depression

March 15, 2026

/ HJ / Leave a comment

hold your breath

count to ten
and count to ten
again

breathing reminds you
you’re still alive
though you’ve spent your whole life
dying
to die

compose yourself
expose your insides
for art
for payment
for friendship
for funzies
for a dare
to anyone out there
who may feel the same way
[though it’s so lonely
in one’s own mind
it’s impossible to imagine
finding company]

wander around
while catatonic to the ground
and know
it’s all in your head

[which is somehow supposed to make it
easier]

[what do they know]

March 10, 2026

/ HJ / Leave a comment

my own imagination
is a fickle, fickle place

sometimes a comfort

sometimes an anxiety-ridden nightmare
full of all the fuel i put into it
over years and decades of
self-hatred
and self-loathing
and self-harming
and imploding
and all i thought i’d want to accomplish
and all i still want to do
but am frozen to
the spot when i try to try

maybe
as with the imagination
i just need to keep on
gently
trying
and exploring
till i find a neat little [abandoned] space
and sit inside it
for a while

February 16, 2026

/ HJ / Leave a comment

feeling like i just want to fall asleep
and stay asleep
at any given moment
of any given day

and is it depression?

is it the exhaustion of an
active allergic reaction?

am i just a little bit less
energetic
than the average
person?

could it be something i’m not even thinking of
yet?

or do i just want to spend my days lost in my own imagination land?

[and
could i bring that imagination
into my own waking
writing
life
sometime?

soon?

please?]

February 12, 2026

/ HJ / Leave a comment

i wish i could just
relax into knowing
i know something

but instead the anxiety decides
to show up right at that moment
and “release” me from feeling
good about
anything
and instead
i feel
stupid/foolish/in over my head/a fraud

a straight up, full on imposter

how will i ever feel
like i’ve achieved
anything
if this is what my brain chemistry
does to me
every
single
time?

January 31, 2026

/ HJ / Leave a comment

two panic attacks
[or something like them]
in one month
after years of fair avoidance

i cannot tell if something is
going on
inside me

or if it simply the strain
of the external forces
of the world i cannot control
[but still affects us all]

or maybe
maybe
it’s the strain of january
of winter
when i can never see the light of spring
at the end of the proverbial
tunnel

just give me one crocus blossom
one sprig of green
not these mountains of slush-snow
and lows below zero overnight
i need something
something
something to keep me going

this has been the longest january i’ve seen
since wisconsin

January 18, 2026

/ HJ / Leave a comment

i want to hypnotize myself
into actually trying
full out
when i want something

rather than shooting myself in the foot/
ripping the rug right out from under me/
doing other things to ruin my chances

because…why?

because i somehow still believe i don’t deserve good things?

because i’m scared to committing to one thing
and believe that means i’m cutting off options
for any other possibility in my potential life?

because i am still not convinced that all of this is really real?

those are all terrible reasons

and i still can’t convince myself
with my conscious/logic brain
to make my subconsciousness
stop destroying all my chances

[that’s why i need so many
non-pressurized hobbies —
because the minute they matter
i
implode
]

December 7, 2025

/ HJ / Leave a comment

december is really hitting me like
a ton of bricks
being transformed quickly into feathers
[i still have some bruises, and some pokes,
but all in all it’s the suffocating stuffing that’s
hitting me rather than the pounding of existential pressure, so
at least that’s…
different]

December 1, 2025

/ HJ / Leave a comment

it is december
it is december
i’m allowing myself these
twenty-five to thirty-one days
of holiday feeling

[perhaps it’s a mistake,
but,
in nyc i believe
i am not beholden to old memories —
this city makes new ones all the time
and i can learn from all of that
and all of those
and have an nyc holiday season
instead of suffering from memories
of midwest christmases
long since passed]