A frail man stood high on a granite precipice
as rain lashed harshly his wrinkled brow.
His dead eyes stared fixed into the abyss
while the deep clouds held an intemperate row.

The powdery embers of his belly’s red fire
had dimmed to flecks of faintest off white.
But now, not far from where this had transpired
shone out a tall lighthouse streaming bright.

And in its arc light’s blazing blue beams
the haggard man saw past his mind’s edge
to see he wasn’t the only in a feverish dream:
Multitudes stood each on a dark stony ledge.

Just then the others saw too through the gloom
that they were surrounded in this bracken dell
by bleak fellow travelers of similar doom:
They shared in their bones that they all were unwell.

This newfound chorus sang their litanies all
in crescendos of crisis and depths they bewailed
but the more that joined in, the music recalled
how by sharing their song they’d over darkness prevail.

There in the bellies of each in the throng
once cold embers began to kindle a spell:
This company of the crushed composed a new song
whose magic this sympathy symphony cast well.

I have been having this feeling
for a week now,
every day I go to my uni classes,
everytime I see my friends.
Everytime I wander alone in the hallways,
Everytime I stay still and stand,
it follows around, it has been days.

Everytime I talk,
it comes out as broken sentences.
Everytime I talk,
It comes out as mumbles.
I should be able to do it-
I should be able to talk,
But I can't get myself to speak.

I talked to my mom right now,
I'm already questioning half the things I said.
Why am I critical, what is it I dread?

I need to meet a friend next week,
I am already planning the things to speak,
Making a list of things to say.
I am already nervous about how it is going to be,
Must be me, it can't be like that with everybody.

Anytime I have to go meet
someone, or even pick them up
from a place they decided,
I'm more scared than excited.

"What if I accidentally stand on the other side, waiting"
"What if I wait too long and everyone stares"
"What If I'm not able to find them, what if I look lost"
"What if I am not confident about my walk"
"What if I am not able to crack through the uncomfortable silence"
"What if I look awkward, what if they get bored"
It is seven days apart, it's already in my head.
What if I just stayed home instead?
"What if I embarrass them?"
"What if they feel ashamed of knowing me"
"What if I am just the awkward friend"
He is a good friend, his actions push my doubts away
But the fear in me, it decides to stay.

I try to act all cool, "I don't care about it"
There is no "cool", There is no "it"
What am I hiding? I don't know still.

Is it something that will ever be fixed?
Will it always be like that?
Where did it come from?
Where will it take me?
Will it push people away?
Make them judge me?

Other people can do it, some even better than others.
They create clear sentences,
out of the fog of their thoughts and frenzies.

I stay in the corner, quiet and hidden.
Should I even go out? Make my words be spoken?
The idea immediately makes me dread,
My shortcomings and how I don't feel like I'm normal,
I feel so different, I feel so separate.
I fear I might be wrong, but what I dread even more
is the feeling of being truly isolated and different
"What if I am really just correct?"

My gaze ascends from the ground,
My vision, clouded by unshed tears,
My heart, a tempest of fervor,
As I behold her.

Her beauty
withers my self-assurance
and strips me of joy.

My thoughts
throb and seethe with envy;

Her smile, so resplendent
and enchanting
It bears an ominous weight.

Her poise
feels unjustly bestowed upon me,

Her flawlessness,
exquisite.

Yet her gaze remains frigid
and abyssal,
Revealing an existence
that is bleak
and devoid of affection.

No soul dares to acknowledge the existence of demons
Until they find themselves ensnared by one.

A specter that raps upon the recesses of their consciousness
Pleading for admission

Vowing to eradicate the tumult within
Vowing tranquility
Joy
Equilibrium
Fortitude

Elements foreign to its essence
Elements it possesses not the power to bestow.
Its singular ambition is annihilation,

While the vessel must endure the burden
Of the shattered bastions
Of their disintegrating reason.

Until the remnants of despair suffocate their spirit
And consign them to an abyss of beguiling,
interminable shadows,
Where the sole sound
Is the reverberation
Of triumphant laughter

I awoke

With little surprise

at the rope

slithering over my wrists

and the chains

laced around my ankles

I look around

Unappalled

by the emptiness

of this space

by the lack of light

that should otherwise be flooding

this vast,

hollow void.

I shout

for help

for mercy

for peace

My pleas

stream from my mouth

and echo around my head

ricocheting off the edges

of what seems

to be the world

expanding

Filling the deepest depths

of the darkest places

I listened

Unfazed

to the faded ringing

of impending silence

and the rise of cruel laughter

and yelps of glee

at my despair

at my sorrow

at my weakness

at my anger

and my hunger

for freedom

Deafened

by my cold

shattered

heartbeat

by my racing thoughts

and the apathetic symphony

that floats through the air

Filled with frustration

bent by rage

beat down

broken

exhausted

I choke back tears

and bite my tongue

I close my eyes,

shutting off the world before me

And I wait

Hoping

to feel a trickle of hope

a few drops of courage

Confused

and disappointed

by the sharp numbness

that filled my soul

I wondered

Will I be like this forever?

or is this the point where silence

will amount

to light

to strength

and to happiness?

A **** of lightning’s searing blast
that ripped across her rib cage’s sky
had torn anew through clouds aghast
at what the storm had loosed from on high.

The brooding might of the blackened squall
kicked up the chill winds of her innerscape
and hurled down hailstones, icy *****
that pummeled the pit of her belly’s nape.

To tame this tempest, this wrecking gale,
felt too by the kaleidoscope of her spirit’s kin,
she in and exhaled breaths of kindness to regale
her kinsfolk around her with fresh air within.

Though the storm reared terrible and bleak
above these heads bowed and burdened below,
their sparks of lightning that blazed and streaked
were together tamed to a shared soft glow.

They held tight the hands of those around
who quailed in fright as thunder drums
to form a circuit bright which surrounds
and transforms dark sparks to delightful suns.

A simple draft of air in the lungs
like I’ve done a billion times.
Exhale to hum a song I’ve sung
that calms with comforting rhymes.

In and out and rise and fall,
to feel my stomach be moved
and breathe through fears and all
‘til wrinkles of worry be smoothed.

I put my pen to paper
as I leave half my worries behind

Vomited the words I once engulfed,
as I realised,
they were always mine.

In a royal garden in autumn’s decay
I met a mottled statue of a mad king.
His crumpled crown of leaf inlay
was perched upon his head tilting.

In this motley vale of fallen leaves
and maples barren of budding boughs,
he bore a scepter of willows weaved
and twisted, by mystic rain well dowsed.

The bleak stony face moved its rigid lips
to command his hedgerow kingdom’s thralls
while his blank eyes in their stare transfixed
on me, whom he his newfound jester called.

Though lacking arms, his majesty raised
a marbled finger in mocking command,
dictating his sane fool to jape, be praised
for being the maddest of mad in his land.

Poor Tom’s a-cold, my mouth let out
as he haughtily replied with a cold leer,
no patience for my well-reasoned doubt
that I should bring this fell despot cheer.

The wan harvest moon began to arise
in a suitably strange and lunatic way
while donning a cunningly dim disguise,
eclipsed by the shadows of the day.

I saw: A shroud, a pall, a veil of the mind
had set upon my innermost light.
Must overthrow this bleak tyrant’s kind
and cast down his terrible mental might.

Here satyrs were sane and nymphs unloved.
This empire of absurd has ruled long enough.
I resolve to break through the darkness above
and call the callous old monarch’s bluff.

As the dream fever finally broke
in the setting of a sudden sunrise,
from the blackness my mind awoke —
at last I’d had the courage to open my eyes.