With every pill, I'm more aware

I'm living lies, but I don't care

It could be worse & this I know

Another sign that I should go

My broken mind can't see the truth

Twenty-six years of wasted youth

I've curled my days in fetal fears

And drowned my nights in guilty tears

While those die starving in the streets

I'm playing dead beneath my sheets

I've tried my hand at slicing veins

It just reminds me of their pain

A single bullet to my skull

Their death is real, while mine is null

My voices chant, they want me dead

Consumes the world inside my head

Reality feels so unreal

Desperate to numb the ache I feel

I know that others have it worse

I'm plagued with such a minor curse

That rots my memory & hope

That makes me doubt my will to cope

The world revolves around us all

But my sickness makes them small

I'm the one I can't forgive

Too scared to die, ashamed to live

"For the sake of sparking a conversation, allow me to speak of love. Love is many things, and it is such a diverse and unfathomably complex topic. In fact, it is so complex that its complexity simplifies the complex. As a child I spent most of my lonely nights not whispering confessions to the stars as I do now, but thinking about the afterlife. Frankly, I am not certain what terrified me most; the possibility that death is the permanent cessation of a person's consciousness, or the possibility that there is a heaven and hell. If the first answer is correct, then this life must be meaningless since when we die we return to the same place we were before being born, right? If the second answer is correct, then am I worthy of joining this so-called heaven everyone is extremely anxious to join? Am I damned to burn for all of eternity only because I use my brain to do what it was given to me for? I was the kind of kid who grew up asking why and never accepted anything as truth unless I dug deeper. Believing every word inside a book written by man without questioning--without searching within me to see if its truths align with mine--conflicts with my curious nature. I have always thought for myself. Once I reached high school, I was stressed by the fact that my future is uncertain, and that it might very well be a bleak one if I refuse to switch lanes. A select few understand that as a poet, living recklessly is not only necessary for my art, but it is all I know. Once I found true love--the kind that blooms in pitch-dark rooms--everything seemed to melt away. As healthy or unhealthy as this mentality may be, I felt and strongly feel that love can save me from life, death, and everything in between. Can it really do so? Probably not, but a deceitful illusion covered in fine honey is undoubtedly better than a cruel reality reeking of ignorance, hate, and division. The meaning of life is to give life meaning, and to live and die for love is the meaning I have decided to give it."