Sometimes the waves crash rough upon the shore,

And the winds blow hard and beat upon your door.

Sometimes the hardest pain to bear,

Is the journey to recovery and what you have learned there.

Learning to be free is not at all an easy task,

Setting yourself free is a harder thing to ask.

Embattled by the fear of change and letting go,

These internal fights kept moving me forward though.

Now the game no longer pits me against me,

I see the world more clearly through eyes of love and beauty.

For though I’ve changed and grown a bit,

My life will be easy without the pain I now forfeit.

Without that vice grip around my throat,

I can’t slow down because I won’t float.

Sailing rough or placid seas,

Feeling the heat through the cool breeze.

Setting course for my success,

Change is a growing pain of happiness.

A radiant sun peaking through onyx clouds,

Casts a ray of light striking a lone sundial.

This crepuscular splendor marred by sounds,

Of anguish and bombshell, tribulation and trial.

Around the clock we stumble forward,

Towards some great victory for someone else.

It’s time we turned our ships shoreward,

Aim focus at need, and not what sells.

As bombs ignite and cast their mortar,

Through the souls our greed has decimated .

As flames engulf, smoke billows at the border,

The causalities are merely estimated.

Those lives snuffed out by capital punishment,

Payment for tranquility as promised.

The shadow edges forward turning daylight away,

Imperiling impersonal imperial impish improprieties,

Numerous atrocities as they hunt their prey.

The truest nature of human societies,

Is rebellion from repressive inequalities.

We split the atom to change our reality,

Whilst casting doubt on the future of mortality.

As lines of communication become tangled,

It splits time and the electric clock lies mangled.

For most, fear is an untamed beast,

This loathsome geist on burdens feasts.

Drooling with devil’s dichotomy,

To reign over your suffering endlessly.

Beading sweat, trepidation fills the heart,

Zeal for a life once sweet, now tart.

Brace your spirit, raise the gate,

Now is not the time to wait.

Grass is greener where it’s watered,

Now give me back those dreams you slaughtered.

Anxiety has a penchant for neglect,

Depression loves to abandon,

Anger leaves no space to reflect,

And hatred exists in tandem.

We have the power deep inside,

To fight to live, to live to thrive,

Don’t let your spirit be stolen too,

The choice is yours, the world… is within you.

What would you have me do?

Become someone who’s just like you?

My life a comorbid crimson kaleidoscope,

Of fighting harder when I had no hope.

The destitute aren’t always broke,

The rich still need a neck to choke.

Go easy on the child within,

It offers peace, a sense of kin.

Be cruel to the darkness that brings you tears,

Forever fastidiously fomenting feverish fears.

Dizzy dreams dissolve swiftly like sweet sugar in hot tea,

Mortality resumes for me, and chaos marked anxiety.

Be prudent and resourceful, mental anguish will subside,

That’s what they said to me so that I would abide.

But life gets harder not easier, (mental illnesses aside),

“It’s not something you ever beat”. So? I’ll be the one who tried.

Depression is like a rabid beast,

Reaching up to grab you from the deep.

All it takes is one glimpse into the abyss,

And it steals your very soul away.

Tread carefully as he clings to your back,

Weighing down the heart and mind.

Turgid currents of misery batter and bruise,

Taking out the memories that keep us going.

Stupefying tendrils embrace the dark inside,

Retreating deep within walls of loss and fear.

I run to find a safer place, none are offered up,

The virus takes hold and retreat is imminent.

Chased to the back of my mind I remember,

I’ve been here before and I’ve won this war.

Time seems to have reset itself,

I’m back in hell yet my foe is stronger.

Each new day devises ways to defeat me,

But I’m not done yet, there’s still so much to see.

I carry this weight across a desert of loneliness,

Navigating by way of stars made from happy memories.

The only way out is to keep on moving forward,

Push through the misery that festers around you.

Though I seem to have traveled for years and years,

I’ve arrived back where I was to finally face my fears.

So when next it would come to this,

I can look down into that great dark abyss,

And this time when he grabs… he’ll miss.