turning depression into art

May 5, 2025

/ HJ / Leave a comment

sometimes the yearning gets to be too much
and the decision is either to
delve deep
and inevitably find
that even as i try
to live in the memories of the moments gone by
i can’t even remember them
accurately
fully
or, sometimes,
at all

or

just pretend like i’m putting off that analysis
for another day
and put it of
and put it off
and wait
and wait
and wait for the day when
i will be able to remember accurately and fully
because of magic
or time travel
or something else entirely
[even though i know
full well
the first stanza of this poem
will never fully be fixed
so i prefer to live in this one
where the possibility
still
exists]

May 3, 2025

/ HJ / Leave a comment

i don’t know how to stop my kip
from staring at their phone
reading the terrible news
and feeling worse
and worse
and worse
as the hours go by

because

if left to my own devices

i would stare at my phone
and watch videos of
on the ground tragedies
and feel worse
and worse
and worse
as the hours go by

and neither of us feeling worse
will change the things happening
halfway across the world
or right in our own backyard

we need to fill our cups
and have the hope
and energy
to put forth change
that will help
others
and ourselves

but
how
how
how
when everything feels so important
and hopeless
in the palms of our
hands?

April 10, 2025

/ HJ / Leave a comment

time passing
too swiftly
to get me
pumped
about any one event or even one day

i need now to look forward to
a weekend
a whole month
a big big change in scenery

[but the tiniest/
eensy weensiest/
minutest little things
still bring my whole mood
down
down
down

so what’s that about?]

March 19, 2025

/ HJ / Leave a comment

pain
and depression
are linked for me,
for i can stand
a great deal of each
but the moment it/i reach
a breaking point
a moment when the pain is too unbearable
a moment when my thoughts get too dark
even for my somber self,
a moment when i feel at the brink of too muchness
and nothingness
that is exactly when the physical and mental pain
fades
and i am left feeling so silly
for wondering if
now
was the moment i’d give in
and just
die

March 14, 2025

/ HJ / Leave a comment

so much happened yesterday
and i
didn’t even poem about it
[yet]

~~~

{trigger warning: suicidal ideation, mention of eating disorders}

my overanalytic brain
that runs through every possibility
that made a whole “pro & con” list
on which eating disorder
to give myself
is probably the same thing
that has saved me
from actually killing myself
every time i’ve gotten close
in these
ideations

~~~

distracted
and distractable
and not what i wanted
from my day at home
preparing to do things
i should be doing
should have done
days
weeks
months
ago
but am i just going to
nap
again
until it’s time to leave
again?
again?
again?

March 10, 2025

/ HJ / Leave a comment

i wish i saw through poet’s eyes
the beauty of the earth at all times —
but instead i see the pain and despair
and try to beautify that
with impassioned speeches/
or try to find the tiniest spec
of lovely
in a day full of pain/
and make the mundane
beautiful again

though it doesn’t really feel like
poetry
to me
without grand sunsets
or allegories of bees and flowers,

i’m over here trying —
making beauty out of angst
and bubble gum