Armor

Forged to protect

Defend from threats

Moments of weakness

Shimmering support

Battled to destroy

Broken, beaten down

Can hardly get around

Plated liability

Struggled in silence

No amount of repairs

Halt internal despairs

Blinding visor

Studied in shadows

Foe seeking weakness?

Friend offering kindness?

Rusting trust

Tempted to retreat

Discard cracking pieces

Retire to silent hill

Shattered shield

Propped in display

Empty suit creaks

Author’s Note: This is kind of based on the idea that everyone has erected some means of protecting themselves based on past experience, but some people go too far and their protection from threats becomes a liability. But no one else knows what’s going on inside, so it becomes difficult for such a person to connect to others and to overcome their personal challenges. While mostly this is meant as metaphor, I was recently at a museum and had a thought about while suits of armor and other artifacts that draw attention, there was a real person who once used those items, and we’ll never know what that person was truly thinking about their life.

Why is it Repeating?

Time is not elapsing

Feels like I’m relapsing

Synapses misfiring

Cold sweat I’m perspiring

Dark thoughts are beckoning

Lost notes I’m reckoning

Defenses shattering

Self-doubts I’m battering

Neglect is defeating

Alone I’m retreating

Something keeps repeating…

Author’s Note: Sometimes you feel like you’re making progress, moving on from some things that made you feel sad. Then you can feel like you’re getting stuck, or even going backwards towards those feelings you wish you never had. It’s a strange thing, to not feel like you’re in control of your emotions, to feel sad and alone when you know you shouldn’t be feeling those things. Maybe you felt a need to talk to one specific person, but they were busy, and it somehow feels like the entire world has left you. This is about exploring those kinds of feelings.

Struggle

I spend each day

Trying to hold them at bay

Unwanted voices,

Chorus of despair,

Intonations of doubt,

Arias about abandonment.

They suggest a way out,

A way to leave all these

Painful trappings behind.

I deny them once more,

I cannot surrender,

Though the darkness may be

Omnipresent.

Focusing on my plight,

Is this my crucible?

Will I emerge on the other side

Enhanced alloy,

Or slag and soot?

For now all I know is

I will not surrender,

Another day beckons.

Author’s Note: This is a merging of two incomplete thoughts, one rather downtrodden and another more optimistic, both dealing with depression and the difficulties of overcoming it. It’s certainly quite a battle. These fragments suddenly felt as though they were two pieces from the same puzzle, so combining them felt quite cathartic indeed.

Is it a Gift?

My old life is
Crumbling,
Falling away.
Spent so long trying to replace
My lost companion,
But perhaps I am truly
Destined to be
Alone.
Could it be my knowledge of
Sadness,
Fear,
Frustration,
Heartbreak,
Loneliness,
Loss…
Is it a gift?
Some means to help others
Comprehend their challenges,
Overcome their troubles,
Whereas my own life,
My troubled existence,
Will never know
True peace?

Author’s Note: When things are changing in life and not in the way we want, sometimes we wonder if there’s some meaning hidden in all the unwanted experiences. These words are a few thoughts on that feeling.

Message Unsent

I think of you everyday

But I don’t know what to say

You should know by now

How I feel

Even after all this time

Always a part of me

Hidden away where the world can’t see

Time passes but memories of you stay

Plans and promises held from yesterday

Wouldn’t it be nice…?

…

But that’s so much to say

So I just smile

As you turn away

Author’s Note: This was inspired mainly by my own feelings and a couple lines borrow from a certain moment in the Harry Potter series, that is when Snape proves his loyalty to Dumbledore. Imagination can build up some impressive plans of things to share with another, but unfortunately those plans don’t always become reality. Then all the things one may feel become buried under the surface, a taboo to speak of with the person for whom those feelings are directed. But you search for a way to keep them in your life, even if it means suppressing your hopes to fulfill the plans you made together.

A Sad Look

If I left

Would you feel

Quite bereft?

Would you know

Where I might

Choose to go?

Maybe you’ll

Think of me,

Wonder what

Came to be?

Ask the sky,

Where is he?

So far gone

You can’t see

Distant light?

Could he be

Lost at night?

Doesn’t sound

At all right.

Once so close,

Spirits tight,

Not so now,

Burning fright.

Moves quite deft

Flames burn bright

Hide the theft

Soon now, no

Chances left?

Author’s Note: Most of this popped into my head late one night when I was sick recently, I think the combination of being up late and being in a daze from medication brought several sad thoughts to the forefront of my mind and then onto a notepad. With a few extra lines and just a little polishing up, this is the result. The title refers to how some people get a look on their face when they’re feeling sad. As for the poem, it’s sort of an exploration of loneliness, with the character wondering whether it would be better to cut their losses and stay alone vice tough things out for another chance. It seems like they’re going to tough it out, since they seem to be very concerned about how much a certain person or persons might miss them.

As an aside, from a structure standpoint, I was inspired in some small part by the blink-182 song “Dammit.” The verses in that song consist of lines that are only 3 syllables long: the result is that a message is sent in fewer words than it might otherwise be, which to me makes that message feel more emotional. That’s sort of how this poem felt, a bunch of emotions hitting the page at a rapid pace.

Tidal Force

Getting better all the time,

Space between worlds increasing.

Quiet times, all on my own

Thoughts inexorably moved

Your direction, past memories

Unfulfilled plans, future dreams.

Invisible force pulls like

Moon pulls blue ocean waters,

Tranquility disturbed as

Waves crash up against the shore,

Waiting for change in the tides.

Author’s Note: This is meant to address how hard it can be, at times, to have friendships (or relationships) separated by large distances. The clash between the first two lines is intentional: sometimes it seems like there’s a bit of a paradox, where when you help your friend with a problem, or vice-versa, your connection is enhanced but then as the problem fades away, it seems like that connection may also fade away for a time. There might be less time to do whatever long-distance hangouts you had enjoyed, but many things remind you of past fun times and whatever additional things you had hoped to do together in the future. At times it can seem like some unreachable, unfeeling, invisible thing is pulling on you, perhaps even disrupting your regular situation. My science side took over here as I thought about how the moon’s gravity pulls on the earth’s oceans and creates tides; but there is no ocean on the moon to be pulled upon by the earth’s gravity. But in truth, both sides are affected or else they never would have been friends to begin with, and eventually some change may help them along.