Tag: mental health

The Coast is Not Clear

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Photo of Pok Rie

If you took a peek inside my words, if you glanced through the mendacious keyhole,

You’d see the truest parts of me and how they each play a role –

My own heart can’t be trusted as it’s often acting as the mole.

I’m just a broken person, your narrative won’t ever make me whole.

“Believe me” can be harsh words to yell when you’re cornered,

Especially, when there’s not a single supporter in your corner.

It’s hard to feel fulfilled surviving on some empty calories,

Depending on a lust for blood coming from all the crowds you please. From your enemies.

Tired of walking the line but you can’t step away from it either.

“All your exits are blocked, honey, go and take a breather.

It’s going to be just fine. Now, go get in the freezer.

It will help with the burning fever of becoming a leader.”

***

Fingers are trembling, touching the broken screen –

Can you ever feel truly seen? Or do you only get your spleen

And a vivid red spite to go with it, waiting in line for the guillotine?

I can’t believe I didn’t end this when I was fifteen.

On a more hopeless note, it’s been two days since I last took a shower.

Been working so hard on proving my worth to some superior power

Which I’ve never believed in or prayed to in the first place, but what’s the use

Of being an atheist if you’ve always preferred some systematic abuse.

Called myself “worthy” on the bus ride home, but that’s simply a fraction

Of the fights I have to win with my demons. This is the first wave, the first contraction.

What we need is a true call to action, no abstraction or extractions

Away from the truth – with its burned edges and imperfect boundaries.

We will not sleep on this – or do what we’re told. I beg you, please.

At this time there’s so much pain we have to help ease,

So many smoking guns we must reach in order to seize.

Life with a price on your head was never for the influential –

It’s meant for the power hungry on the barricades, the so called “nonessential”.

Climb faster and aim for the higher ground, avoid the pestilential.

One day more to fight the confidential. To answer the existential.

To fasten our credentials.

To get the attention

Or pack the essentials

And leave – like we were never really here,

But I really hope they hear.

My dear, they will not always adhere.

One day they will learn to confront,

Even when the coast is not clear.

-JW

The Endless Cycle of “Not Enough”

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Photo by Lucas Ettore Chiereguini

Being patient through most days while you abuse the peace tenderly

By dancing on my nerve ends as I sink into the lethargy.

I often wonder – can I go any deeper than this, can I go beyond?

Is living just a prolonged torture as we wait to go back where

We once belonged?

Most mornings sound static to my ears, it’s not music at all –

The noise is so maddening I run through the streets while the others stall.

I think about whether they even sense the chilling breath on their necks

As they navigate filthy boulevards filled with human made bottlenecks.

What a wreck.

When the afternoon sneaks upon me reminding of far better times,

The emptiness in my belly has grown so strong, ready to paralyze. To bury lies.

No matter how hard I’m trying to outlive the benumbing gallows inside,

It seems clear that the judgment will fall over me as they say my appeals

All have been denied.

Nothing taste quite as bitter as evenings. The silence swaddles my hair.

All I want is to be left alone…yet I also want an affair. Is this fair?

My thoughts run through foggy meadows, they stop at the no man’s land.

Some evenings they come back home. But some – they sell cannons

As contraband.

Nights are not made of time as I struggle to keep myself on the clock.

Please, don’t get me wrong – nights are still a goddamn chopping block.

I never needed a time of day to get even darker, as if I wasn’t dusky enough,

As if I needed the starlit sky to remind me how the cycle repeats, as if I needed

Another reason for giving up.

Can I just rebuff?

Please, let me out. It’s been enough.

-JW

Three Moments in Time

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Photo of Pixabay

The angriest words I’ve ever spoken are “I hope you die” –

I muttered them to myself like it mattered, in a poorly lit bathroom,

and it all went cold but I couldn’t cry.

Four months prior life stabbed me in the back, and so did stability.

I thought it might get better, but hope is a special kind of facility

which I escaped when my family lost its civility.

Now seven years have gone by, I’m still searching for a peace of mind –

peace that feels so real and unfiltered, like love at first sight,

you know, when your pieces are aligned, everything is so well-timed.

Exactly that kind.

***

Back when I had daydreams so dark they turned into insomnia,

I stayed up reading old books between cigarette ash caused euphoria.

The days felt cloudy. But, I swear, no one noticed a thing.

Coffee and mascara hid the fact that death wish and I had a fling.

Whatever chilled me to the bone was what I loved the most

Because at eighteen I learned that you can’t fix your life in post.

To be honest, this still scares me – yet the time is running out

But it’s not kind to those who mess around with so much doubt.

Time judges – especially what you make it about.

“You tout, tout, tout…”

***

It was two autumns ago I last stepped on the scale.

After 6 years of fighting the numbers got stale,

They didn’t entice me with illusion of worthlessness,

But, damn, they managed to sting, nonetheless.

I can’t recall the last time I called myself unlovable.

Maybe I’ve just become difficult or impossible?

But still intense, caring, true and deserving –

For whatever comes next, I’m still preparing,

I’m learning.

It’s rationality I lack when it comes to forgiving my brokenness.

My worst fear is waking up at square zero, this I confess.

The most loving words I say are “I hope you push through” –

I mutter them to myself like they matter because now I know

They do.

-JW