Anhedonia takes me under her wings,
With the softness of a feather she strikes against my forehead and takes out all the joy.
She smiles at me with crooked teeth and tells me it's alright to die.
Anhedonia forces her hands into my chest and rips my heart out so I can't feel the rhythm of my passion anymore
Then she puts me on her lap and starts to rock me back and forth, like I'm a little child. She tells me it's okay to feel the emptiness. She leans in and kisses me on the lips, ******* out the last bit of energy in my vessels and soul. She picks me up and gently lays my body down. She pushes her thin fingers on my eyelids to shut them as if she wants me to sleep. Yet she whispers nightmares in my head. Anhedonia took control of me, and I can't find a way out.

The flowers of Anhedonia grows upon me,
Its roots engulf my whole being.
Serendipity long lost, Only the remains of this wintercearig feeling inside this small yet feeble vessel.
I don't know what to do or what to say; maybe to fill up that satisfaction I crave.
Mind slowly turning insane,
I keep things to myself, and that's all that I can say.
All the florets blossom in the longing shade;
of darkness that might never fade,

Anhedonia.

symptoms of anhedonia.
                   a triumvirate, perceived
                   Inanition& Inertia& Inaptitude:
                                      they are ugly triplets who hide under leather
                                      and self-loathing &stink of last night’s pinot
                                      noir
                     ­                        from **** knows where.
                   their fingers, cigarette-stained and calloused,
                   reach into my prozac pillboxes
                   &crunch my anxiety (meds)
                   into fluoxetine powder and ivory between
                   their yellowing teeth.

I Do Not Cry When The
Sandman Knocks                                      
For He Sits At                                      midnight:the witching hour,whenthe
My Porch Bearing Sweet                                      siblings curl up besides me to
Dreams &Sister Death, Whose Touch                   ,                   ravage;
I’ve Long Wished For                                                         they will not
                                                                ­                       leave me
                                                              ­             untilthe
                                                         cloyingly sweet
                                         perfume of Death
       is scrubbed clean fromthe

                                                        ­                    pulse
                                                                ­            point
                                                                ­            of
                                                                ­            my
                                                                ­            wrists


There is nothing There is nothing There is nothing There is nothing There is nothing for you here.

Nothing will bring me back. In three years time I’ll still be dead. My bed sheet is my shroud and Death holds my wrists in a vice grip. He still leads me below.

                                      here is the untruth:
                                                        ­ i am here,
                                                         Penelope at her loom,
                                                         waiting for a lost lover whom I know
                                                         will take ten years to come back to
                                                         my awaiting arms.

                                      here is the untruth:
                                                        ­ in three years time,
                                                         I’ll still be dead.

                                      here is the truth:
                                                         nothing exists six feet under except:
                                                         hell
                                                         chalk dust
                                                         powdered calcium.

the roads are wet
i don’t know when it rained
maybe i’m not
a writer anymore
maybe i stopped
paying attention
maybe i left
behind all wonder
in my adolescence
maybe i forgot
how to find meaning
in ordinary things
flowery air
and lemonade
gingham dresses
and handwritten
letters covered in
glitter and cursive
maybe i need
to read more books
and take more walks
and spin more
beach house records
then, maybe then i’ll find
stars in blue irises
and messy hair again

I used to gaze at the clouds all day long
I used to love to dance in the rain
I used to love the sunshine on my skin
now I never go outside
I just watch as passion seeps from my life

I used to walk on eggshells for you
I never let them crack or make a sound
I used to stand on a pedestal with you
despite my fear of heights
but what did you ever sacrifice for me?

I'm not the same as I once was
the smiles that I wore
have all gone out of season and expired
but out of all the things that I have loved and lost
you are the one goodbye I don't regret

Keep your pedestal
I'm building myself a shrine
A person like me
Was meant to be worshipped

so don't change then
you seem to be perfectly comfortable
in your insanity.
wrestling, withdrawing,
anhedonia coming alive in your party
master wrangler of sorrow,
been there, done that.
and like watching
the christians and the lions,
i am rooting for you
but know you will shed blood.
and when you are devoured enough
you come to life,
crazy sonafabitch.
stay where you are then,
forget em happy pills.
i will go certifiable with you
as long as you do not forget
the lunacy of our love.

The Fall leaves are rustling,
forming some sort of poetic image
I guess.

It is difficult to define
With no black dog to lead
this pressure dropped familiar.
No symbol/ fetish/ effigy
to incorporate a misery that drains
the joy from all that I hold dear.
.
How does one trace the contours
of an abstract exhalation?

Somewhere near
a pendulum is stilled.

That which I loved one minute past,
that filled this hole of borrowed time
is laid apart her spent electric
body washed in turpentine
Her outline drawn.

Estranged.

                        .........

I follow where the way grows small
Where disembodied voices pull in
strange degrees of separation
I flow toward their thin remains
shape, ill-defined, subliminal
An acquiescent aftermath of
calculus unknown.

I am pressed italic, hither sent
to comb the sear of cloying strand
for relics of the days worn down
by nothing in particular.
There is no anthem or lament
no ornamental sentiment to wrest
the quickened lacks that sand
the shores of Anhedonia.

Bipolar
There’s this label 

Which moves everywhere
with her 
Now and then 

Distracting people

And 
Making her life miserable

Because they think

It’s something different 

She’s something different 

There has been a breakdown
She’s mentally sick 

But do you listen to her soul 

Asking people

If they’re not different 

From one another 

Or are they not

Allowed to express themselves  

Everybody is different 

And they prove their existence

In their own ways

She has to behave

As if she has something 

On her conscience 

Something lurks every second 

In the corner of her mind 

With a sublime confidence 

Of acceptance 
But
Anhedonia comes alive with the words coming

Out one by one or rather 

All at once 

Incomprehensibly prefect 

But this label 

Those pills

That prescription 

Only swallows her

From within.

He kisses upon my lips,  
expecting an apocalypse.

Yet my heart beats dry when he looks into my eyes.
The closer he pulls me, the farther I push his touch away.
I try to speak his name,
but I moan yours in hopes of ecstasy.

The memory of you has branded itself upon my mind.
I long for the sweet nectars of your flower,
but instead I am stabbed by his sword.

There’s no more;
Pleasure
Joy
Reason
Liberty -

Sing me summertime blues,
Color me different hues -
Take my joy away -
Set the rain clouds at bay

Drain my time from me -
Allow rain to fall in melancholy,
Sink it all in drugs
Let my heartstrings flutter about -
Lost and forgotten
Fluttering free and misguided
Alone in the dark
Like little lightning bugs.

I haven't been eating much.
My shaking hands beg for nourishment,
And only then I feed it.

I've been sleeping a lot,
but it's disturbed, restless.

I've been drinking more and more.
The red wine at night soothes my sadness.
It even makes Him feel farther away.
Just to wake up groggy, unclear, sad.
Alone.

Here I am, punishing myself.
Unable to wrestle out of this cycle.
The wicked voice inside my head is back,
and She's louder than ever.
She likes it when I'm catatonic and vulnerable.

Everything is starless.


What hand claps count the silent syllables.


How easily the sentiment of humanity leaves itself
in ghast emissions. This dust, now, remarking at itself.


But now, how words misspell out of me in grey, phosphorescent gestures.


All lights bend from me.
If they had heads they would turn away, ashamed.


Everyone is quiet in the darkness.


This infinite moment has stolen the lungs from me.

I used to be that girl who believed in staying close to the things and to the people who make you feel human — make you alive. But these days the book clutters look just like a patch of misplaced stars while the dusk crawled in my head, and the poems look better when they're crumpled or written in red inks and on my wrist, and all the songs just come and go. Today, I let all four of my cacti die. Today, my eyes took the form of the nimbus clouds, and my body reeked of petrichor; maybe it has returned to dust. Today, I felt too empty to even mind the emptiness. And today, I would've written a eulogy to that girl who used to believe that we should all stay close to the things and to the people that make you feel human and alive.

The thing is, sometimes we're not alive anymore.

you wanna be happy dontcha?
Not 'till I reach the state of Anhedonia
never heard a such place.
Well I guess that you've been blessed
Good cheer and health, good taste I guess
Seems Old Man your way's the best
But I wasn't taught the same
and i know you're not to blame
What the hell is it that it makes grown men drool
Well it's not the Bright Side but The Dark Side of The Spoon.
Blissfull Bafoons The Beguiled, miscreant, Fiendish Fools.
Dim Lit hid in Vastness of the last Lunar New Moon
Beg that you see and awaken. You and every one else awaken too.
how good does it feel to fly above ridicule?*
Gimmie some money and ill show you old fool

I can't get out of bed,
I have no motivation in my head.
Tell me, how did you survive your trip out bed?

I'm slowly fading into nothing
The things I used to love are unlovable now
The people I used to care for are the same people I ignore.

Tell me, how did you survive your trip outside your bed?

The feelings I used to feel have gone
The hope I used to see has slipped away
The things that used to irk me at night have vanished
The smile I used to give is nowhere to be found.

I have lost my will to live. Tell me, where'd you find yours?

Because in the end of the day, after everything we've been through, we go through the phase of Anhedonia, the state of not caring anymore.

I stopped writing for a while

before that I stopped drawing
before that I stopped making videos
before that I stopped crocheting
before that I stopped reading
before that I stopped something else

I'm left to wonder
if I keep stopping
when will I run out of things to stop

I stopped leaving my bed if I can help it
and I stopped caring too much about it

I stopped writing for a while
but I'm trying to start again
it's been a while since I've had a start
maybe just starting is the hardest part

The world is filled with hedonists
Laughing and making merry.
The world is learned by nihilists
With the weight of the world to carry.

You see a point to the daily routine
Your infinite repeated steps reek of death.
You feel your goals are closer than they last seemed
Only ten billion eighty-three thousand steps left.

I view the larger picture,
Work on a bigger scale
This planet means nothing,
Our lives are inane, this galaxy as well.

Every day my eyes open they close once more
Every breath I take is a penance, a punishment
Every day I wake up is an endless chore
Every memory I make means as little as the last meant.

But the world is filled with hedonists
They enjoy the idiocy of life.
The world is filled with idealists
Who feel the "prize" is in sight.

i like words.
but i don't like
giving those words to people
because when i do they lose their magic
and become mere tools
manipulated
for our communication.
but no one really listens
anymore
it's not about understanding
these days
people just listen and take what they want to hear.
throw a little bit of kindle in the fire
to keep the endless stream of small talk flowing.
no depth.
no real meaning.
recycled faces
trending personalities.
every interaction is just a chemical reaction
but once long ago we were our own. like grasshoppers we embraced our solidarity.
now addicted to the empty feeling of each other
rubbing together
we swarm like locust.

In nature, as in civilised homes, there is evidence of conformity
      That only significant study would make apparent,
      but his studies were suspicious and neighbours would talk

The nose is bleeding and his pretty song is skipping
on the jukebox by the bathroom door
Anhedonia now is constant, the pathos inherent
As their mother went missing years ago
While they read Proust by the window,
and the day was drawing closed
Their father was sick with Absinthe shakes
whilst little duck starved in the pond behind the house

On disagreeable days,
profound introspection
becomes not more than
subversive ******-babble
and the words he speaks
are dust on the tongue
a bother and little more

Purported to be perpetually depressed, his cool demeanor left an impression
on his sister, as she would gaze upwards at his face, displaying world-weariness
So Weltschmerz they called him and his cool was palpable
but only her smile could bring colour to his fa-

fall hoppers kick to grass
as I walk down
sun-bleach lane

the anhedonia I felt yesterday
is pelted by the wind
away
away
to the breeze beyond
trash-bin creek

I walk past
a meddled roadside lover
kissing her own bloodied hand

must have been
bitten by the white-thing
panting at her feet

the image comes
and passes
with the balanced
autumn sunshine

I touch the twist of barbed wire
that guards a
re-habitated pond

a drop of blood
wells and surfaces
a moon-blazed penny

the dulled copper sting
of flesh and money
merges in the glory
of shortened days

all is accorded to the fleeting
nature of my heartbeat

that which comes and passes

oh
good intentions,
good intentions

on being too much and not enough:
love me like you need me;
like my arms are home
not embers

for I’ve
growing pains, but in my
chest
and a map of you on the back of my knees.

the danger of vulnerability
my love, our love,
a parody of true love,
a marionette propped up by pleasantries and
obscura.

the tender fingers of moonlight caressing the hills, the skyline
in the nighttime as we traverse;
silky tendrils of hope and the mysterious promise of midnight,
stars blooming across space -
this is
our anhedonia

and with you I taste god;
impossible to get to know the
crevices of you and not
pour myself into them,
consume them.

play my heart strings like an
instrument,
guttural.
make me scream.

I was a wonder girl but not a
forever girl
much too much to
press under your thumb.

find someone more wholesome and
crackle-of-our-fireplace.
oh good intentions
good intentions
say goodbye.

I,
No longer.
Feel the presence
Of
God

They say machines are built not born. By definition a machine is an apparatus using or applying mechanical power and having several parts, each with a definite function and together performing a particular task. So what separates a machine from a human? Most would say a heart, a brain, a soul. The ability to have compassion and morals. As a human what happens when all those aforementioned are lost? Think about the movie The Wizard of Oz. We have a woman, Dorothy who, in her journey, helps a lion find courage, a tin man find a heart, and a scarecrow find a brain. At the end of the movie all of which are found. Now let's play the movie in reverse. Let's say they all started off with the things they lacked and throughout the journey they lost those things that made them human. In what case would a human lose those things that make them human to begin with? Maybe disaster or love lost? Events that take place in our lives that eventually break us down to primitive beings in which we go into an autopilot state where survival is the only subconscious focus. We're hand fed drugs to help us cope, block out the bad,  make up for what society thinks we lack. "Chemical imbalance". Highs that make us forget for brief periods that our lives **** and make everything more bearable. If I'm trying to put a barricade between myself and misfortune then I'm also blocking the good that is also trying to enter. I don't get butterflies around the girl I adore anymore because I'm taking medicine to help with anxiety and depression, when before that, she was one of the things that made me forget and helped me cope. She was my high. Now I have shut myself off. Anhedonia sets in. I can't feel anything. Those things that once made me human have now been lost. Thus, a machine is born.

I was falling.
I knew that somehow my feet had tumbled over some sort of cliff but could not recognize the scenery nor how or when I had reached this peculiar predicament.
Along with the always present weightlessness of falling through the air, there bubbled within me another feeling; one I did not expect.
Apathy.
The blissful faux virtue of anhedonia that coursed through my veins like a venom; pumping with my slow heartbeat....
I fell in slow motion, giving time to muse on such things while the skies around me changed drastically from clear to cloudy, from wistful clouds to a menacing overhead growling.
I closed my eyes and smiled.
In the back of my eyes though appeared a hooded figured shrouded in black with only a slight sneer appearing through the visage. This figured caused the blissful venom to tighten and turn sharply into a fear that made me unable to breathe.
I screamed as I started falling faster and mouthed words that couldn't be understood.
Tears poured and fell upward like rain from a tormented ghost.
Just before the ground embraced me and swallowed everything I ever was or ever would be, time stopped and there was silence.
I opened my eyes and to my surprise, the blurry sight of two figures appeared. One emmitted a faint glow with a softness about him; a calming aura...
while the other gave me the feeling of power and rage; a darkness about him like a creature bearing teeth against the night.
In unison they whispered five words.
The blurriness faded and I gasped. They were both distorted caricatures of me.
In the blink of an eyes, I was yanked upward with a speed so fierce that perhaps my body would not be able to handle it. Through the stormy and the calming skies...

I woke up out of breath to the sound of an alarm clock screaming beside my bed.
I blinked a few times and sighed, recovering my breath...

"Don't give up on me...", I whispered.

Brew tragedy tea
and drink without
tasting it.
Keep checking the meaning of
'forever',
in case it's been redefined
in less absolute terms.
Shiver through the heatwave and watch
the colour bleed out of the summer.
Dig a hole that won't be deep enough.
Shower off the crazy sweat and grave dirt
and pretend like maybe
you'll do the dishes.
Rupture your inner workings
as you scream at the universe
for ******* up so badly.
Lapse into the cold, sterile embrace
of catatonia, grateful
to feel nothing for a while.
Cry so long and so hard you forget
why you're crying,
then remember and cry
longer and harder.
Try brokering a deal with fate's
Appeals Department: offer
your organs, your eyesight,
however many years off your life,
to get him back.
Search for meaning and find none.
Rage against the perversity of it all.
Howl that death shouldn't feel derivative.
Remind yourself that this
isn't just a sick joke.
Hate Elisabeth Kübler-Ross for being right
and yourself for being so generically human.
Realise how little
knowing helps.
Reacquaint yourself with anhedonia.
Try not to hate the blue sky
or the birds who have returned
to sing in his back garden.

On my Father's death last night.*

Death of a father. Night of nothing. Morning of less.
Anhedonia. A family like the Walton's on crack.
Drama looms. Not a human feeling in the bunch.
Death a hyena at camp fire's edge. Light goes out.
Step up to the grave. Now you are first in line.
Mortality worm gnaws. No exemptions. Gnaw back.
We are but a moment's sunlight. Some not even.
Only lesson. World goes on. Without us. An instant.
Good morning blues. Blues how do you do.

  ~mce