beautifully unbalanced.

Or maybe innapropriately crazy. Or downright absurd. I don't know. My life, though, as I've come to accept that I'll never accept - is sort of a wreck sometimes. As I come to terms with the "highly moderate to severe depression" (as my doctor calls it) and figure out what my medicine means for me, I still suffer bouts of horrendous saddness, where I think I'm going to die. Many situations and circumstances will bring this on. Most of them are arbitary or obscure and make no sense. Like television commericals, or finishing a book. Some are real. Like feeling insecure. Or unworthy. Or not close to God. Or thinking about my Dad. I want to take this chance to open up to anyone who reads this thing (anyone?) a look into what depression is like. I want to be open about it. Sorry if it makes you uncomfortable.

Here is something rare that I more than likely will never do again. These are journal entries.

December 6th
Why is it me who is sad? During Christmas time? Why aren't I laughing with my roommates? Decorating the tree? Why am I empty? Lonely. Unlike anything else that exists on this planet?

I check the inside of my bible to see the words are still inside and that I am not in hell.

They are.

But I don't read them. Instead, I imagine what a relief it would feel to slice open m veins and watch the blood pour out. It is itching to come out, I am certain. It needs air.

Christmas time. While I hope every year it is the other way around, the lonely just feel more lonely. The lights are beautiful, the snow is magic. Yet, I still manage to be dying.

They don't understand. "Follow Him" they say. "Life is what you make it." "YOU choose to feel this way."

Oh, if it were only that simple.

Oh, if I could stich my life back together, transform the texture of my heart, and feel God again, I would. They don't understand.

So they keep their distance. Afraid of me. I could snap at any moment, right? Fuck. What do they think I'm going to do?

I just need to be held like any other child. Like any other little thing who has fallen down on the pavement is and is just certain they have ruined their whole life.

It feels like falling apart.

But don't take my word for it, I am dramatic. Delusional. Selfish.

I. JUST. DON'T. CARE.

Now, to be honest. I am a little embarassed by this. But it was SO real. It was the realest thing I have ever felt. I freak out like this, sometimes. I lose it. I get very, very sad. But there was some redemption. My roommate Katie prayed for me, and told me she had a feeling I'd feel better soon. And she was right.

December 7th
Things get better. (A letter to me.)

Remember the night after the night you lost your shit. You ate starbursts and wrote a letter to Kate. You loved a Christmas tree and you are about to read the bible. You had genuine laughs at your lifegroup's Christmas party. You got a Rugrat's pillowcase. You did your homework. Please remember this. Remember that you don't want to kill your self and that you love your bed and your room is warm and that you are warm.

25 things I am thankful for:

1. Jesus
2. GeoJourney
3. Nature- mountains, ocean, green grass, the dessert, trees, anything.
4. The Seifferts
5. My family in BG and my family at home (even though both can be really difficult.)
6. Friends getting engaged. Christie and Josh. What cuties.
7. Going to Mumbai, India.
8. Art.
9. My bed and relaxing in it.
10. Laughter.
11. Refreshing cries.
12. Friendships that have grown this year mostly Lindsay, Grace and Cholena. I love those three so much.
13. My roommates. I love them all dearly even sometimes it's hard for me to live there. They each have amazing qualities. How much Beth and I can relate to eachother, Katie's listening ear, Christie's sweetness, Sarah's adventurous spirit, Cassy's childlike faith. It's really great.
14. The fact that I am able to feed myself. A lot.
15. Learning new things, learning how to do things, learning how to do things better, learning from mistakes, learning about eachother, learning the hard way, learning.
16. The smell after it rains.
17. 70 degree weather in November.
18. Good conversation.
19. Good hugs.
20. Sweaters and tea
21. Books. I love books.
22. How much in my life God has redeemed and how much if it He is working on.
23. Poetry.
24. Black Raspberry Chip.
25. Cities.

what do you think makes someone intelligent?

where my words went.

I'm sort of in this chapter of my life where I keep trying to open the box that holds my creativity and it's only filled with a bunch of used paints and broken crayons. Embarrassed and sort of disappointed, I usually close the box, slide it under my bed and act as if I had never seen it in the first place. The state of me breaks my heart.

Do you remember the time, about one year ago, that I wrote about myself as if I were a tree? A tree that got to shed it's leaves, and go through seasons and show my vulnerability in all my nakedness but show my newness when new leaves grew back? Well, right now I feel less like a tree and more like a leaf that fell quietly and unnoticed to the ground. Just another crushed up leaf among all the other crushed up leaves.

I deeply associate my entire being with my writings. My stories, my poetry, my words. Now that they are rare, who am I? I am boring. I am empty. I am speechless. I am tired. I am numb. I am a dead leaf, among all the other dead leaves. Not anything special, beautiful, or meaningful. Words no longer flow out of my hands into short streams of metaphoric lines and bone breaking beats. They don't even rest in my soul anymore. My box is almost empty.

Recently, a lot of people have been coming to me with this question, "when are you going to write again?" and each time it's like they're punching my soul and breaking my nose. What do I say when I feel as though my words have gone missing? That I have none because I am quite the opposite of alive? That I'm so angry because I thought with Christ I was supposed to be alive?

I guess for now it's a whole lot of waiting. It's the tapping of the pen waiting for the words to come back. It's the tapping of the watch waiting for the adventure. The adventure that makes my heart come barrelling out of my chest and makes my palms sweaty with impulse. My mind an utter commotion. I miss that. I crave it so badly. And even the most precise recipes I have been able to imagine do not produce the aliveness I once had.

Right now, I'm trying to have faith. I'm trying to hope that one day, I'll be alive again. I'll have it back. I can tell you one thing, though...I want to be off these meds soon. I'm positive they are numbing me. They are destroying my poetic self. They are destroying my preserved metaphors and language and rhythmic alliteration. Everything I had held so deep as my artistic way to deal with it all .

But for right now, this moment, it's empty and straining. It's difficult and enduring. It's broken-nosed faith.

I can't write anymore. I don't know what happened.

what do you value?

kamikaze

First of all, the poem I am about to present is tough. Being on anti-depressants has caused me to feel well enough to deal with issues I typically stuff away. One being my tendency to have sucidal thoughts and desires. This is what those feelings are. I would love to be able to walk in the light with these things, and that you may have a better understanding of what those are. But I don't want to unintentionally make you carry a burden you are not prepared or willing to carry. In that case, please don't read this.


I know, first hand, what causes
a grown man
to tip toe down into his basement,
gently press his knees into the floor,
feel the cold barrel of a gun at his temple

It's what a jelly fish goes through
from ocean to glass cage.
It's tentacles buried in the sand
of a retched place she was forced to call
"home."

It's when the last leaf falls from the tree,
and the last beat
hits your last nerve.

It's the train wreck that makes the sound
of his bloody shirt tumbling in the dryer.

It's the tap tap tap
of your shoes on the pavement
going, or leaving, it doesn't matter
because each breath feels like thorns in your lungs
and you pray to God you don't have to do it
one
more
time.

Because you're bored.

You're bored of the same old shit
that weighs too heavy on your eyelids.
The same old shit
and pushes the knife to your wrist and says,

drag.

It's the time between
stepping over used condoms
to get to your after morning shower
the time between walking to the liquor store,
(listening to the
tap tap tap
of your shoes on the pavement)
and watching the cork
fall into a bottle of wine.

It's how the beard of the man
who beat the hell out of you
can smell exactly the same
as the beard of the man you love,
who hurt you just as much.
so you start to beg
to see your blood glistening in the sun
You start to beg
that you would just have the fucking nerve
to not come back up
after diving in the ocean.


But you always come back up.
You always do.