“Fly in the Sky”

The beautiful sun

Warmly greets me from my room window

It is cracked a tiny bit

Just so I am comforted by the warmth

This has been a hard time

My life has its ups and downs

Much like the track of a rollercoaster

There are times when I feel life knock me over

But my faith in myself provides me

With a solution when I thought

I would never find the answer

When my happiness comes back full circle

I can feel the power of life on my shoulders

But not completely weighing me down

I feel so full

It is almost if I could fly in the sky

And let the fear go

Wandering aimlessly

If only given the chance

When I look into your evil eyes

It astounds me that I was always surprised

By your endless lies

I traveled the world with you in an attempt

To make you mine

To rewind time

And to see if I could figure out your mind

Your spirit literally burned a hole

In the deepest part of my soul

Taking with it a piece of my heart

That used to make me whole

I spend endless nights awake

Wondering what it might take

To get you on the right track

You take one step forward

And it seems you go stumbling back

I really wish I knew

What part of you was missing

And how to piece you back together

But I realize that if you don’t get help now

You may be like this forever

When I look into your evil eyes

I can see your head spinning

And plotting my demise

How in the world I fell for you

I will never know

But time will roll on

With the deep cuts

To my heart

And the damage done will never come apart

Here is a poem that was written from personal experience. I often feel thar depression is akin to the devil living under your bed and completely taking control of you.

“Monster”

You are the monster under my bed

That also lives in my head

Tormenting me is your favorite thing to do

I have tried to ignore you

But my mind cannot let go of you

You dig your nasty nails into my skin

Without a regret

I try to scream

But you immediately cover my mouth

Because running for cover is not allowed

You hold me down

And beat me until I can no longer breathe

I do not understand why you hate me

I have done nothing to invoke this feeling

Yet I feel like I am stuck on the ceiling

I cannot come down

You will do anything to destroy

My crown

You will not allow me to feel beauty

You do such a good job of masking it with your

Terrible ugliness

You are dragging me into the dark

With no way to escape your bark

I am stuck wondering why

Life is as big as the sky

But you have continued to leave

Me here to bow down to you and cry

Writing Wednesday: It just dawned on me that I have not shared a single piece from my new poetry collection that is in the works. If anyone is curious, this piece is not written from personal experience. I have never been engaged, and I am not interested in marriage in any sense, but I often write from another's view. This piece was more simplistic, but it works. Here it is:

Marriage

I never expected you to get down on your knee

And ask to spend the rest of your days with me

But you have shown me so much love

You have convinced me that love comes from

Nowhere else but from the lord above

Love is delicate

But when two people feel it

They somehow make it work

They somehow fill that empty space

And they take you to another place

When you are with them

They take you somewhere you have never been

Their love almost feels like a sin

Their soft touch is something you crave

You would have never imagined your life would

Turn out this way

But now you know it is destined and meant to be

A life that consists of you and me

I feel as though I am lagging behind

I try to keep up with the world and with

Mankind

But it seems that I am run ragged

Teased because I am fragile

It's like my body has spent so much time in overdrive

Simply trying to survive

Maybe some sleep will help

Even though I am exhausted

I can't seem to get a single peep

So I lay in bed wide awake

and dormant

Like I am waiting for the next wave to wash me

Away

And prepare me for the next day

It will be the same routine

Over and over again

I am shutting down

And I don't know when I will be

Returning to town

I don't know when I will see the light

But I won't go down without a fight

I am the type of person who is fascinated by life. It could be because I was born three months premature. I am a miracle baby, and I am extremely fortunate to be alive and kicking. I am mostly homebound due to my disability and my inability to drive, so I definitely do appreciate the little things a little more than the average person anyway. Then again, what constitutes average? I am a very outgoing and optimistic person who views life in a glass-half-full kind of manner. I am the kind of person who relies on self-discovery in order to fully figure out who I am. I feel that finding out who you truly are is a bit of a necessary beast. I believe this is due to the pressure of societal norms and pressure.

If you really take the time to think about it, it is really amazing how much society impacts us, both positively and negatively. Everywhere you look, we are surrounded by TV shows and commercials that are attempting to show us how things should be structured. It doesn’t help much that you’re looked at as weird or a freak if you teeter away from those norms. If we are insecure about the way we feel about ourselves already, I feel like society makes it worse, especially since things, people, and places are so heavily judged and criticized.

Being different from the supposed norm does not make for an easy life, and it makes for an even more difficult transitionary period. Our minds then begin to warp and tell us that being different is wrong because we have heard it so often. This the result of repeated cruelty by others who are hurting as bad and worse than you are. This very sentiment took me a long time to figure out. People are mean and ugly to people who aren’t like them because they are hurting more than we realize. While their scrutiny hurts more than anyone could ever imagine, I believe we experience the hurt in order to make ourselves a better person. I believe we learn most from our hardships and difficult times. I was bullied throughout my school-aged years due to my Cerebral Palsy. In that present moment, the bullying tore me up, but now I look at it as a lesson that has made me into the strong person I am today. It’s interesting how life works.

I have always been very aware of all of my traits. Being very happy (for the most part), being encouraging, outgoing, and kind are all at the forefront of my mind. I was also aware of my negative ones and being too clingy and underestimating myself were at the top of my list. I was never really a typical girl. In that sense I mean I never really thought consciously about getting married or having a lifetime partner. I never have desired intimacy and sex. I have always desired to love someone and having them love me back. At the same time, I have always wondered how and if love could exist without sex.

As my life continued to roll on, and I made it to my 30′s, I have found out that the answer to that particular identity question is yes. I truly believe that we as humans are complex creatures and we never really have a concrete identity. We are all composed of different parts that make us unique and whole. I have to say that my 30′s have been the most empowering time period in my life, and I literally cannot wait to see what’s in store for me in future years.

I am a very emotionally intelligent person. I am good at reading and understanding people at a deeper level. It could be attributed to my social work degree. That's highly likely, but even before the degree, I have always been highly intuitive and intelligent when it comes to other people. Having said that, it is worthy to note, that while caring for others, I have had the habit of putting myself on the backburner. That has recently come to an end, as I have been spending more time discovering myself and who I am. I am going to be writing an article about my own journey tomorrow, and I will try to send it to The Mighty for a further look. I think it might be very interesting for some of you to read. So, please let me know if that is something that you would like to see from me.

I thought I was poised and ready to take my last breath. Let us talk about the importance of music and its role in sustaining life for those of us who have experienced intense and very dark episodes of depression. My personal hero is Jason Wade. Jason Wade is the lead singer of the band called Lifehouse. You may have heard their hit song "Hanging by a Moment" on the radio once or twice if you were alive in 2000. It is almost a certainty.

I remember I was a freshman in high school when I had seen their first music video on MTV. (Yes, I am showing my age here!) I cannot really explain in words what gravitated me towards their music, but something about it was highly appealing and sucked me in.

That same summer, I purchased the record No Name Face from the Tower Records store in Houston, Texas. This would be the album that would absolutely revolutionize and change my life when I least expected it. This would be the exact work of art I would need to help me survive my dramatic and less than desirable teenage years.

You see, when I was a teenager and entering high school I was as just as lost as all of the other kids around me were. Like everyone else, I was afraid to admit that I was a sinking ship destined to go down at any second.

I was afraid of the backlash and humiliation these kinds of thoughts would create. Deep down inside I was suffocating and the devil on my shoulder was delighted. I was not sure if I would ever come up for air again, and if I did, it was becoming increasingly difficult to breathe and exist in my own skin. Add to that the challenge of having a physical disability that leaves me dependent on a wheelchair, and you have a full-fledged disaster. I was the only person in my designated high school who had to rely on a wheelchair. This left me feeling misunderstood and even more isolated than before.

All of this would become the worst tangled mass of depression that I would ever experience. As a result of my depression, my grades were suffering. There was a time when I thought I would never get out of the hell hole that was high school. I did not know who I was, and all I desired was to find my place in an out-of-place world. Being an outcast was as demoralizing and as lonely as it sounds. I have been the only person sitting at a table in a cafeteria full of other kids.

This whole situation would lead me to question the essence of life itself and all that surrounds me. In fact, it got so bad that I started to think about hurting myself. Every afternoon, I would rush back to my bedroom, lay on the floor, and start my CD player. Once I purchased No Name Face, it became the only CD in my CD player for months at a time. Once the music started, I would close my eyes and let the music take over. It is this very thing that helped me realize that I was not alone in this life. It helped me realize that I was not the only person being verbally assaulted by bullies who had nothing better to do with their time than to hurt others. I now realize that their terror was only a reflection of how they felt about themselves. It had little or absolutely nothing to do with me personally.

As a teenager, though, I did not have the mental capacity to realize such a thing. It was not that I was not in control of myself, but I was naïve. Being naïve meant that I did not understand why the bullies chose to pick on me, but eventually, I would start to slowly believe that there was something wrong with me. This is when Jason Wade’s music became my lifeline and the thing that would sustain my life. Because of this especially important aspect, I will always consider Jason to be the person who came to my rescue when I needed it most. Nearly 18 years later, the same thing rings true. It seems like I have a soul-to-soul connection with the band that is ever-lasting. They seem to put out new music when I needed it most. I have searched for other connections with similar bands, but it just does not seem to connect in the same manner. I consider this as something that is meant to be. The connection to Jason Wade’s music will last forever.