Dear Anima

***

Dear Anima,
I don’t know what I’m doing.
I’ve been depressed before;
I have hurt myself in the past,
But this pain is numbing.
I dream of running away,
To move is to struggle.
The weight threatens collapse
As I attempt to present in class.
My life has shattered
In the briefest of moments.
Brittle are these pieces,
Which lie scattered across
The darkening depths of a mind
Intent on self-destruction.
I think I’ve lost a part of myself.
My chest hurts, and I hate everything.
I don’t believe I will manage to repair.

Dear Anima,
Your words took ahold.
I fear assholes will use you
To hurt me.
There is no defense,
Other than apathy, so
Fuck them.
There is no escape here.
Wasted Potential.
I had known pain, but
I thought I was strong.
Yet, I withered against
A persistent mental decline.
I near pulling that lever,
Plummeting my body to the ether.
Thought is difficult.
Writing—fucking impossible.

Dear Anima,
How does the sun perform
In such routine perfection?
Every morning, his visage hangs,
Taunting my contrasting defeat.
All, which I had loved, is devoured;
The earth reveals its jaws,
Swallowing them,
One-after-the-other.
Is it me?
It has to be.
Volatile reflections cater
To sinister delusions.
Shame showed her hand,
Yet it was too late.
My pride was long overwritten.
These words will never touch
Upon the truth of this.
I only impersonate those
Of much higher quality;
Otherwise, I am only me.
A subtle flame of insanity
Scorches the platform’s edges.
If only I were dead, then,
It wouldn’t matter.
I dined on abundance,
Growing soft, where
Others lean and calloused.
No friends exist to risk
Life and debt for a saga
Inscribed with my name.
By the time I realized
How much I hated
Being alone—
It was too late.
Homemade isolation
Created a creature of
Faithful self-hatred.
Disgust grapples with
Unbolstered pleas for
Self-betterment.
I want to be better,
But I’ll never find out.

Dear Anima,
Emotionally speaking,
I am struggling.
I’ve been in the darkness so long
I don’t think I remember the
Warmth of the sun.
I portray a different person,
Than I am, to the outside world.
My chest hurts.
I hate everything, but
I don’t want to hate anything.

Dear Anima,
Alcohol binds my mind to my failures.
A dark spirit now grips my heart,
Intending to crush my chest each-and-every day.
Divine justice has come for some bygone sin
As forgotten and trivial as I.
I would really like to be happy.
I don’t recall being blissfully
Ignorant of my flaws.
The ‘gift’ of life is the most
Selfish act of mankind.
No child asks for this world
Of darkness, sin, and Facebook,
Yet here we are.
The rot in our system
Flakes into the minds
Of our parents, seeping
Into their blood
For us and our descendants
To inherit. I did not ask to be here.
But, I am bound to this world.
If others must suffer then what
Right do I have to call it quits?
Each day is a blessing,
For each day brings me one rotation
Closer to my last, where nonexistence
May finally return to me.
I wish I didn’t feel this way…
A lingering cold constricts my chest.
I have nothing.
I feel nothing.
I belong to nothing.

Dear Anima,
I need to write more.
I need to write, when
The days are better,
Else people will think
I’m insane, and leaning
Toward an inevitable
Self-inflicted death.
I came close once—
Or twice.
But, the wheel continues
To spin.
I’m learning new things.
I ordered an embroidery kit,
And wasted some money
On stocks.
I’m learning the guitar
It is okay.
I’m prepared
For it to blow up.

Dear Anima,
I hate my body.
The image others see
Is false. The sound
Of my name scrapes as nails
Upon a rotten, exposed tooth.
I had thought I hated being seen or
Recognized as a person to exist;
Now, I see how I hated the flesh
Others bore witness.
It is so weird
It is so weird
Holy shit
Fuck. Fuck.
FUCK.
My mind hurts.
My body hurts.
Any chance of coping
Has failed.
My mind is on the fritz.
I don’t know how I’ve made
It this far.
Clarity abandoned me,
Not that they were around
Much to begin with.

Dear Anima,
I wish things were simpler.
I do like myself.
I like my soul, or
Whatever that means.
I like music and
I love my friends but,
Things fall apart,
And rejection shakes my soul.
I just want to be the person
I envisioned myself becoming, but I
Don’t know how to change.
Thoughts of suicide,
But I’m going to keep going.
I want to be happy.

Dear Anima,
I deserve a medal for lasting this long
With only minor injuries sustained.
I’ve fought the urge
To shove a pen through my eye
Like a dart to the center.
I know people will see my cuts.
This is inevitable; hopefully,
They are too uncomfortable to say anything.
As they should, It’s none of their business.
Death asks us to work harder than life,
Yet I’ve torn my skin to the bone,
And it was courage I lacked all along.
I don’t see a future for myself.
Visions change to noose-knots and razor blades.
This week will go quick.
I Just need
To get through.

Dear Anima,
I’m returning to therapy.
I feel gross.
I hate hiding my scars.
Existing is hard,
And the weight has gotten heavier.
I want to scream.
There’s nothing left.
It is easier to transfer
The sorrow through disassociation.

Dear Anima,
I went to grippy sock jail.
I met a bunch of cool people,
Who called me Jane.

Dear Anima,
I started;
I feel mostly normal,
But I’m going
Along with the motions.

Dear Anima,
I feel you
When I’m with her.
I love her,
But I’m jealous
Of what she wears,
And what she looks like,
And the people, who approach
With flashing smiles,
In bars and clubs.
It’s shitty of me.
I dwell on my faults.
I shouldn’t put too many
Expectations on myself,
Or my baggage
On my friends.
I am doing better.
Another month.

Dear Anima,
Strange to think
How we ended here.
The war has slowed,
Yet I am left anxious and shaky
As to what to make of things now.
I gave myself a tattoo.

Dear Anima,
I had my first shift.
I was asked
How much I paid for my ass.
It was free, just a few years
Of running to do the trick.
Work makes me anxious
In a good way.
I feel fine.
The future is untold and fogged.
May I find my dreams in this world.

Dear Anima,
I have been serving
for a few weeks.
It’s ok. Jacqueline says
This is how it is.
The anxiety has turned
To lead in my chest.
The world was always
Too fast for me;
Now, I have jumped into
The blurry motion of living.
Calm down.
You are beautiful.
You are smart;
You are kind,
And you are better now.
Fuck the greed-sodden fiends,
And their false-nobilities.

Dear Anima,
Why do people terrify me?
It doesn’t matter.
I quit.
The waves of pleasure
That come from a life
Of authenticity, accompany
A separate set of trials
And burdens. Only in this state
Of painful growth may we learn
To embrace the parts of our past
From which so much pain had stemmed.
The cost is exposure.
The fires of legislation
Will baptize this passage.

Dear Anima,
Look how beautiful we are.
Fingers, freshly painted pink,
Stretched out across our breasts
As Venus seeing the sight of land
For her very first time.
I too gaze ahead toward
A foggy shoreline.
I know not which way to tread.
If I did, then, I would never
Ruin the experience for another.
How beautiful we are
To lay our body bare before the world.

Referenced In:

• Dear Anima