The shadows crawl further towards the eclipses
With every grasp it crawls nearer and nearer
To the end

Adults, teens, and children
Running for their life.
They don’t want the shadows to catch them.

But it’s moving so fast.
We just couldn’t see it.
It was so far away at first.
We thought nothing of it.

We lived, and we played, and we laughed
And we made memories.
We took the light for granted.
We ignored the shadow
And pretended they just weren’t there.

But they were.
They always were.
We just never fathomed it
Would be here this soon.

Now it’s almost upon us
And we can’t outrun it.
There was still so much to do
But we let the opportunities
Pass us by.

Now the shadows are upon us.

We can’t fight them.

These two men
Robed in Black and White
Are upon us.

Reminding us that everything
Must come to an end.

The end is upon us all.

But as the shadows grab your shoulders
And the clock runs out.
The only thing you hear

Is their whispers

Take them with a grain of salt.

Because there is no sugar.

Let them guide you to the end.

Let the words consume you.


Memento Mori




Is upon us.



Memento Mori.



Is inevitable.



Memento Mori.



Is hours away.



Memento Mori.



Is here.



Memento Mori.

They always say ‘love is blind.’
But who decided that in the first place.
Why isn’t love mute or schizophrenic
Or autistic or paralyzed
or even….
Deaf?

Yeah…

I like that one.

Let actions speak louder than words
Let scarred and calloused hands
Run over crooked curves and scars
Let soft and tiny hands
Run over tattoos and previously broken bones

Let ears transcribe sounds into
Beautiful poems and melodies
Constructed by hands and emotions
That only select few understand

Let us not dance to music
But to the beat of our hearts in our Living room on an early morning
Sun just peeking through the curtains
Or in the dead of night when the Emptiness is a symphony of sounds
Only the performers can hear

Love had never been so quiet

Then again who said it had to be loud

Bloomed from a Rainy past.

We’re 8 years apart.
Born in entirely different centuries
Born in different seasons and on different days.
Yet we’re exactly alike.
Yet so contradictory

Our hair, our face, our expressions.
Our jobs, our mannerisms, our perspectives.

You don’t see what you’ve done to me Kristoph.

You’ve planted this seed in my head. That I should always listen to you, that what you said was true and gospel.

You nourished that seed in my head while raining down on me like a hailstorm.

You had my strings in your hands. Cherry picking what I thought and what I should know.

You make sure that seed was planted deep inside of me.

But I broke free of your storms.

I became my own flower.

So when I bloomed it wasn’t what you wanted. You tried to prune me. So I built a fence to protect myself.

You gave me the seed but I became my own garden. I flourished while you wilted. Your visions became stationary.

That’s when I realized it.

You aren’t a flower at all.

You’re a ****.

And when you can’t infect one garden you move on.

So you took him.

Now it’s my job to free him of your thorns as well.

And together the two of us will


Bloom.

To show you what it is like to deal with this I'm putting you in my shoes for an entire day. It's 6:15 when your Papa wakes you up. You know it's time to get up, but your mind is telling you to stay in bed where it's comfortable and before you know it it's already 6:30. You're still in bed; the only thing you've managed to do is mess up your duvet, your Papa comes back and tells you to get a move on. After another minute or two of fighting yourself, you finally managed to get out of bed.  As you groggily walk downstairs its quiet; too quiet. As soon as you get dressed and have finished up anxiety decides its time to come around and say hi. Anxiety glares you up and down looking for any minimal problems just to yank it.

Right now there is none. It lets you slip past his grasps for now. depression is still sound asleep in its bed; leaving you alone for the moment. You take your medications and walk out the door; praying that anxiety and depression find something else to do, the medicine acts like toys for the children at play. You do your double check to see if you're missing anything, luckily today you aren't. You throw your bag over your shoulder and walk out the door, on the way to war. As you enter the battlefields of the hall your head is spinning, it seems like anxiety has simmered down, and depression is still at bay.

You see your peers everywhere, and inside your head, you're thinking "Oh please nobody talk to me, I don't have time for a stutter now."

Someone comes up to you and says "Goodmorning McKenna, how are you?"

Your mind screams, "Crap! they caught me off guard, what do I do, What do I do!"
"Morning, How are you, good!"
"Crap! I stuttered. Now I'm gonna remember that all day."
You know what, ***** it. I'm done describing school Y'all should get the point by now. I'm skipping ahead.
Anywho, Anxiety doesn't let you forget your ***** up, and it was on your mind all day.

You get home, and depression has finally creeped out of bed and into your mainframe. You walk in the door, and you crash.
You scream and throw something across the room almost hitting something. Depression laughs at your face, and at how weak you are. You're bawling as it cackles at you. Calling you weak, unwanted, and how much of a mistake you are.

Luckily,

that doesn't happen every day.

Sometimes, you step in those doors; and you collapse out of emotional tiredness. You barely manage to drag your body to the flight of stairs that leads to your bedroom. You lay on your bed; drifting off into sleep; sometimes depression does that. It makes you so exhausted that you black out as soon as your head hits the pillows, making you sleep until 9 in the afternoon.

Other times depression gives you thoughts that could put you in the hospital for weeks if you let it.

Honestly, depression and anxiety aren't always easy to deal with.
Sometimes they're as simple to deal with.
Others they make me want to do things I shouldn't.

Honestly, I could walk the corridors of this school, and no one would notice that I'm dying inside, it's actually better that way. I don't want to drag someone else into my own fight, have them deal with my demons.

It's already hard enough fighting them on my own, the medicine does help, but most of the time it's up to me, and me alone.

So, everyone.

Welcome to my life.

Where each day is another fight.

Of a neverending war.

I always thought birthdays
Brought joy and happiness
But man.
Was I wrong.

Finally I was turning 13
I was finally a teenager
My Daddy was so happy with what he had planned
I don’t plan to forget it!
God, i was finally 13.
maybe i'll have one
decent birthday.
i was wrong
so very wrong
This was going to be the best day of my life
I was getting dressed up to head out
When I heard the car pull up.
It was a Mustang, 1967, black outside.
Red leather interior, 3 speed. Manuel.

my mother and i have always fought.
most nights it got physical.
we’d hit each other and eventually
i was pinned down on the ground.
i would pray that maybe this time.
we can set aside our differences.
to let me have
one
decent
birthday.
I got into the car with my black dress.
I was so happy that my daddy did this for me.
He always spoiled me on my birthday but,
I would have never expected this.
Driving around town showing off the car.
Then we went to our destination.
The Whitney.
it started off ok.
but it got catastrophic
we spent the morning making my cake.
it was watermelon.
i adored crazy flavours.
I had to go to the *****
And when I came back
I found out that my daddy
Had tipped the waiter to put a candle in my sorbet
And the piano man played happy birthday too.
the day went on
like any other day.
until.
that night.
After we finished my daddy and I
Rode around the city in the car
We went home where my cake was
Soon it was on my face (thanks daddy)
I smelled like frosting for 2 days.
i got home and then it started
my mother and i started.
it started with arguing
that led to screaming.
it got physical.
i was pinned down moments later.
seeing pinned down by your mother
and your brother.
You can’t understand.
That messed me up
To the point where I didn’t want to come home
Because I was petrified
I grabbed  a cupcake from the tray
After I was released from captivity
I sprinted to my room
I didn't want to live like that
I was so alone
It was just me in my own personal hell
I locked my door.
I looked down at my cupcake
I managed to croak out the happy birthday song
That may not sound so bad,
But I was saying
¨happy birthday to me¨
I ate my cupcake
I took the fork I grabbed
for some reason
And stabbed my legs out of anger.
I don't know what made me



I wanted to die.
Right There
Right now
I was crying myself to sleep that night
I wished I didn't wake up in the morning
But I did

God ******

This goes out to the kids who sleep in skinny jeans and converse.
To the ones who sing screamo and punk rock as lullabies.
To the kids who work all day and party all night.
To the kids who can't sing but can rap.

This goes out to the kids who work to keep their families off the streets
To the kids with a ****** GPA but with amazing knowledge of the world.
To those that get picked last
To that girl at table 5 with the blonde hair and mini-skirt.

This goes out to my fellow victims.
The ones who have been beaten.
The ones who have been screamed at.
The ones who had their innocence stripped from them by force.
The ones who have been stuck between a brick wall and a hard place.

This goes out to everyone.

This is for my friends who have become family
This is for my family that has become friends
This is for the kids who I used to hate that are now my best friends in the world.
This is for the strangers who became my friends and the friends' that became strangers.

This is for my friends who have survived
The suicide attempts
The loss of innocence by a person who was evil enough to hurt you down where the sun don't shine.
The abuse from a loved one or friend who said they would never hurt you.
Disabilities that should have stopped you but didn't.
People who ****** with you just to get a reaction.
Those who've hurt you.

This goes out for the people who have stood by me since they met me.

You may have thought this would have a message at the end.

But it doesn't.

Not all poems do.

It's what you take away from this.
I'm
That's the message.

And I'm **** happy.