When a Boy Gives Me Advice for My Depression

I don’t understand how you think 

that you can give advice 

without understanding my battle.

You state what I know, 

and what I felt

aren’t possible.

Don’t you know?

I am impossible.

My imagination is so vivid,

sometimes I want to escape

into it, and ride my thoughts

like unicorns.

Other times, I want to shut it

out, hearing ghosts of my past 

screaming at me, and asking

why I didn’t do it better.

I see demons in a person’s

smile, interactions laced

with feigned friendliness,

and the constant question:

whether the colors that surround

them, taking up their negative

spaces, are correlated, in any way,

to their basic alignment.

Mine is a bright green today,

swirling around me like a sentient

fog, a miasma of tendrils that curl,

and twist into pleasing, circular

shapes.

Telling me that I cannot have

been, when I was, is denial,

and what you deny me

is acceptance, and I’ve

told you before that it’s 

more important than 

understanding.

I try to understand myself. I feel it first, 

and then discover: I am happy, sad,

angry, emboldened, giddy, somber,

guilty, or any other multitude of emotions

in combinations that often contradict,

or strengthen one end of the spectrum,

or the other.

I reflect and try to understand the

cause of my stirring, and probe at memories

to see if I can understand how I might 

start to fix it. 

And you ask me if I was still her.

Yes. I am her, she is me, we together

make up who I am. I won’t pretend 

I fully understand in my creation of characters,

who they are or what they mean to me,

but when you ask me if it was her,

or if it was me through her,

I say both. 

You don’t get to tell me 

it isn’t possible. Any artist puts

themselves into their work, even

when they have no part in the story,

it just happens that way.

I learn about myself 

through what I create:

reflect, edit, reshape,

understand, and make better.

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Hotspur

This soft bed was alone with me,

as you walked the rooms, ranting.

Stone echoed your words, 

repeating in a dream of 

discordant language in tones 

of sound and fury.

Why must you always rave?

I’m in constant company of

your complaints. I haven’t slept

peacefully in a fortnight, and

your anger only increases in volume.

I haven’t seen you in so long,

and when I venture to complain,

the very sun will stop

to overshadow the moon.

You do not love me. 

You told me this,

only as you rode away.

I believe it. You love only the glory

of bleeding men, know only the 

honor of swords set against each other.

Restless for action, startled by softness,

even to me, you are not gentle. 

I could foretell your ending,

god of war or warrior of God,

you will fall, felled to your own pride

and arrogant nature.

Some Strange Forest

Talk to me.
I’ve been so lonely,
and I grow tired of
the circular shapes
that my thoughts tend
to tread.

I want nothing better
than to listen to you speak.
You are a stranger,
and enemy to my city,
but your love of nature
excites me, and reminds me
of a younger self.

I didn’t expect you,
but when you started speaking
it was nice. Long before my
two-hundred year slumber,
I’d have many friends like you.

Home has treasure,
and we part ways
to hopefully become friends,
I think?