Tag: mental illness

there is so much within me
things i don’t understand
that overwhelm me

like standing in one of those lottery games
where the dollar bills fly all around you
& you have to try & catch them

my emotions
& physical sensations
fly every which way within me
and all i can do is watch them swim around my head
dizzying
nameless 

& i don’t understand how to name them
i don’t even understand how to feel them
how to hold them
how to make them feel whole &
heard & known so they can 
stop haunting me

there is so much within me
i don’t know how to feel.

a.s.m

i know you love me,
but it doesn’t make me
feel less alone

sometimes i want to ask you if
you’ve ever been
swallowed whole by something
entirely separate from yourself 
but something you know
was born inside you

fermenting in the warm, dark
parts
expanding & shrinking
breathing
feeding
off of words & feelings
you don’t have names or reasons for

sometimes i want to ask you
if there are parts of yourself
you’re not sure you can
control

but 

when i look in your eyes
unwavering
like nothing has ever made you
fear
your own mind

i know you love me,

i know you will say
no.

alone // a.s.m

there’s something to be said
for banging pots and pans
at two on a Tuesday
morning, the
dissonance of existence sounding
like gongs in the kitchen

and our roommates 
groan and beg
us to go
back to bed because 
they can’t hear 
our harmonies.

For Zach // a.s.m

Trudy

wingedpiglets:

With cupped hands I show you
the parts of my soul nobody else has
touched.

I am prepared for your eyes
to widen in disgust,
for you to take them
and crush them and
throw them away.

But you hold them,
you know them,
you love them.

And gently, carefully,
you place my darkness back
in my shaking hands.

You have seen all of me and yet
there is only love in your eyes.

oh, god.
i’m lost
inside myself again
 
trapped between the walls 
of this flesh
and the implications of what
this means

if you ever let go, because
if i can be lost inside something
as small as myself
if you let me go,

if you let me go
i will never find my way 
back.

lost // a.s.m

a nuclear bomb has just gone off
in the living room. 
the ground bubbles
under pressure, vibrations rising
like heat and the Christmas
tree trembles, 
golden orbs shimmying and
dangling precariously off
evergreen cliffs. 

a mushroom cloud is spreading throughout
every single room in the house. 
i stay put but keep my head down.

my heart doesn’t palpitate when
the walls start to quiver.
with a smile, i close my eyes and
enjoy the way it feels
as though the house is rocking
me to sleep. 

there will be plenty of time
to clean up the mess later.

good vibrations: Christmas morning // a.s.m

I’ve heard that quote that says ‘do one thing every day that scares you.’ But what if every day is a nightmare that I’m not quite sure how to navigate? What if every day in itself terrifies me? What then?

the unpredictability of my state of mind makes life similar to a haunted house ride // a.s.m

Foggy  Heart + Pins & Needles Brain

some mornings the sun shines
a bit differently
through my blinds, and
the fog’s already settled in
my stomach, signaling that
today will hurt– that i will cry
over the if only’s that make me feel
so
heavy.
these days are hard, but
they are not the worst.

the worst days are when the sun
shines brightly through the blinds, but
my insides have not yet thawed.
abruptly– a blow to the chest
and i am caught
off guard, gasping for
breath, reaching for
anything or anyone that can
save me from this feeling of
drowning. only to

realize i am not
drowning– if only
it were that easy. but
nobody can give me their hands
and pull me to
safety.

all i can do is listen to
the tick tock of my heartbeat–
not knowing when it will end;
constantly in fear of when it will return.

Hurricane

I try to push them
out
in
so many ways. 
I bleed them
out,
I cry them
out,
I vomit them
out,
but still, they multiply,
growing
in my gut, spreading their black veins
through my body, poisoning
my brain.

It’s too crowded in here
for all of them.
They take me, and
I live
in them so much that
there is nothing.
I am
paralyzed
by the whatifsshouldhavescouldhavebeensifonlys
that my words
on the page are incoherent.

My voice
is silent.
I am
an empty shell,
rocking like the sea.
But
I am
finding that the best way to
silence
them is to
make them feel beautiful,
so I turn
them into poems.