filled with daffodils and sunflowers,
carnations and roses

but overgrown with bindweed, deep-rooted thistles and
quickly-spreading dandelions

the gardener just stood by and watched it grow
it got worse and worse right before their eyes

sure. they did the basic maintenance
so the neighbours wouldn't notice too much
but the weeds kept winning.

lately it's been getting better. they used to be
ashamed of their mess
and they didn't let anyone into the garden

but now they realize that such an overgrown garden
is too big a burden for one person to handle

they have friends who want to help get rid of the weeds
and bit by bit, they're starting to clean it up

I was told I was nothing
Everyday between the beatings
I was locked outside
Given no love besides
Mental abuse to hold me down
Making me feel like nothing but a clown
All this through out my life
Still fighting with all my might
To prove that I am enough

Written by
Michael Matthews

From the first breath
I ever took

I watched my mother
give the
saddest look

It was that day
I found my fear
It went
through me
with every tear

As I grew
I came
to learn
I saw this world
for its wicked turn

Amongst a crowd
I tried to fit in
behaving shy
they screamed
and shout

Preferred the dark
hidden from light
I got taught
to live in doubt

From every hour
I had to fight
there was a heart
I held so dearly tight

Turned off the gravity to lessen the weight of my shadows.
But did that ever work, or was the melt down what follows.
Trying to focus on anything other than me,
Maybe that made it easier when it was I who undid me.

You can live in a dispassionate, destructive state,
You can keep adding worries and doubts piling up your plate,
Darkness falls like an avalanche moving at an exponential rate,
Its not 1 into 2 but 1 into 3 then 3 into 9,
Then when every part of your persona is taken apart by its design.

Who is left and who am I?
What is left when the birds won't fly.
Who will care when the clock strikes 12,
When the day is over and your down on yourself.

When the world has had it's pound of flesh but still wants more.
The fatigue is suffocating expanding from my core,
It fills me up until it leaks like tar from my pores,
Muddles my mind twisting 1 thing into a 1000 thoughts.

I wake up to blue light
I see it when I close my eyes

frustrated and weighted by comparison
I filter my intensity
condense my personality
I show tongue and teeth but no failures or flaws

I see you in your squares, in all your glow
I want to see the dirt under your fingernails
want you to see me cry, my pores up close, counting your eyelashes
I don't want to see twenty pictures res of the same sunset
cascading down a feed that never fulfills
shades changed and tweaked at exposure
I am exposed ever day
but am I known
I want to see the world by your side
not through your phone
hear the sunsets reflect in your tone

I don't want to lose a bet with myself that I don't stare I don't scroll
lose my evening to a screen
my life to anxiety of how people see me
but I want to be seen

I want to know you beyond squares
and validation screams content for moments till I review my content
view myself in the eyes of another
a narcissistic shudder
I doubt and judge myself
wishing not to compare not to care
yet impulse is too lovable
addiction and algorithmic luring
habits savaged a daily instinct
to share
to show my life through squares

I am a prisoner of thoughts,
Fighting invisible battles every day,
Some days I win and some days I lose,
But I put up a good fight, I give it all in!
My head is in chaos, voices of surrender,
I close my eyes and call out to my saviour.. He doesn't disappoint!