I feel myself slipping
and I'm not sure why.

I call you-
"Something isn't right."

"What do you mean?"

"I don't know."
My voice cracks,
"I just don't feel right. 
My chest hurts.
I am so scared."

My world crumbles around me.

"I will be home soon.
I promise.
Just breathe."

I feel myself sinking into the Earth below me.

I feel my entire being
fading back into the Universe
but instead
fall into your arms. 

The First Moments of Waking

The sun rises
Reflections of shades of orange
red
yellow
and white
blind me
as I emerge anew.

The warmth caresses me
softly
dancing across my naked skin

What once frightened me
now stands a testament
to who
I can become.

To what I will achieve.

I am a beautiful piece
to the ever expanding universe
and I will not
be afraid.

I cannot be afraid.

My Shadow Lingers

I have been so stuck in my head recently
-a captive to my own thoughts

Afraid of what the future holds
Reminiscing on what the past has been.

It is amazing
truly amazing
what depression can do to a girl

How anxiety can destroy a fighting soul.

I feel out of place
in my own body.

I feel
-lost-
Utterly lost
and I hate it.

I miss who I was
and who I am yet to be

And I don't even know who that is.

I exist in this moment
and this moment alone

I contemplate the physics and the reasoning for all of this
and cannot come up with a purpose.

I hear my little brother's voice on the phone
and I try to picture his face
but all that I see is the vast space that falls between us.

No one ever told me that growing up
would be so difficult.

I can hardly remember my oldest brother's voice
-he's a far off memory
whom I try to remember
but more oft than not
forget.

-he is gone-

My love is my lifeline
he keeps me fighting despite
my urge to take flight.

I used to have the answers
I used to have them all

Now,
I am afraid of my own shadow
and the destruction
she inflicts on my aching soul.

So,
I sleep.
I close my eyes
and pray to myself
that I will live another day.

I am afraid of my own shadow
and the destruction
she inflicts
on my
aching
soul.

"I Drink American" by Donald Hough, Excerpt from The Bedside Esquire, Tudor Publishing Co 1933-1940

“I do not like to sit down and drink like a gentleman, neither do I like to stop drinking because I can feel my liquor, as gentlemen do in England, or anyway in English books.

I am an American and I drink American.

I do not understand this constant bickering about drinks and gentlemen. A man who drinks like a gentleman is, it is popularly supposed, one who sips his liquor sitting down, looks straight ahead with dignity, drinks with all the gusto and expression of an Indian taking his balsam tea against the evil spirits, and ends by rising slowly to his feet and saying, “Well, old fellow, I’ll toddle up to bed.” And then he really does toddle up to bed.

This is a waste of time, a waste of liquor, and a waste of gentleman.

It makes it difficult for the layman to discover why Englishmen and others who drink like gentlemen drink at all. Drinking, throughout America excepting the Harvard Club, and among non-gentlemen the world over, is an adventure, not a heathen ritual. It springs from an understandable and, so far as I am concerned, a laudable, curiosity as to what will happen if, just about the time the gentlemanly drinker is toddling up to bed, you shake your head vigorously and start walking in a northeasterly direction.

It is at this point that the spirit of the pioneers in the American bloodstream comes bounding to the surface, and the American steps forth.

He is unafraid.

The impenetrable night lies just ahead, holding dangers that are exceeded in magnitude only by the rewards that are possible. Where the Englishman knows he’s going to end up in bed, the American likes to think he may end up in Bali. Frequently he ends up in jail, but incredible as it may seem, he often does get to Bali.

It’s worth trying for…”

Things feel different
from how they felt before.

I am tired
weary of my journey
and
I would like to go home.

The Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil

Toward the sun
the moon
and among all of the stars

I look out
into the great unknown

and I search

For something to hold onto
For answers
to the multitude of questions
that flow through my tireless mind.

Colors
Patterns
Brilliant delights
that taunt me
and frighten me
within the depths
of the night.

But who would hear
If I cried out in despair?

Certainly not the heavens.

I am forsaken to my own curiosity.
To my own misdoings.
And for all that I know
It would be easiest to just
forget.

"The World is Quiet Here"

And as I look off into the space 

between here

and there

-the grand trees 

Green with life

Their leaves fluttering

in the soft wind

Whispering their secrets 

to one another

and through the 

distant mountains.

The birds are quiet.

It is calm.

A blue sky freckled with small

white clouds.

I take a deep breath,

close my eyes

-and then exhale.

As the day 

meanders away 

from me.  

"The world is quiet here."