on mental health

On my good days

I am like sunshine

extending out to reach the farthest corners.

On my bad days

I am like fog

overwhelming, thick, impossible to navigate through.

On my best days

I am certain that I am cherished beyond measure

that everyone who loves me does so unyieldingly.

On my worst days

I am certain that I have never known love

that no one could possibly see past my tenebrosity.

On my best days

I see possibility everywhere

nothing could hinder me.

On my worst days

I can not see a reason to go on

I plan my escape route.

On my best days

the light shimmers and dances

even when there is none.

On my worst days

I simply can not recall

ever having known light at all.

Then there are all the days in between

because life though black and white

has so much grey.

I am the amolgamation of all my

bests

worsts

in betweens.

I am still learning to love me

at anything short of my best days

I am still learning to love others

at anything short of my best days

because the one thing I know for sure

is that I still have a lot left to know.

wildfire girl

She is a wildfire,
who doesn’t care who she burns down
on her quest to self-destruct.

A raging fire can be a beautiful thing,
so full of life and yet
it so savagely destroys, as well.

Her flames burn crimson red and deep ochre,
even violent blue, not a solemn blue,
though sometimes it may seem so.

Sadness can be destructive too,
folding in on itself,
not dampening the fire but feeding it.

The people in it’s path,
so distracted by her calamitous beauty,
left burnt to a crisp in her wake.

Don’t be disillusioned,
a fire does not burn maliciously,
and neither does she.

A force of nature simply,
knows no other way to be.

big questions

Do you claw your way back from oblivion?
It’s easy to sit here in all of my moods and say
it would be easier to just not feel at all.

When you’re in that moment, when you feel the life draining from you,
your consciousness fading
out, are you suddenly desperate not to leave?

Sure, life is grim and painful and pointless,
but what if there is truly nothing afterwards
and just as quickly as consciousness came, it leaves,
nothing, in an instant.

I go outside at night and I cry to the stars,
that you might hear me,
that anyone might hear me.
Begging the universe to show me a sign that this isn’t all there is.
This isn’t it.

The urge towards nihilism is so inherent in me,
and yet I can’t crush this hope,
that somehow this is not all for naught;
simply the waiting room before the real magic.

This constant vacillation is exhausting,
invigorating still, encouraging me onwards,
while I scream into the wind and tear at my skin,
answerless questions forever clouding my mind.

dream sequence

What dreams do know,
as they float about,
we sleep softly and
yet, our heads are in places much remote.

A sigh, a toss, a turn,
reliving ones loss
in the dark of night
it’s hard to know what’s wrong
what’s right?

These dreams do lie,
and play their tricks
they dangle promises on our lips
so that when we wake
the sweetest pain
just to have seen their face again.

the monsters in us all

How easy it is for us to bemoan our own hardships, the hurts and betrayals that have been done onto us,

what about the terror we enact on others?

To live without fault is near impossible, if not entirely so.

Each of us comes away from this life scathed and scathing.

It is effortless to float through time and space feeling sorry for yourself, feeling the pain of what the world has enacted on you.

Yet how often do we stop and recall the hurt we’ve doled out?

I find myself sitting and weeping over the ways I’ve been mistreated,

still what about the hearts I’ve broken, in pursuit of my own self interest,

or in boredom,

or in malice.

Should we not stop to consider how we are the villain in someone else’s story?

Would this not humanize us all a bit more.

on love and loss

‘all kinds of love in this world but never the same love twice” has always been something I truly believed in. 

how do you define love when no two loves are the same? 

how do you move on from a love lost when you know there’s never anything that can replace it? 

and then to love someone who you can never love again, who is gone forever, what do you do with that love? 

does it go away? does it transform into a new feeling? is a love lost still a love? 

do any of these questions come with answers or do we continue to fall and to fawn and to shatter into pieces, just to build them back up and do it all again? 

what is this tendency towards one another that we can’t seem to escape, why is the human experience in and of itself not enough. 

the more I learn the less I know. 

small magic

I have been jumping from ledge to ledge for the past five years. Putting up with bad behaviour, letting people treat me however they wanted, as long is it meant I could survive. I wanted to desperately to leave where I came from, not because of my family, who has persevered and loved each other no matter what the world throws at us, but because I found it impossible to escape my past while starring it in the face everyday. A constant reminder of all that we have lost. There are pictures of ghosts all over my house. It is inescapable.

What you realize about these ghosts is that they become all that you have, along with the memories. The people you want to be around in the midst of tragedy, in the midst of success, are the people that have seen your ups and downs and loved you still. Some people are not capable of this. Some people will throw you under the bus as soon as things get hard. That’s okay. This is your journey not theirs. People don’t owe you anything, just as you don’t owe anyone anything.

I refuse to allow myself to be shrank down to a more palatable version of myself. I refuse to stop standing up for myself, no matter how people choose to label me. I hear all the rumours, I hear all the gossip, I am intimately aware of the many ways in which people hate me and yet all it does is motivate me to keep doing what I’m doing; people will always fear what they can’t capture. I am not like anyone else and anyone who doesn’t see that, can not see their own magic, so how could I expect them to see mine?

letter from a girl who also lost her brother.

Welcome to the club. It’s a club that no one wants to be a part of and memberships are non refundable. While no two memberships are the same, there are some parts that remain consistent.

Most people won’t understand. That’s okay. Some people will act like it’s not a big deal. It is. Don’t let anyone invalidate your feelings or tell you how to feel. This is your loss and you get to feel it however makes sense to you.

When you experience a loss, any loss, but especially one so monumental, at such a young age, it forces you to grow up in a way that most people never will. It may feel like your childhood was stolen from you.

When your friends complain about their brothers, you may smirk a little to yourself, because you know you would give everything to fight with your brother.

It is incredibly challenging to watch your parents lose a child. It will test your family in ways you never imagined. You may feel helpless. You may feel confused, you’re supposed to be the kid, but now you’re comforting your parents. Lean on each other.

People will tell you stories. Listen. Always listen. Those little moments help you keep them close.

As time passes, you may feel frustrated or sad or even angry as you begin to forget little things about them. It’s okay. You will never lose their memory completely.

When you start to enjoy things again, you may feel guilty. Ignore it. That guilt is the just the pain of your loss masquerading itself. You are allowed to have a happy, full life still. Do it for him, it’s what he would want.

It can be hard to listen to people talk about loss who have not experienced what you have, you may feel jealous even, that they don’t know your pain. That’s okay. Try to turn it into gratitude; gratitude that the people you love and care about don’t have to hurt the way that you do.

As someone who knew your brother, know that he loved you guys more than anything. He wanted you guys to feel loved unconditionally, all the time, and that kind of love never dies.

wherefore for art thou, existence?

Perhaps just to be sentient is enough.
Does life need a purpose or meaning, or is it enough to just be?
Is BEING, consciousness, experience, enough to be worth it?
In this moment, it feels like it is.
To experience life, to feel it, and not only that, but to influence it.
Your existence, no matter how small or unimportant it may feel, influences the world in some way.
Your existence changes everything, creates a storyline that could not exist without you!
To be in time and space is in itself so miraculous.
The universe WANTED and NEEDED you exactly where you are.
She chose you to exist here and now.
There is immense power in simply existing.
To question your purpose, in to question the universe herself and how could we begin to question the motives of what we can barely even begin to understand?
Today I choose to trust the universe.

untitled screenplay: act 1 scene 1

Fade in:

We see a worn wooden floor.

The camera pans up slowly to reveal the darkened insides of a cabin, a snowy mountain range can be seen in silhouette outside the window.

ELIJAH, a man who values his privacy and seclusion, sits in front of a small, wood fireplace. MAX, a white, fluffy, dog sits at this feet.

The fire crackles in the background.

ELIJHA
(to his canine companion)
‘What a day, I can’t believe we made it back before that blizzard, hey Maxy?’

MAX
(lifts his head slightly off the ground to stare at ELIJAH)

ELIJHA continues his reverie, staring off into the direction of the fire.

Cut to the window, we see a beam of light wash over the mountains.

MAX
(jumps up and starts pacing between ELIJAH and the window)
‘*MAX whines*

ELIJAH
(stands up and walks towards the window, his hand comes up to shield his eyes from the harsh light)
‘what fresh hell…..’

Before he’s able to say anything else, the entire cabin shakes violently, throwing MAX and ELIJAH to the floor.

Once the shaking stops, the pair cautiously stand.

ELIJAH
(heads towards the door, throwing on his boots and coat)
‘You stay here Max, we have no idea what we’re dealing with here.’
(he opens the door and steps out)

OUTSIDE THE CABIN

The silence is eerie in contrast to moments ago.

ELIJAH
(looks out over the icy tundra and sees a large, metal object, that looks like a military plane from a foreign country)

He walks in the direction of the object. The door slowly begins to open as he does.

ELIJAH has no idea what to expect.

The door is fully open, in the doorway we see a commandingly tall, wispy silhouette.

ELIJAH
(stops short at the bottom of the doorway)
‘Hello, I’m Elijah, this is my home. Who are you and what do you want?

The figure steps forward, we have a better view of them now. There is no visible gender cues, the figure is unnaturally tall, and waif-like, their skin is pale and seems to glow under the heavy lights. A helmet covers their face.

A7-GLA
(they lift the visor of their helmet, revealing three steely black eyes)

ELIJAH’s eyes grow wide.

Suddenly ELIJAH hears a voice. But it’s in his head. A distinct voice cuts through his thoughts.

A7-GLA
(speaks telepathically)
‘I am A7-GLA, I come from the Sofíthárros galaxy. We are here to warn you of a danger so vile and potentially catastrophic. It’s effects extend beyond your world, beyond your galaxy even. You must help us.

ELIJAH
‘Me?!
(a look of incredulity setting in)
‘I’m the last person whose help you want…’

A7-GLA
(speaking telepathically)
‘It is foretold in our most ancient literature that you will be the one to help us. Without you, the universe will face immense loss. Unimaginable loss. Come with me, I must tell you more’

ELIJAH walks up the stairs. The door shuts behind him.

End scene.