Tag: mental illness

Deo

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Tie me down tightly the next time I try to claw my irises out.

The lights are acidic, music is pale and I don’t make myself proud.

Lie to me before you let the rope touch my infected neck –

And remember the hand they’ve given me came from a defective deck.

Don’t trust my cool when I approach the window so slowly.

Dearest, please, hold me back roughly, like you owe me,

Chain my feet to a block of static, mellow memories.

After all, we built this house from second-hand gossip and prophecies.

It’s time to let it slide through the fingers, let it dissolve.

And maybe, just maybe, saying goodbye will let it evolve.

So wrap the leash tighter but don’t let me look away.

The walls we built have to crumble right before my eyes

To make sure I obey.

-JW

The Revelation

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It feels irrelevant to feel the rut I’m feeling, but it’s still true –

My mind is rumbling, I can’t hear the chorus through the blues.

The fences are getting higher and I don’t want to manage,

And every day I don’t, my brain gets twice the damage.

I didn’t know you were listening to my story all along.

To you it might seem that I’m visionless or not that strong.

To you the picture has been painted through a distorting mirror.

But I don’t care –

Come, take in my suffering from the cuts, almost like a killer.

Then he whispers:

“Step away from the catastrophe for a second, let me ground it.

I know that the truths you’ve been hearing sound astounding,

And somehow you keep on beating the current as if it’s your cure –

But there comes a time to realize that you will not be judged

By the pain you endure.”

-JW

Leaving Ante: Part III

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Trauma

How do you embrace the darkness, the fog lingering in your thoughts?

The guides have dropped dead and my mind is haunted, covered in moths,

So I’m praying to hills, I want to get past this mentor-less journey alive

But the wheels are turning to the uncharted territory, pulsating cyanide.

How to forget the grave they made me dig for myself, scarring me to agony?!

Yet – the actions are excusable because only the young and terrified will write a symphony,

A melody submissive enough for their listening pleasure, a hymn for the masses.

My shoulders still ache but I never sung the lullaby,

The one veiling plastic and hourglasses.

And how do you know there’s another side to the endless, smoke filled path I’m balking?

I’ve been penniless and dull, however, never have I felt like sleepwalking.

The dust is sitting still in the unforeseeable, contaminated air I’m chasing.

I know the fog is a part of the ride, perhaps – even the seatbelt, but really…

How do I embrace it when it’s easier to forever erase it?

-JW

August Days

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Finger painting my own reflection, deflecting.

A voice is calling me but I find it vexing.

Palms covered in sparkles as temperature raises.

I’ve survived burns, I’ve survived blazes

But somehow this moment pierces my skin.

Do I fit the box that they put me in?

Colors on colors pour down my neck, down my back.

When I turn to look, it’s once again painted black.

Cryptic signs appear in the mirrors as I lay dying…

I’ll never get the picture just right, there’s no denying.

–JW

Tense

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Anxiety is making me choke on dry bones,

I spit up barb wire. I’m in there alone.

The pressure rings louder than my ears can take,

It’s unsettling. I’m in there alone and I mustn’t hesitate.

I can’t play it safe.

The crashes and wrecks continue to frighten

But the guards are awake so I’m keeping it silent.

My nails are scraping the floors and the vents.

Where is the end?

Every turn keeps coming back to yesterday’s events:

Two fingers of whiskey, three unpaid rents.

Your lungs made of glass, heart filled with gasoline.

Might get you high, might be a fast release.

I’m grabbing my own hair, pulling out grenade rings.

Would kiss a chainsaw just so I don’t have to think.

But you knew it already – my ego is made out of dangerous things.

If you escape the hellfire by jumping in water,

your boat will sink.

-JW

The Endless Cycle of “Not Enough”

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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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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