In a culture fixated on happiness,

physical health and nutritious foods are advertised as a vaccine to mental illness, as if we can subside our anxieties with vitamins or downward dog our way out of depression.

We make judgments about the toxicity of drugs, without ever understanding the toxicity of the illness.

Our accessories are smeared with ingredients to happiness,

sweat

laugh

breathe

as if it truly is that simple. As if our basic human functions should prevent any mental ailment.

We say we support those with mental illness,

as we cower from men who sit on the side of the road, muttering to themselves,

as we scowl at those who have “allowed” themselves to become slaves to a drug,

as we roll our eyes at those who look to us to listen, shutting them up with our intuitions.

As if we know what will make things better because it’s written on our freaking lunch bags, when really, we don’t even know the problem.

So maybe today,

instead of talking,

we listen.

as if we live temporarily in moments of intensity, yearning to fulfill every ounce of desire, pulling ourselves into each other's gravities, finishing with an insatiable sensation of substance, of an utter sense of purpose.

but somewhere

amidst the rising sun and cleansing morning dew, memories lapse with new demands of the coming days, causing us to bow our heads and turn our shoulders, diverging to establish resurfacing physical laws:

that which pulled becomes that which pushes.

Just as who we are becomes who we were.

it's the morning after, 

and all that we can do

is bridge that which ached us into submission with the mundane remains. 

Waiting,

he watched her in her deepest sleep

Holding her hand,

Kissing her cheek,

But from this sickened slumber, she would not wake

so he fell,

Defeat

He assumed it all started as a thought,

a thought that was fed and fueled and founded her current existence,

That she could concur it with resistance,

That it was merely a matter of persistence,

When really,

this sickened slumber seeped and creeped and trickled through her veins,

Corroding her mind,

Her muscles restrained,

the shadow of a feeling

that drove her insane

But what was to blame?

He searched and sought for the cause

If not in her mind, if not one of her flaws,

what was taking her away,

Where was she getting lost?

Upon her it fell like darkness,

Wading her way through, tied down by the guilt of her weakness,

Struggling to go on,

she began to feel lifeless

Untraceable, unbearable

she fell further into the sleep

And from the inside,

she watched

as he watched,

Admitting defeat