You can’t see a thing.
No matter how wide you open your eyes,
Or squint in concentration,
You can’t see anything.

You can move,
Yes, you stagger around blindly,
And don’t come into contact with anything.
There is nothing here…
Just darkness.
And you.

That is what it feels like
In your mind,
When you are so depressed
That waking up is like a punch in the stomach.
Because you know you have to get through another day.

Of torture.
Of aching hopelessness.
In a life that you don’t know why you are living.

Your very EXISTENCE
Has become the main source of pain.
And with a razor in one hand,
And blood running down the other,
You stare at the wound thinking
"I feel nothing."

Blood just becomes a colour,
Wounds just become a place for a bandage.
There is no pain in it.
Because no amount of physical pain can bring you out of the pain in your own head.

You are totally alone.
You scan the bright eyes and alive faces of the people around you.
Look at them,
All on cloud nine,
And they don’t even know it.

They think nothing of smiling,
Of laughing,
They don’t notice the happiness that flows throughout them.

They look at everything they see
Like they WANT to see it.
Like they welcome the light into their eyes.

Every step they take is powerful,
It resonates with the energy that they have,
The will to live in their every stride…
While you cannot lift your foot off the ground.

So tonight,
Like all other nights,
You are on a planet on your own.
A world filled with torment
And trapped in the terrors of your own head.

You might get the skipping rope out of the garden shed,
You might tip pills onto the edge of the sink
And think
"I WISH I WAS DEAD."

You might regret being born,
Or living at all,
Or think "I should have done this a long time ago."

Hang on one second. Please.
What is one second more?
Especially when this second
Could change everything.

That abyss you are stuck in…
You aren’t alone in there.
You can’t see them, but there are others here.

All you have to do is shout out.
Scream for help,
Shout it from the rooftops,
Tell them all "I don’t want to live anymore."

And in a crowd,
One, even just one,
Will push their way to the front,
And hold out their hand,
And say "me too."

A tiny flame of light will appear in the thick darkness
And give you air.
Make you feel like you aren’t drowning…

Wouldn’t that be a nice feeling?

Of COURSE you aren’t alone!
Of COURSE you aren’t the only person in the world that wants out.

But suicide doesn’t end pain.
All it does is pass it on to someone else.

So put the rope back in the shed,
And lock the door.

Tip the pills back in the ***,
And shut the cabinet behind you.

Crawl, if you have to,
Across your floor.
Shed all the tears you never shed.

Scream in hysterics,
All the frustration you swallowed down,
Let it out.

The LOUDER you are,
The less alone you become.

Dial that number.
Maybe it’s 116 123.
There will be a voice at the end of the phone.

It is there to give you a lantern in the darkness.
And soon enough…
The whole world will be lit up…
And you will see light again…

After all that, I still had my eyeliner on
My mascara-
After all that screaming
After you left
I feel like I'm in the waiting room at a hospital
My heart is in surgery
And it's not going to make it
I keep waiting for you to come back through the door but you're long gone
You're running away to Maryland, I'm waiting to turn 19
I messed up the nail polish on my toes in the same living room where it all shattered
I fell asleep hanging upside down off my bed with the lights on
And my eyeliner in place
And my mascara

The green dies.
Never totally, but effectively.
The shadows reach across the land,
increasing their span.
They spill and run off edges like paint that never dries.
Yet you can step in it and never leave a print.
...Or never have one in the first place,
never leave your mark, just crush the foliage:
**** whatever life is left.

The air steams your breath:
A lesson in mortality.
Look! See what makes you tick?
Let me take it, freeze it, condense it,
put it on display, and leave none for you:
the one who made it...
just to make a snowball
(which is really just a fight waiting to happen.)
(Who stockpiles ammo with no intention of using it?)
(Who bites their tongue with nothing to say?)
Too many snowballs grow to be an igloo:
fallacies you can live in for a while.
It's better to just be rid of them.
Let them fly, let them fly...
Relinquish your breath back to its element:
say what must be said, even if it kills you.

It's all the same in the end:
the land will thaw,
the shadows recede,
the snow will melt,
the air will fill with argument.

Why make so much noise
if you can just throw the snowballs
as you make them?

I'll tell you my frozen friend: shelter.

At least then, we can hide for a while.
Mold it to our will.
Sure, we could let it accumulate naturally.
Unformed and unmolded, it's just a burden:
unfocused feelings, drifts of words,
letters, and sounds.
It's better put to use as shelter than mud.
At least igloos are useful for a time,
(Mud still has to be dealt with in the spring,
Why start early?)
and snowballs are at least manageable:
little bites of envy, jealousy, suspicion.

Woe betide the sun who made THIS winter!
Leave US in the cold, why don't you?
Shower US in discomfort!
Leave US to deal with blessing after blessing
in the worst way possible!

It's in our nature to throw the snow,
to waste our respite, to fight with words.
If we don't, in our igloos,
we're washed away every spring
when the thaw takes our shelter,
our words,
our breath,
our loves,

our lives.

Her hollow out screams
Of a poor broken heart
The way it sank
To hear those sounds
Her vicious cries
That drowned out the night
How sleepless I was
When you broke down like that
All I could hear
Was a fight between self
A fight between hatred and regret
You were my mother
The strongest woman I know
Then you broke
And it tore me apart
What broke you so?
Why do you scream out to the heavens
What are you searching for
Forgiveness
Strength
How did you break so badly
That you forgot how to breath
Oh dear mom
What did you do?

What did you do?

Did you break you?

Oh mom, what have you done?

You've left scars on our poor young hearts,
You tore this family apart
How dare you, mother
Was that man so worth the trouble
That you gave into his pleasure
In the sacrifice of your husband
You gave up much
For such a simple thing
You gave up love
For just an affair
With a man that only cared
For your body

You went away from us, Mom
How dare you
You kept us in vain
Trying to beat out the friend we called father
For what?
Simply because you're our mother?
You didn't even take care of us
All you ever did was give into temptation
The beer became your new love and the yelling your new hobby
Words such as worthless and useless
Now haunt our memories
Our happiest times
Become the ones with shouting

You broke your own heart
And you fought us
Because it was easier to do
Then face yourself

How dare you
How dare you
How dare you

I was just a child

And you ruined me
You ruined me, mother

I AM SHOUTING FOR THE WORLD TO HEAR
IN SILENCE

People who shout deserve no sympathy,
shouting is stupid, callous, rude, and cheap.
Nothing good can come out of it, but bad,
it made those shouted ones scared, frightened, stressed.
Honestly, shouting's the worst thing, I guess.

Those husbands yelling on their caring wives,
they don't deserve to be loved, should be banned
from getting married, making women cry.
Or fathers shouting on their kids. Oh no,
they don't deserve to see them, oh they don't!

Not only them, but anyone with voice
raised to the level of barbaric noise,
should have their shouty mouths zipped, forcefully,
if they don't want to calm down, quiet be.
It is a matter of human dignity.

People who shout should go to prison, yes,
punished for making other's lives a mess.
Look at dictators, they shout to terrorize
their own people, they are never nice,
most of them are just heartless psychopaths.

I don't hate anyone, for it's not fair,
but people clamouring - I can't stand them.
Shouting to do is a very shallow thing,
sign of pure lack of common decency,
barbaric, rude, inhuman, callous, cheap.

If you do shout, please keep away from me,
and I will keep away from you, I will,
for life's too short to live under the thumb
of shouting idiots, monsters, psychopaths,
barbaric, rude, inhuman, callous brats.

Dear dad,

in case you didn't know,
the moment you raise your voice,
I space off -
you can talk to me without an angry tone,you know.

Thanks.