Guarded we were kept in rooms like cages
It felt like prison cells for us to cave in
Screams burning our throats and lungs with spit stumbling out of our tongues in which burned like hell
The constant reminders that it's suppose to heal and help
But medicated up we were and I don't call that any sort of help
Lab rats we were the test
Pills and pills pour out over and over again
Our rooms guarded at night with little freedom we were locked in
And when we were allowed out we were constantly mistreated
For me I was misdiagnosed not once but several times which made me feel so defeated
After a while my mind went bleak and I lost track of time
Day in and day out everyday felt the same and I couldn't break the endless cycle it was a strain  
And being said everyday felt like a constant struggle to get "better"
But how can you get better when you're inside locked not able to see the nice summery weather
From what I remember my roommate clawed the walls like there were chains and shackles on his hands
He tore open his knuckles trying to break free but there was no escaping so we laid in our beds hopelessly
When it came time of night I got to call home I was high
The pills they had me on were not right
So I slowly broke down in my mind
A place to help one heal but it took so much time
I was scared shitless worried that I was finally out of my mind
Because I knew I was not in the right state of mind
One bad slip could have cost me my life
But when I was sent here it was all a lie
My mom told me I was seeing a new therapist, but here I lay institutionalized
The unfortunate Bipolar chaotic mind of mine
Once I was set free I thought I felt fine but
Weeks later sadness and depression yet again overcame me
Some pills and whiskey tried to take me away to heaven which I'll see some other day maybe?
That's when I sent myself back to actually try and learn something this time around I wanted to find my solid ground
At first it was hard because me and the guards watching us all didn't get along  
When I tried helping others there I was shamed for it as if it was wrong
How wrong can it be helping those who hurt and are helplessly unhappy like me
The guards were always pretending they didn't see a **** thing
People cried and screamed on their knees, snorting pills, and cutting themselves with anything they could reach
So broken so reckless so helpless one should pity
When we sat and discussed things in group therapy we were judged and mistreated
But I myself came to learn and grow
So from broken fragments I was able to rise which did feel better than getting high with the people I once called friends that after all this left my side
I didn't let things get to me I sat I listened I spoke dearly
The bullying of others didn't help me along, but I knew I'd get out sooner if I was nice and acted happy and didn't play and edge them along
There were constant fights which I had to split up
Some of the others didn't seem to care nor give a ****
But luckily for me and the few friends I made we worked together to better ourselves and get out of this place we found to be so ******
With the right state of minds we surly flew out of the cages we all grew
One by one we were set free
Hopeless birds we used to be

if you may now my dear, let me speak
because my words are a dead language that only you could read
my thoughts are prisoners and only you could set them free
and my god it makes no sense and i was never yours to keep
but somehow you manage to look through me so mesmerizingly
my dear, I wish I wasn’t but I’m in too deep
and what truly upsets me is the fact that
we never meet
except every night
when i see you in my dreams

What we once were
Running along the beach
Hand in hand
What we once were sneaking out for a midnight kiss
What we once were secretly dating
What we once were walking hand in hand into the sunset
What we once were till you left

it had been too dark
in the middle of the night

i was choking with fright

surely we can
reward
the streetlight

Dear,

A lot has changed in the last year and a half
since the day God decided to scoop you up from our ember-warm hometown
and swallow you whole about sixty years earlier than any of us would have ever prayed for.
We would have all given up our one gold-embellished chance to write the center-spread
ecstatically collected our own blood and sweat and knuckles met with writers-cramps
if that meant watching wrinkles sprout permanently across your forehead
roots of trees burying themselves into the grooves of your smile lines.
We would have sacrificed all that hard-earned pain
that stain issues one through four
and that old putrid-beige colored couch
that we hated so much but clandestinely found comfort in leaning our heavy heads on still
in the crook of its homely, familiar shoulder
thinking that we were Shakespeare's apprentices
through fluttering eyelids
creating clusters of words that had to have been New York Times worthy—we were sure
although we knew the furthest we could really go is the furthest your laugh could carry across a room
and that's still pretty far—we could all spit shake and swear—
because I can still hear it sometimes all the way down here
where each tendon in my body is capable of feeling solidity
where I am haunted by uhtceare, wondering if you're too cold
where halos don't exist outside of dreams
not even when the sun is a cracked egg and dripping onto tables, the roofs of cars
not even then is anything brighter than the whites of your lively eyes
and I think you'd like to know that we're still thinking about you
that I can't think about white anymore without thinking about the vulgarity of bathtubs
and your hate for poems that include contractions—I'm sorry I've let you down
but I think you'd like to know that I've finally stopped having nightmares
and even the thinnest-skinned of us all, you know which one,
has been able to convince himself that the embrace of the Earth
just isn't the place for you anymore
that you've already outgrown all of us at fifteen-years-old
and we're sorry for not believing sooner that poetry can save the world.

How foolish one must be
to believe you can live
and not die a little
For life is a beautiful lie
Thats why its such a gift
an empty box
filled with a blank slate