remembering so vividly
the promises you spoke
the way they remained long after you left
the roses whiting away beside my bed
remembering is painful
but i can never forget
tried to smoke away, drink my regret
but you are at the bottom of the bottle
diagnosis
hypnosis
remembering too potent

Laugh.
Smile.
Don't pay attention to the pain of depression.
Don't brood on the things that force emotional concession.
Try to act average, don't draw attention.
Remember, seeing a loved one suffer can be harder on others.
Like thick smoke in a house, it brings tears and it smothers.
So when you feel empty, put on a smile.
It won't help yourself, but it might spare some pain for your sisters and brothers.
Just because you feel it, you don't have to show it.
The pain can be non-contiguous if no one else knows it.
Just make no important decisions while you're feeling below low.
You can't take that route, that's not how I'll go.
Just fight the good fight, and try not to cry.
That just makes things worse, I don't know why.
You have Hope, just keep the Word in your heart, and your eyes to the sky.
Things will be painful but this too shall pass.
Life is good, even though I feel low.
Keep this in your head:
Feeling low and alive, is better then getting high and then dead.
Yes, it seems obvious, but it had to be said.
If you keep these notes stored up in your head,
Then you'll seem less abnormal, more average instead.

Remember when you heard my name for the first time?

You thought it was a play on words;

I said it was just a play,

and you laughed like you knew the difference.

Remember the glittering forever you saw in my eyes?

I told you it was a trick of the light.

You said it was just a trick, but
we could make it real by wanting it—so I started wanting it.

You asked about my favorite lie, and I said, “I don’t know.”

You laughed, either because you got it,

or because you didn’t—and that was just as funny.


You didn't lift the weight of my words,

how they sank like stones in my stomach, obscuring my glitter,

waiting to see if you'd notice when they lost their shimmer.

Remember why we didn’t drive to the coast?

You thought I was scared of the ocean,

but I knew it had swallowed too many endings already.

The waves couldn’t wash away your ambiguity;

they would only drown my swell no salt could soften.

Remember that postcard I never sent?

You shouldn’t, but I feel like you would.

I wrote it one night in a knot of longing and spite:

“Wish you were here, but it might be better that you’re not.”

How many Dear John's sit sealed, unsent,

lost in transit between what was promised and what was kept?

Between what was enchanted, and what’s now dead?

Remember the night I asked what you'd save in a fire?

You said, “Everything.”

Like you could shove hearts and histories into pockets

without splitting seams. You can’t escape unscathed,

lock the door, and not stink of the charred bits you abandoned.

Meaning things and speaking things are not the same,

and if I wasn’t choking on smoke, I might try to tell you:

some things are meant to burn—

Some things are both the light and the trick
and the play goes on regardless.

Dreary eyed and worn tired,
On last legs, to stand defiant
Against the falling away of time,
Heavy handed and unceasing.

I remember.

Through the haze of blue white mist,
A familiar feeling,
A perceiving glance,
Breaks forth a spring of fresh thought
That flows down the back of my mind
To whet the stone,
And let memory sharpen.

I remember.

Restored from grey depths
Of dismal slumber;
To stand tall once more,
And seize the joy and pain
That first wove it into me.

I remember.

To hold that moment at times edge,
And share it once more
with the heart's palette.
To give colour to thought,
And meaning to the mind.

I remember.

And so the memory carries on
Till the stone is dry,
And the blade is weak and worn.
The withered thought, falls to rest
Under the pauper's headstone.

...Remember?

What about tomorrow?
Tomorrow just ended today,
And will perish again tomorrow ,
Like the morning glory,
That drains alcohol to become sober,
And when,
everything that was
Sublimes in afternoon
The morning glory vapes itself into the evening,
Thinking of high planes, as falling stars
Wishing, but is turned into wisps,
As night falls,
The morning glory, withdrawn of all substance
Gets drunk with the multitude of mishaps,
And gradually dozes off in shadows
As all the wishes turn to wisps and drift away,
Another tomorrow ends all the same,
And tomorrow again,
The morning glory
will turn on the lights of yesterday to see,
As it imbibes, everything that was,
once again .

Like a quote that I cannot remember
Like a song stuck right in my head
A fire once, now it’s an ember
Ash pages of words that were said.

Like a waft that drifts out of the kitchen
Just a hint of the past, so sweet.
I have scars that I know were once stitches
But I only recall summer heat.

Like water, like sand, to hold in your hand
To cradle when it just slips away.
It was art, it was home, not written but shown,
Now crumbled, broken pieces of clay.

I miss it!
What was it?
I miss what I lost!
It was warm, it was cold, it was piercing and soft.
It was something, just something
I feel calling me back.

I’d go to it now if I hadn’t lost track.