Behind The Mask

 

Dylann Hendricks

Hiding the hurt, hiding the pain,

Hiding the tears that fall like rain.

Saying I’m fine when I’m anything but.

This ache in my soul rips at my gut.

My skin is on fire; I burn from within.

The calm on my face is an ongoing sin.

The world must stay out; I’ve built up a wall.

My fragile lie will collapse should it ever fall.

Loneliness consumes me; it eats away the years

Until my life is swallowed by unending fears.

Waiting for someone to see I wear a mask

And care enough to remove it; 

is that too much to ask?

Melisa Bernards

The Path

 

Devon Wilson

if you are in need of light, go to

the ones who have been through

the darkness. they will guide you.

if you are in need of hope, go to 

the ones who have lost everything 

and somehow still sing hallelujah.

they will show you the way. if you

are in need of strength, go to the 

ones who have been down on their

knees, feeble and broken and weak

to the bone. they will know how to 

gather up the courage to get back 

up on fractured limbs and walk or 

run or begin their freedom march. 

if you need love, go to the ones 

who have been without. who longed but

were forgotten. who sought but 

were neglected. who dreamed but 

were not given a chance. they will 

understand the depths to which love 

can save a soul. sometimes the path 

to knowledge is simply in a human 

whose shoes are worn but whose 

heart is willing.

Ullie Kaye

Silent Screams

 

Valeriia Miller

Can’t you hear my silent screams?

They are so loud they echo in my dreams.

Behind this face that carries a smile

Lies a dark road that goes on mile after mile.

My silent screams have been going on for years,

But it always falls on so many deaf ears.

How can they hear these silent screams in my mind?

They can’t hear my thoughts if I keep telling them I’m fine.

What can I tell them? These silent screams carry no words.

It’s just feelings of sadness and darkness that come in its herds.

How can I explain so people understand this?

It’s like walking around in a suffocating black mist.

It’s holding on to happiness like holding water in your hands.

It just trickles between your fingers and disappears into the sands.

I can’t explain how this feels; it’s so extreme,

So, I hold my mouth shut to cover my silent screams.

Aaron

Continue

 

Steve Hanks

My wish for you

Is that you continue

Continue

To be who and how you are

To astonish a mean world

With your acts of kindness

Continue

To allow humor to lighten the burden

Of your tender heart

Continue

In a society dark with cruelty

To let the people hear the grandeur

Of God in the peals of your laughter

Continue

To let your eloquence

Elevate the people to heights

They had only imagined

Continue

To remind the people that

Each is as good as the other

And the no one is beneath

Nor above you

Continue

To remember your own young years

And look with favor upon the lost

And the least and the lonely

Continue

To put the mantel of your protection

Around the bodies of

The young and defenseless

Continue

To take the hand of the despised

And diseased and walk proudly with them

In the high street

Some might see you and

Be encouraged to do likewise

Continue

To plant a public kiss of concern

On the cheek of the sick

And the aged and infirm

And count that as a

Natural action to be expected

Continue

To let gratitude be the pillow

Upon which you kneel to

Say your nightly prayer

And let faith be the bridge

You build to overcome evil

And welcome good

Continue

To ignore no vision

Which comes to enlarge your range

And increase your spirit

Continue

To dare to love deeply

And risk everything

For the good thing

Continue

To float

Happily in the sea of infinite substance

Which set aside riches for you

Before you had a name

Continue

And by doing so

You and your work

Will be able to continue

Eternally

Maya Angelou

Explaining My Depression To My Mother: A Conversation

 

Romario Roges

Mom, my depression is a shapeshifter

One day it's as small as a firefly in the palm of a bear

The next it's the bear

On those days I play dead until the bear leaves me alone

I call the bad days "the Dark Days"

Mom says, "try lighting candles"

But when I see a candle, I see the flesh of a church

The flicker of a flame

Sparks of a memory younger than noon

I am standing beside her open casket

It is the moment I learn every person I ever come to know will someday die

Besides Mom, I'm not afraid of the dark, perhaps that's part of the problem

Mom says, "I thought the problem was that you can't get out of bed"

I can't, anxiety holds me a hostage inside of my house, inside of my head

Mom says, "Where did anxiety come from?"

Anxiety is the cousin visiting from out of town that depression felt obligated to invite to the party

Mom, I am the party, only I am a party I don't want to be at

Mom says, "Why don't you try going to actual parties, see your friends"

Sure I make plans, I make plans but I don't want to go

I make plans because I know I should want to go; 

I know sometimes I would have wanted to go

It's just not that fun having fun when you don't want to have fun, Mom

You see, Mom, each night Insomnia sweeps me up in his arms, dips me in the kitchen in the small glow of the stove-light

Insomnia has this romantic way of making the moon feel like perfect company

Mom says, "Try counting sheep"

But my mind can only count reasons to stay awake

So I go for walks, but my stuttering kneecaps clank like silver spoons held in strong arms with loose wrists

They ring in my ears like clumsy church bells, reminding me I am sleepwalking on an ocean of happiness that I cannot baptize myself in

Mom says, "Happy is a decision"

But my happy is as hollow as a pin pricked egg

My happy is a high fever that will break

Mom says, I am so good at making something out of nothing and then flat out asks me if I am afraid of dying

No Mom I am afraid of living

Mom I am lonely

I think I learned that when Dad left how to turn the anger into lonely the lonely into busy

So when I say I've been super busy lately I mean I've been falling asleep watching SportsCenter on the couch

To avoid confronting the empty side of my bed

But my depression always drags me back to my bed

Until my bones are the forgotten fossils of a skeleton sunken city

My mouth a boneyard of teeth broken from biting down on themselves

The hollow auditorium of my chest swoons with echoes of a heartbeat

But I am just a careless tourist here

I will never truly know everywhere I have been

Mom still doesn't understand

Mom, can't you see

That neither can I

Sabrina Benaim

Suturing

 

Fadly Hj Halim

Someday I too will be dead but not rotten. 

The undertaker will have drained my blood 

into the floor sink that leads to a flood 

of sewer waste and all I will have gotten 

was eye gloss and rouge and my lips sewed tight. 

My lost possessions will fill city dumps. 

My organs will set in formalin clumps. 

My skin will be glossy, waxy, and white. 

That is not the worst. I will not recall 

revisiting these lines, like parents placed 

in homes to rest. I worry at my haste 

to erase, to rewrite, not let it all 

be enough, this conceptual time, 

the writing, the reading, the letting go 

of words held too tightly for them to flow 

like ink, or blood, or tears, or sense, or rhyme. 

Richard Stimac

Bildungssonnet

Christoph Hessel

To be saved by ideas: a fantasy I harbored. 

In those days, there was always something 

from which I needed saving. The past, its 

expansive grammar, the way my grief was 

a kind of deranged hope. I wanted a different 

country, an old language to burst forth like 

a hidden river. “Love is the cause of what 

ails you,” wrote Lauren Berlant. Oof. Most likely, 

no man is a refuge. But we can try all the same. 

It is raining again. I’m struggling to remember 

everything. Thank god: it is not too late to tell 

a new story. Thank god: a sonnet is not that 

deep of a chasm. Soon, I may climb out toward 

the long expanse of our remaking.

Billy-Ray Belcourt

Stream Of Life

 

Alan Bouti

The same stream of life that runs through my veins night and day

runs through the world and dances in rhythmic measures.

It is the same life that shoots in joy through the dust of the earth

in numberless blades of grass

and breaks into tumultuous waves of leaves and flowers.

It is the same life that is rocked in the ocean-cradle of birth

and of death, in ebb and in flow.

I feel my limbs are made glorious by the touch of this world of life.

And my pride is from the life-throb of ages dancing in my blood this moment.

Rabindranath Tagore

Everything is Waiting for You

 

Magnific

Your great mistake is to act the drama

as if you were alone. As if life

were a progressive and cunning crime

with no witness to the tiny hidden

transgressions. To feel abandoned is to deny

the intimacy of your surroundings. Surely,

even you, at times, have felt the grand array;

the swelling presence, and the chorus, crowding

out your solo voice. You must note

the way the soap dish enables you,

or the window latch grants you freedom.

Alertness is the hidden discipline of familiarity.

The stairs are your mentor of things

to come, the doors have always been there

to frighten you and invite you,

and the tiny speaker in the phone

is your dream-ladder to divinity.

Put down the weight of your aloneness and ease into the

conversation. The kettle is singing

even as it pours you a drink, the cooking pots

have left their arrogant aloofness and

seen the good in you at last. All the birds

and creatures of the world are unutterably

themselves. Everything is waiting for you.

 

David Whyte

Desiderata

 

Sara Kazemi

Go placidly amid the noise and the haste, and remember what peace there may be in silence. As far as possible, without surrender, be on good terms with all persons.

Speak your truth quietly and clearly; and listen to others, even to the dull and the ignorant; they too have their story.

Avoid loud and aggressive persons; they are vexatious to the spirit. If you compare yourself with others, you may become vain or bitter, for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself.

Enjoy your achievements as well as your plans. Keep interested in your own career, however humble; it is a real possession in the changing fortunes of time.

Exercise caution in your business affairs, for the world is full of trickery. But let this not blind you to what virtue there is; many persons strive for high ideals, and everywhere life is full of heroism.

Be yourself. Especially do not feign affection. Neither be cynical about love; for in the face of all aridity and disenchantment, it is as perennial as the grass.

Take kindly the counsel of the years, gracefully surrendering the things of youth.

Nurture strength of spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune. But do not distress yourself with dark imaginings. Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness.

Beyond a wholesome discipline, be gentle with yourself. You are a child of the universe no less than the trees and the stars; you have a right to be here.

And whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should. Therefore be at peace with God, whatever you conceive Him to be. And whatever your labors and aspirations, in the noisy confusion of life, keep peace in your soul. With all its sham, drudgery and broken dreams, it is still a beautiful world. Be cheerful. Strive to be happy.

Max Ehrmann

In ways we cannot know

 

Julia Forsman

This heart-open project to bare our soles is first a spiral-spider movement inwards

To that mysterious ambiguous saucy source of constant change

When we tap that treacley tree-core

We can challenge some of what has gone before

Provided that we remember to use singing tones too

For we wish to spread the wonderfully dangerous belief

That there is a peachy potency for change in every soul

We wish to support this sap’s flow into our connecting communities

Just as it flows in birdsong and bubbling laughter

And leafing through the many forms this tree may shape

The many performances this being we are birthing may inspire

We will cook a patchwork platter

We will warm up a new rhythm, a new dance in syllable and sound and colour

Branching from our theory-trunk into a forest feast of story

Our roots and twigs will tingle with the knowledge that the waves of breakdown desperation

Hold future fulfilment in their foamy crashing

And if we intuitively trust the ripple-vibrations of our vibrant sharing

Our works will wash their way into the world

In ways we cannot know.

Simric Yarrow

WHO'S FAULT IS IT, REALLY?

 

Kati / iStock

As my Mouth greedily crunches

those chocolate peanut beans,

my poor, over-exhausted Stomach

begs, pleads, moans, and screams,

 

“You selfish, disgusting Mouth Hole!

Oh, how could you be so mean?

Can’t you see? I’m sick and tired

of those chocolate jelly beans!”

 

“Well, I do enjoy them, but

I hope that you understand,

it is not my fault, really.

It is this Lady’s Hand!”

 

“Hand! How dare you be so cruel!”

yelled my Stomach, but in vain.

“It is not me,” Hand replied.

“It is this Lady’s Brain!”

 

“Aha, Brain, you wrinkled traitor!

Well, at least you should know

that eating so many beans

is not good, so stop that flow!”

 

But my Brain calmly answered,

“I am not the one to blame.

There’s a lost creature here

and EMOTION is her name.”

 

“Well, Emotion, go away!

You destroy me, can’t you see?

I don’t want to eat those beans.

They are not good for me!”

 

But Emotion rustled softly,

twisted, turned, and hissed this sound,

“I would gladly disappear,

but first, please,

                        I must be found!”

          LILIANA KOHANN

Avoidance

 

Maria-Theodora Andrikopoulou

Avoidance is my game.

It is not a result of shame or blame

Only my name,

That keeps me away

From you.

Avoidance is my dance.

So we can change our stance, twirl, and prance

And from the side sneak a breathtaking

Glance.

Avoidance is my treat.

Succulent and delicious and sweet

Perfection of perfection,

That is what makes me

Elite.

Avoidance is my pride.

My joy, my happiness, oh how many times have I lied?

There are rules, I must not tell,

Only abide.

Avoidance is my downfall.

I twist and turn and crawl

To your feet, I only stall

What is in store for me after all.

Avoidance.

And when it comes to an end,

The game, the dance, the hatred,

All feigned to hide truth,

I bet life on death and all sacred above,

That we two children,

Are undeniably,

In love.

Francesca Redlich

Life Doesn’t Frighten Me

 

Anna Kollor

 Shadows on the wall

Noises down the hall

Life doesn't frighten me at all

Bad dogs barking loud

Big ghosts in a cloud

Life doesn't frighten me at all

Mean old Mother Goose

Lions on the loose

They don't frighten me at all

Dragons breathing flame

On my counterpane

That doesn't frighten me at all.

I go boo

Make them shoo

I make fun

Way they run

I won't cry

So they fly

I just smile

They go wild

Life doesn't frighten me at all.

Tough guys fight

All alone at night

Life doesn't frighten me at all.

Panthers in the park

Strangers in the dark

No, they don't frighten me at all.

That new classroom where

Boys all pull my hair

(Kissy little girls

With their hair in curls)

They don't frighten me at all.

Don't show me frogs and snakes

And listen for my scream,

If I'm afraid at all

It's only in my dreams.

I've got a magic charm

That I keep up my sleeve

I can walk the ocean floor

And never have to breathe.

Life doesn't frighten me at all

Not at all

 Not at all.

Life doesn't frighten me at all.

Maya Angelou

Busy

  

Sara Kazemi

I am busy, so busy

I don’t have time to think

I am busy, so busy

So close to the brink 

I am busy, so busy

I can’t face the demons inside

I am busy, so busy

So I can allow them to hide

I am busy, so busy

Just keeping up with life

I am busy, so busy

Trying to keep out of strife

I am busy, so busy

That’s why I don’t call

I am busy, so busy

So close to a fall

I am busy, so busy

There is no time for sleep

I am busy, so busy

That’s why I say bleep

I am busy, so busy

Please be kind whilst I am away

I am busy, so busy

It’s me, not you, who cannot stay

I can’t be controlled

But I am in a rut

You can’t make suggestions

I will just say ‘but’

So please be kind

Let me speak my mind

And one day I will reveal

What I can no longer conceal

The loss, the pain, 

the grief from the past

The sadness, the despair, 

the disappointments that last

I need your love

Your listening ear

Your kindest words

Some jolly good cheer

I just need somewhere safe

To deal with this stuff

I don’t want to fear

An unfortunate rebuff

When I find it within

Or through people who tune in

I will start to heal

And begin to be real

I might slow down

Or completely stop

For a moment

A month or even longer

I hope it doesn’t take a major disaster

To get off this train that keeps going faster

For my heart truly knows that it is just an excuse

To avoid slowing down and making a truce

To once and for all

Forgive and grieve

Everything unresolved

That is hidden in me

Little by little

I can change my pace

And find new ways

To enjoy my own space

Then I won’t be so busy

And I will have time to think

To plan what to do

Without turning pink

Harmony will return

As I find a new rhythm

With stops and starts

On my very own mission

Then one day I will look back

On my busy phase

And wonder why

I wasted so many days

Chasing, pushing, fighting, sighing

Tired, lonely and nearly crying

It’s time to stop being so busy

And live a life that’s much more cruisy!

There is no need to be perfect

Or wait until when

Live life right now

The door is open…

Accept those tears

And face those fears

Take a quick look around

To find what you have already found

 Sue Ellson

The Busyness of Life

  

Sergey Kichigin

We are too busy in the moving bus that we forget our bus stop

We are too busy in the moving train that we forget our train station

We are too busy to find happiness that we leave it behind our shadows

We are too busy to find freedom that we find the freedom in boxes

We are too busy to fly that we leave our compass

We are too busy on the journey that we forget our destiny

This busyness has left us all in the ocean of complexities

All on a journey of no return

It only takes greater will to find the anchors of hope.

Athan Oparaji 

Leisure

 

 Laura Martinez

WHAT is this life if, full of care,

We have no time to stand and stare?—

No time to stand beneath the boughs,

And stare as long as sheep and cows:

No time to see, when woods we pass,

Where squirrels hide their nuts in grass:

No time to see, in broad daylight,

Streams full of stars, like skies at night:

No time to turn at Beauty's glance,

And watch her feet, how they can dance:

No time to wait till her mouth can

Enrich that smile her eyes began?

A poor life this if, full of care,

We have no time to stand and stare.

W. H. Davies

Go to the Limits of Your Longing

 

Pranab Basak

God speaks to each of us as he makes us,

then walks with us silently out of the night.

These are the words we dimly hear:

You, sent out beyond your recall,

go to the limits of your longing.

Embody me.

Flare up like flame

and make big shadows I can move in.

Let everything happen to you: beauty and terror.

Just keep going. No feeling is final.

Don’t let yourself lose me.

Nearby is the country they call life.

You will know it by its seriousness.

Give me your hand.

Rainer Maria Rilke

in, Book of Hours: Love Poems to God