Tag Archives: words

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the poetic difference between being gone & being not here.

even here i can’t be still
i can’t shake, can’t shrug away
the creeping suspicion that this calm is telling me —
we’re mere minutes from death
we’ve been dying since day one and anyminutenow — i swear it!
i feel it!
& here’s the confusion that comes:
i’m already mixing
intuition with anxiety & paranoia
and it’s only monday.
i notice i’m holding my breath —
my mind lies when it tells me if i can freeze function
i can freeze time… . . . . .  .   .   .    .    .    .     .     .
& i can
keep you all here until i am fine & okay & can enjoy —

it didn’t work last time but i’m
willing to try it again

& again i find
it never works;
the only thing i’m capable of clinging to:
past pictures, clips of songs we used to sing &
all my great mistakes.

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early morning melacholy; it’s 1:30 but that’s good for me.

i am taking pictures
i am
taking my time
i am trying to remember the life i left
the place i used to live
i used to promise if i found my way back here
i’d find myself

but now i’m here & the world is hollow
i can speak but my voice is silent & so, why bother?

i play the same song on repeat & mourn for the girl i used to be
sometimes i get glimpses of her
hypomanic & for a minute i don’t feel like dying,
i feel like…

nope, no, nothing,
gone again, too late,
every time i get my hopes up they’re dashed on the rocks
i try to convince myself
when i find my way out of this, whatever you call this —
i will be
that.
much.
stronger;
i’m so convinced
i even tattooed it on my back,
permanent ink but perhaps
i should have put it somewhere i could see it
because i’m starting to forget.

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a game (my mind plays tricks on me; when i answer the door it disappears)

“let’s play”,
i said to myself, because there was no one else around to hear
not even i
so i started to climb
wish i’d knew then what i do now:
you cannot climb without the crash —

and since

i was dancing on mountaintips with stumbling feet it was only a matter of time until
blinded by brilliance, by flashes of light
i dropped into darkness

i have not felt the ground yet
but that’s no consolation – it only means i have further yet to fall

i went on like this for years
looking for my way out
to stop spiraling
five years later i wonder, was i wrong?
is this a game or
is this real life.

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my world was all yellow.

i live alone
in my little world that grows closer with every day
but i’ve convinced myself that’s okay —

safe

protected from the reality that never was
these walls stretch up beyond my gaze, shimmers of gold & glitter,
ochre yellows
amber & beige & buff

but one day, bored, i noticed
these cracks in these walls fit perfectly
my fingers, my feet
stretch beyond excruciation to climb, bit by bit
these walls of my home

i reach the top with an exhilaration
that could be fear
hesitant to look beyond — i’ve never been this high —
i stood clinging for a little while, maybe a moment, maybe a year
until i find the courage to look

& in an instant i disappear

captured in my eyes the world outside

the rolling hills, the sky of crimson, shades of magenta
blue and black and green and grey and

colors i’ve never seen —

my world was all yellow;
i used to think that was the best.