I swear
There’s nothing wrong
With me.
I swear
I am alright

I swear
I don’t need
Therapy.
Swear I haven’t
Lost my sight.

I swear
The voices are
My own,
And my will
To shun is strong.

I swear
That I’d be
Left alone,
If I listened
To their songs.

I swear
My grasp
On reality
Is flawlessly
In tact.

So why
Is it
That in my dreams
My thoughts
Can hold me back?

Why is it
That when
I blink
My dreams begin
To speak?

And why is it
That in my
Brink
The voices
Start to leak?

I swear,
I swear,
It isn’t true.
I haven’t
Lost my head.

I swear,
I swear,
I never knew,
I way,
I can’t be dead.

I swear,
I swear,
I’m in control.
I never
Let them even sigh.

I swear,
I sear,
Trust me, I know,
That why I
Almost never cry.

if anyone cares enough
to ask:
“why poetry?”
i'll breathe deep

and i'll tell them about Keats.
i’ll tell them that his was the first poem
i truly ever read.
really understood.

because despite years of schooling,
i hadn’t connected with anyone else’s work,
and it was solely because he wrote what i couldn’t.
the things i couldn't yet form into cohesive thoughts.

i’ll tell them about my english teacher,
who wrote the book that ignited my love for reading,
who read the first draft of every poem i wrote,
and every poem i’ve written since.

who encouraged me
endlessly,
(even if those drafts were entirely unreadable).
and i’ll tell them that i owe her my craft.

i’ll tell them about all of my failed narratives
that still sit incomplete on my computer,
and i’ll tell them about all of the finished
and polished poetry in comparison.

so if one day someone cares enough to ask me:
“why poetry?”
i’ll tell them that i stumbled upon it,
but have chosen it since.

most importantly,
i’ll tell them that it’s what allowed me to dig
up all that i have buried.
feel all the things that i have kept hidden

underneath.

my therapy session was 15 minutes longer than was expected
my therapist was really getting a lot out of me today
even after all these years
when I’m forced to really dissect myself
it’s so uncomfortable
I never cry in front of people
not on purpose
I didn’t today but I felt my throat get tight and my eyes burn a little while words came out of my mouth this afternoon
I think I twisted the black pen in my hand so hard I gave myself a burn
I was trying not to make it obvious that I was bothered
breaking yourself down is vulnerable and feels unnatural when you’re used to no one asking you about yourself
he says the word acceptance a lot and talks about trying to have a more positive inner voice
I see his body slump in a way that’s like a sigh when I agree… but have to add a but…

You take your time to write yourself a muse
Upon the brittle branches in the August sky
Colours of lilac and violet dance across the sky
The sun settling in the distant end of the earth
You write the stories of the world you lost
The world that could have been upon yours
And I write to you in moments of hurried frenzy
And blissful fragments of fragility that laid its self across my body
The August sky,
You take your time to be as such
And the bottle of wine across the line of glasses that sat on the dinner table
How can one not feel younger in the presence of being loved
Of walls that to be brought down from being guarded for one to long of a moment
A moment that became a lifetime all the August months ago
A cold August it was, to dance around fire embers in the hopes they’d touch your heart and you could be as one in the flames

Truly believed sentiment.
Before my *** hit the velvet couch
And the tears fell
And fell
And fell.
For the entire session.
See you next week!

Genetically predisposed to be overtly critical of everything
while also severely hindered by crippling social anxiety.

I've never been to therapy
nor a psychologist
not even a mystic-
and I know the last one's probably  
a fraud: but the effort is, at least, somewhere near
sincere.

Adjacent, perhaps.
 
I might even be riddled and rotted
through and through,
by the experiences that have shaped
my soul
yet I know-
that I still know nothing
at all.

If there's truth to my reality, and it's not some story I've concocted,
then the reality is that I am simply me, and I have certainly NEVER...

been to therapy.