There are so many wonderful
words, dreams, and thoughts
swimming through the turbulent
waters of my mind,
but sadly, the gripping fingers
of my depression are beginning
to take a tight hold on my life.

Sometimes I sleep for days,
tossing and turning, tangled
in the cold and lonely linens.
But most nights I stay awake
until the burning sun rises again,
bringing another empty day,
just one more strand of miserable
hours without you here.

I want to write,
I romanticize each day
where I can crawl out of bed,
escape these cotton monsters,
and feel the warmth of these
autumn days on my painted skin.
But to be honest, the furthest
I ever make it is the front porch, to
smoke the sadness from my lungs
with the cancer turning my fingers
a sickly shade of yellow.
Or maybe to the kitchen to pour
another glass of that Tennessee poison
to drown the empty void
from my tired and rotted heart.

I’ve become numb,
absent from my own body and soul.
I know you can see me,
but I’ve disappeared to the
darkest corner of my own tortured mind.

It’s too late,
you can’t save me now.

I’ve been told we are all
good at something, a way of
being unique, a specialty,
if you will call it.
I’m good at a lot of things.

I’m good at embracing the
chaos in life, allowing it, inviting
it to astonish me.
Good at having men want me,
not to date or marry me,
but to lust and chase my
sense of sex appeal and my body.
Good at drinking whiskey
taking long burning gulps
until my inhibitions are cloudy.
Good at taking short breaths
from ripped, tar filled lungs.

I’m good at pretending that
I don’t hurt, convincing people
with my cold words,
and hash expressions
of how my heart has retired,
that I no longer feel. 

I’m good at fooling people,
but when I’m all alone in
this yellow room, the love
and creativity being choked
from my breath, I realize
I can lie to everyone else,
but not myself.