My legs carry me mindlessly through the white-washed walls of the intensive care unit. I am stuck in a labyrinth in which there is no end, there is merely alcoves on either side which take you even further into the maze. Nurses with faces as pale as their uniforms pass me like zombies, their minds calculating numbers on charts which directly correlate to a list of symptoms that equate to something less than diagnosable. I am nothing more than a distant shadow in their busied brains.
Unknowingly, I begin counting the rooms after I pass through the double doors, remembering that yours is the ninth on the right. My heart rate steadily increases, no longer in tune with the clicking monitors that surround me like locusts, calling out to those just as alive and lonely.
I rest my hand on the doorframe of room number ninety-four as I attempt to collect myself. Just as I inhale a deep breath, my vision blurs and every emotion I have (until now) successfully shoved into the deep recesses of my chest now rises up my stomach and into my mouth. I press my lips together, holding back the bile that has taken up unwanted residence on my tongue. Warm tears squeeze their way out from behind my eyes as I swallow it back down, suppressing it once more. I attempt another deep breath, and another, until I realize I am unable to procrastinate any longer.
I hear the rustling of stiff sheets and the slight give of a hard mattress. You're awake.
I clear my throat softly, wanting you to be aware of my presence, although I am certain that the heartbeat that reverberates my eardrums must have given me away miles ago.
A white curtain hangs from the tiled ceiling, held up by metal clamps looped around a pole for easy accessibility and I can't help but wonder if that pole would be strong enough to hold me. But just as I begin planning what sheet and what knot I would use around the pole, I step into view of you.
My hand is pulled to my lips like a magnetic force that is out of my control as I take in the sight of you. Your left eye, which once shone a more brilliant blue than the clear waters of the Caribbean, is now bloodshot and swollen. The left side of your head is bandaged and half of your pale blonde hair is shaved down to your bruised scalp. Your lips, which were once so thin and precious, are now bloodied and blown-up like red balloons. Your bones jut out from beneath your skin, as though your collarbone is rejecting you and begging to be freed. Down your arms I notice the scabs and scars and marks from unsuccessful attempts to hook you to an IV. But there is more than just one bag hanging beside you, and I realize that the other is Morphine.
I take a step closer to you, waiting for your eyes to flutter open like they did so many mornings when I'd wake you with your favorite breakfast (two plain pancakes and a cigarette). Your head tilts slightly to the right but your eyes remain closed. I take another small step, and another, until my waist is just inches from the seemingly disjointed hand hanging limply from the edge of the bed. I reach out and press my shaking fingertips to the hard palm that faces me, hoping for your hand to turn and clasp around mine, silently accepting my every apology.
But your hand remains stiff against my touch.
I memorize the new lines on your hand, the crescent-shaped bruises on your palm and the shallow scratches on the back of your hand where I pressed my lips more times than I could ever possibly count. I trace my way up your arm, my fingertips traveling over the hills of your veins, a familiar territory, and the streams of tubes filled with fluid, an uncharted area. Just as my hand begins the climb up your forearm and into the crease of your elbow, I feel your arm move. But rather than moving towards me, an invitation to venture even closer, it is pulled away from me, a protest.
I take a step back and inhale a deep breath, feeling the rush behind my eyes again, as I notice your right eye is now looking right at me, into me. I search the depths of your gaze in the hope that I will resurface with a strand of hope or affection that I can hold on to for the rest of the day, but I come up empty-handed. All that I can find in your eyes is a direct reflection of the pain that both your heart and body are enduring.  
"I'm so, so, so-"
But before I can even begin to utter my sincerest of apologies, your hand is held inches above the mattress, silencing me. I dive into your eyes again, deeper and deeper, realizing that if I can't find any form of redemption, then I'd rather just drown in them. But you **** me back to reality with only two words.
"Please leave."
I feel the tidal wave crash into my chest as I take another step back.
My worst fear has been realized - you don't want me here.
Suddenly every argument, every fight, every "I'm sorry," every "you don't mean that," every "I love you," every "don't say that," was another wave throwing my helpless body against the cliffs and coral reefs. I am lifeless, my body thrashed beyond recognition, my heart ripped to shreds.
Tears gather behind my eyes and burst through, falling upon my cheeks as though the depths that I have drowned in have finally consumed me.
I reach out once more, my shaking hand yearning for the touch of your skin.
But you pull your head from me, wanting nothing to do with me.
An earthquake shakes my chest and threatens to pull me in half as I backpedal out of the room, temporarily getting wrapped up in the white curtain that I had admired just minutes before.
The rush returns to my head and I can no longer see anything but frothy waves that continue to pull me under, and I can no longer hear anything but the sound of water filling my ears.
My shoulder connects with a sturdy boulder and I fall to the ground, collapsing into nothing more than a puddle, the aftermath of the hurricane that has wrecked my body, and you are no longer able or willing to save me.

I walk out of the counseling clinic with hot tears streaming down my cheeks and put my hood up to try and cover my distress. I make it to my car without making eye contact, although I know everyone has been staring.

I get in, shut the door and finally let myself heavy sob. Ugly cry. A release of some of what I had been carrying.

Leading up to this moment, a lot of different things.

But the last straw that week was showing up to my therapist’s office needing support. She said hello and then proceeded to tell me after talking with her supervisor they had decided that since I was not diagnosable or a “billable” person they could not provide me services.

I stop and process what she’s just said, wondering if I heard her wrong, and knowing the mental health field well enough that I know she’s being serious. I am dysregulated as it is and my tears start flowing. The new therapist feels awkward and she keeps offering me water. I am embarrassed and pull it together long enough to be a “good beginning therapist myself” and tell her I understand the protocol. I messily pass on feedback about the lack of a trauma informed approach, the danger in having clients share their story and then declining them services, and to perhaps re-consider their agreement to provide counseling students services… as many of us are “high functioning”. Last I add, it would be nice to have received a phone call versus driving downtown to be told this. She nods. Expresses, she understands.

How is it that ironically, I feel bad for the therapist?

I ask if there is a backdoor so at least I can avoid meeting the eyes of those waiting in the waiting room with my flushed face and tears running down my face. I walk hurriedly towards the Exit.

So, I leave, and here we are again back in my car. I run through who I can call…. Realizing that I am the helper in most of my relationships. My sister and her fiancé just broke up, next on the list my friend who is likely getting out of knee surgery as my brain processes this, my mom… who has been supporting my sister all day, my brother … ( we aren’t talking), my roommate .. she’s been caretaking her sister for the last two months, my friend back in the Midwest.. I text her , big exam to study for, she would totally talk if I needed, I’m too proud. My friend I had plans with for the day.. cancelled also feeling anxious and needing time to herself.

So, I cry  a bit longer, stuff it back down enough to drive safely, get home. Take a hot shower, cry some more, journal and cope the best way I know how. Truly, I am fine. Truly, not the end of the world..

But does it need to be this complicated for those of us in helping roles? For anyone who may have challenging days and need support?

Who is to blame? Insurance companies, the government?

Maybe this is the problem with the way we view mental health in America and maybe this is why we are the sickest society in all of history.

but wait, not quite sick enough, right?

Can’t find a label in the DSM so that person will be fine on their own.

Oh society, need us not be on our knees before being allowed to ask for help.

A cloud surrounds me.
Suffocates.
The lies, they feel so real they must be I can't see anything else anymore so
Clearly, so they must be
Everything I've forgotten, every scar that I had gotten, and the words, the stares, new knife-marks in my skin

I know the Truth, but I can't always discern the lies.

It only takes one, to get in, penetrating my skin. And downward, I spin.
Into the darkness, the abyss. I can't
get out
Drowning
The words and I think I'm the end of everyone's stares. It only takes one thing, to hear, and my mind runs wild. An inescapable spiraling of words and thoughts of self-loathing.
It's a tangled web of heart-broken conditions, misintentions, these afflictions, did you know heartbreak is a diagnosable thing? It is. I decided.
My heart was breaking.
My heart is break
ing.

Tangled misintentions, a wave of self-doubting afflictions, all conditions of this mess
we've woven.
A web we've spun from our brokenness, and in the madness my minds screams,

This is all your fault
Never good enough
Too much, or
Too little
You'll never be whole
Broken beyond repair or care
This is all your fault
Time to leave
Always say never
Because you aren't fit for any
Endeavor
It's better if you leave
You aren't good enough to believe
Just go
Never
good enough

The lies are so thick I can barely breathe
Scars aren't really healed if you're still bleeding from the slashes. Cut hearts and, broken wrists.

And none of it's true and part of me knows it, inside but the lies keep on coming and sometimes
self-deprecation, feels good
self-imposed asphyxiation, fills you up more than air in your lungs could
Because pain is an addiction when we won't believe who we are.
When I don't believe.
I'm just creating more scars.

And the lies wrap me up, suffocating in this web of misintention, but a moment of clarity reveals all these afflictions, I sense the darkness creeping in surrounding and
impounding my heart.
Drowning out the Truth, masking the lies, telling me I should believe I'm worthless.
And the lies
make sense
I'm
suffocating inside
I cry out, inside my heart and my mind

Tell me the Truth, I can't discern the lies.

That
infiltrate my soul, I've heard them so many thousands of times
But the scars haven't healed and I'm still bleeding from the slashes
I need a reason to sing, I need someone to bring me out before the swirling darkness settles in and poison takes over my veins. **** out the venom
Or I'll die here alone

And I cry to hear the Truth that overpowers the lies.

I was alone in a claustrophobic cloud of hateful invention.
And two hands reached in, grasped my shoulders, turned me round.
Looked past my eyes and straight into my soul.
Gentle and loving, I hear,
I will fight past the lies to tell you the Truth.
You're Mine

I didn't know, I told my friends
I only saw the odds and ends
Littered over his garden.
I didn't know, I couldn't see
The person that he used to be
Before his confusion.
We used to call the council too
They'd charge him for the work, it's true
...though he hated them.

The blow fly problem abated for a little while.
The rats had nowhere to hide until he provided more accommodation.

I couldn't see, I told my friends
A garden full of odds and ends
Obliterated the man.
I couldn't know, I didn't see
He once was just like you and me
Before his confusion.
The council took his stuff away
It took them more than half a day
To move it.

We asked what he could possible want with second-hand garlic presses
and a pair of boy's shorts.

I didn't care, I told my friends
How many men the council sends
It will not solve it.
They'd need to know, they'd need to see
The solution's clear enough to me
He needs to go into an institution.
The council tried to talk him round
They never gained an inch of ground
He was intractable.

The junk helped him live his life
Old air conditioners and wood for healing was an unusual approach....

I didn't see, I told my friends
I hated all the odds and ends
Gathered with love.
I wouldn't know, I wouldn't see
He needed care from you and me
To cure his confusion.
The council only saw the crap
Only television saw the chap
Under the junk.

Even then, the hurts in his life were only diagnosable
Using the encrustation outside.

alone in this world, such beauty we miss
brushed off your shoulder, your ignorant bliss
want to become, just anything recognizable
just knowing where i am, it's  nothing diagnosable
responded to like aspberger's, questions asked like a brother,
laughed at like down syndrome, trusted like no other
feared like a socio, observed like a nobody
known to have multiple personalities, some have wisdom others folly
one is called hippy, the other a christian
my nickname is straight edge, i was born with charlie manson
avoided like eric, and alone like dylan
eye for and eye as one opens the other
but all still remain closed, together alone
like music, translations truly unknown

I.
ask me if it hurts.
i will bleed salt water rivers at your feet
and in the mud i
worship like a kicked puppy
begging
(malnourished)
you’re the one with cellophane sadness chasing the dragon
rushing through your veins like a forest fire
they say it makes room for new life.
don’t act like he didn’t save your ******* life
don’t act like you can call this a ******* life
smaller than small
call me a safe bet.
call me when she’s gone
stop drinking, call me
ask you if it hurts
“i don’t feel a thing”
II
i was told success is the sweetest revenge and i’m sugar. baby i’m black and white. i do it like you wish you could. honey i’m fire. ******* i’m fire. i’m licking up the walls i’m shooting from the gun i’m gone before you can think to catch me i’m wondering why they name hurricanes like pretty women but other natural disasters are brought up only when you’re coated in ash, standing just outside of the sea breeze, san diego about 2003. revenge is something like 5 am lift your head off a stranger’s kitchen counter with a sniff revenge is something like going going going 70 miles an hour if we look back we’ll lose the nerve revenge is something like midnight, train tracks, 5 shots down and ready to watch the blood flow go get ‘em champ. revenge left me shaking for 3 days preaching apologies to the choir sutured wounds begging for relief and i am a statue on the top of a parking garage, i am praying “jump”. by the time they ask me if it hurts i am dreaming and in this dream the trees forgot your name and so did i and i won’t feel a thing.
III.
twist the steel in my back until you turn me on
don’t mind the purple tinge under my eyes
(i feel stronger than i look, you could call it a trap)
bruises are just flowers blooming under wary skin and
i bruise you in dreams
i kiss un-diagnosable pain onto your vulnerable throat while you sleep
i sneak to your bed to pour salt in new wounds
ask me if it hurts
i don’t feel a thing

It's so funny, my approach to life has always been this convoluted dichotomy of ideas and practices where I never wanted to give a **** about anyone or anything while simultaneously wanting to have a good reason to do so. I couldn't just chalk myself up to being an *******, I wanted the freedom of some diagnosable dilapidated mental state. Like somehow if I could just write my apathy and general laziness up to some kind of disorder then it would all be justified and I could feel at ease about just letting life pass me by and letting people who love me down, over and over again. The whole process has been so ******* and backwards that I started to feel like maybe my goals have been achieved, and by just working towards this contradictory state of mind I actually managed to make myself some kind of insane. The act of wanting to not give a **** about anything, whilst simultaneously wanting a good reason to be that way perhaps set me aside as the thing I wanted to be most in life: crazy.

     My father is schizophrenic, and he left when I was maybe ten or eleven years old but I never hated him for it. In fact in my adolescence I actually idolized and envied him for the freedom of responsibility that was granted to him through his diagnosis, I saw it as a boon in life. A way to cast aside the obligations every one of us faces in a modern society and just live day to day like nothing ever mattered. I wanted that same freedom, but more than that I wanted the same reaction that his behavior garnered from other people in my life. No one was ever angry, or hated him for how he acted. They all just pitied him and would spout throw-away lines like "well, what can we expect?" or "I'm sorry your father is so sick, Justin." when he came up in conversation. My mouth watered at the thought of all that precious pity, I craved that dismissive demeanor that people gave him. Like sighing when a seagull takes your sandwich, what else did you expect would happen? It's pointless to hate the animal because it's just doing all that it knows how to do. There's no sense being angry, or even disappointed. You learn to hide your food better next time but ultimately you have to accept that it's just a part of life, and the only thing anyone could ever do is just sigh and hope that it never happens again. For years I wanted that same sympathy, I wanted to be crazy and lazy and not give a **** about the people who loved me. I wanted to be just like my Dad.

     It took me a good twenty six years and my Mom having an (ultimately fatal) aneurysm to finally realize that this way I've been living my life would never grant me any semblance of freedom at all, and in fact the things I actually wanted the most were those same loved ones and obligations that I've been absconding from all this time. Not only were those the things that I wanted most, but they were what I needed to bring me that much craved sense of freedom and justification that I've been looking for all along. Now I'm almost thirty one years old and I think I realize now that my father was never free, never liberated from any form of societal norms or responsibilities, rather, he was just but a prisoner. Locked in a mental jail cell, a drunk tank within his own mind. He couldn't escape his inability to be a fulfilling father, he was locked up within his psychosis and there was never a key to begin with. I think now that maybe him leaving was more about doing the wrong thing for all the right reasons, and I mourn for his presence in my life and for the sorrow he must've felt when he said goodbye. I can feel his sorrow echo in my conscience, for I know that even with his cursed, so-called freedom of responsibility, the things he always wanted most was just to be able to be there for me. I don't hate my father, but I do pity him and I no longer want any part of that pity for myself. I'm still a lot like him, but rather than embracing the worst parts of who he is I try to channel the positive aspects instead. I try my damnedest. Besides, at one point in his life he was a man that my Mom fell in love with. A charming, handsome guy that had a relentless love for cars and games and laughter that went unrivaled by anyone else I had ever known, back when I was young and still spending time with him. He could cast a spell on anyone and illicit laughter and smiles, genuine and hearty joy.

     Those aspects are what I now choose to remember, what I now choose to channel and project. Because what are parents really? Just people who are trying to take all the best parts of themselves and pour them into their children. They're just people, nothing magic, nothing sacred, working at crafting us into better versions of themselves. To that point I say that he may have succeeded (though I'm still awfully terrified at the prospect of fatherhood,) and although what I thought I learned from his absence in my life was misconstrued in my mind for so so many years, the true lesson that he taught me is so brutally simple. To just be there.

Why doesn't she love me. Is she not capable? Or is it me.
The answer is really scary because the truth makes you see.

Why do I want someone that doesn't want me back.
It makes no sense. Before you came I was on track.
Following my dreams without any distractions.
But the dreams changed because of our interactions.

I just wanted to be next to you. On your side.
I didn't ask for a girlfriend or the eventual bride. Just you.
40% of people go through diagnosable depression after heartbreak.
This choice I would not take, if I had known this was at stake.

You don't deserve my pain or poetry. Yet somehow you do.
Why the **** are you still in my life, distance is due.
Get away from me you ignorant Witch. You *****. You shrew.
HOWEVER, if you called right now, I would run to you.

No matter the distance.
I am weak to you with no resistance.
Although I fight these feelings, they are persistent.
I crave the day this feeling goes away and you are non existent.

I don't mean that last bit. Well, kind of. I don't know.
I edge towards being okay but am I really though.

Mad times for me. Mad times for everyone.
I live in South Kensington with a Nun.
What the actual **** is going on.
I think this all stems from the relationship with my mum.

I need to build a relationship to myself
That's before I can have a relationship with someone else.

That is a difficult process. Self love and respect are not taught.
You have to learn them yourself, and can not be bought.
I've tried.

I'm alright I guess. I'll get over it. Right?
I'm sure there is an end in sight.

the process to describe
the contour and substance of air
is now redundant, hence meaningless

(its lack of practicality
determined its void of meaning
and shall now be buried in the earth,
along the direction hinted
by dozens of pointing fingers)

moral or immoral, such a framework
has put a lock on this collapsible
black swallowing hole, and added,
in postscript,

this here is a black hole,
an expression of observable,
diagnosable,
not so much treatable,
sickness which undermines
a certain validity of the carrier

as if, the muscles of the safety net
are torn into bloodied strings of flesh
and in there a voice declares with clarity
that the weak must die.

punches, soft as sticky rice *****
a brain filled with cotton and confectioneries
never could arrange bony hands to get
the recipe right
for a makeshift bottle of glass

before the head clears enough to think,
you rot in the field like fruit

Hi, I’m Kairee.
I have anxiety sometimes.
But am I really allowed to say that
if I’ve never sought help for it?
I googled the definition of “anxiety” today.
Google told me it’s self-diagnosable.
That reassured me.

To be honest,
I want help,
but mental health isn’t so important to our society,
and my insurance won’t cover it.
I can’t afford a hundred dollar appointment
once a week or every other week,
especially if it’s going to take months
or years
to crack me open.

Basically,
when a piece
or many pieces
of my life feel out of my control,
I can’t breathe.
I feel like everything inside me is going to explode.
I feel crazy.
I need something to latch onto
to stop my head from spinning.
That thing is usually work.

Today,
I went to work.
And now I feel okay.

I guess that will continue
until  the next time this happens.