suicide,
a melody only I could hear. Must entail the full act of dying,
feel the strings beneath your fingers— chords played in secret,
as if David himself taught me the strum. To be an instrument
to a horn, to hone your skills, to feel like a big man someday.

Think of this the next time someone says, “Yeah, I’m okay.”
So much hidden, beneath that quiet syllable, an entire ocean
of grief swallowed in one breath.

Thoughts on dotted lines – this is my right to write; stepping
into deep conversations just to say I had a shoe in. Maybe in
a thousand days draped in gold & silver, I’ll praise God again –
but do it a third time even when life feels like bronze, because
hubris slips in easy. So humour me this: as humility’s hands
still smudged in ***** pictures, like the past we pretend was
never framed.

To picture life outside the struggles that have stained your
heart, aiming for the middle of it all like a game of darts;
darting away from the past but also seeing red sometimes,
taking each hit with the sight of a bull’s eye: just another
reminder of the battles I’ve already fought.

And for the worth I am – more grand than the grand I would
have earned – the days still erupted like volcanoes, molten
interruptions to the places I didn’t belong. I bottled myself up
until I popped like soda, spilling lava into empty sentiments,
too deep to throw away, and too raw to leave behind.

Some moments do feel like *******, but life isn’t a game
with extra cute lives in a litter – but only pieces of ourselves
we shed like skin, littering the ground we walk on. And maybe
that’s how we breathe to live – by moving forward even with
bruised feet, never quite ready to admit defeat.