I regret. I regret I hadn't kept a diary in all that time I was hurting. A day-to-day journal of my brokenness, of my pain, of my agony, my distress. Poems. I had disregarded my Number 1 passion. My words did not proliferate, instead I just soaked my bed with tears and praying so hard it would go away. How could I have been so careless? All those times I could have made art, poetry, books, all wasted in a single act of, Go away. I don't want to talk to anybody. No, many single acts.

And if, if there is a grander event, a bigger event than that, that would ask for my tears, for my body to stay in bed all day, for my mind to be lonely again, I would do so, in a flight of passion. Hurriedly. I would scurry to this grander event, happily shed my tears and write about it. Hell, how have I not known about this before? For if there is a passion that I would not happily enslave for, in a glance, in a thought, in a second, it would be writing

Now I had forgotten. I forgot to be angry, to be hurt. My heart does not bleed anymore, but also my ink. My ink refuses to bleed, the way it so automatically used to before. Nothing. My heart is happy, but not my pen. I would wave it, shake it, throw it, but it would not wield its literary magic it once used to bestow...

Yesterday was one year and five months.

I can't tell you how many days

because I lost count.

I can tell you that the need is always there like a nagging poke at the back of my mind but for one year and five months I had been able to ignore it. I had been able to push it aside.

But yesterday was different.

Don't ask me why because in all honesty I wouldn't be able to tell you.

It's hard enough for me to understand even after so many years of battling my bipolar disorder and depression.

One year and five months went down the drain... literally as I watched the blood go down the drain right after it.

Yesterday, it felt good to feel numb after letting my addiction take over.

Yesterday, I knew that today would be a numbing, draining day with my thoughts and guilt. I knew that the need would once again become a nagging poke because I couldn't let it come to the forefront of my mind again.

I was right.

Yeterday was one of the worse days I've had in a long time.

I wouldn't be able to tell you why and what triggered it because I don't know.

What I can tell you is that today is

Day One...

Empty of life’s breath,

I take a gulp of air

into my hollow essence

thirsting to fill

my concave valley

with sparkling drops

of silvered water

soothing me in tiny sips

beneath

my floundering surface.

I beg to fill my soul,

overcome by drumming heart,

scraped by sloughing skin,

bloodless ties

torn asunder,

ribbons of my sobs.

I incise my body

of my wounds,

swallow my need

and memories of you.

At last, I take another

gasp of breath

expelling space to fill

my lungs with inhaled

pulse of zephyrs

beginning anew

as wet cheeks are met

with loving hands

grasping me

in their calming heat.

Blue gloves on his hands,

Slowly filling with sweat,

As he checks for breathing,

Pressing down on a unforgiving chest,

Hands slipping with blood,

Making it that much harder,

He attaches the pads,

Only to realize

The AED's not turned on,

Fumbling desperately,

This is how you save a life.

Please don't be that guy.

Please don't be the one who causes the party to end early.

Because he got so drunk, he puked on the host.

Then immediately tried to kiss the host's wife.

After he couldn't stop grabbing cups of punch.

Please don't be the one, who comes home from work at the bar,

Stomping and scaring your young daughter.

Uncaringly, mistaking her room for the nearby bathroom,

And peeing on her white toy bin after too much white wine.

Please don't be the one, that on a supposed fun night.

Spent too much time at the arcade's bar,

And when your wife is beeped in to go to the hospital as the head doctor,

Get pulled over with your daughter in the backseat.

Please don't be the one, who on new year's eve,

mistook your daughter for your wife,

and made her drink champagne,

before she could even spell the word.

Please don't be the one, who argued with your wife,

And angrily break a lamp and your wife's nose,

With your daughter crying in the corner,

Not old enough to know how to dial 911.

Please don't be the one, whose bruised wife

has to leave before your daughter's pale

skin is black and blue with hit marks,

Left alone with no one else.

Please don't be the one, who couldn't stop

Who drank too much, who got too rough,

Who couldn't put their foot down.

Who got in fights for acting too tough.

Please don't be that guy.

Lost. She is lost

but still surrounded

by others who are

trying to guide her.

She is not as lost

as she thought she is.

If she only could

stop closing her eyes

and pull her fingers

out of her ears.

Clairage

Somewhere between,

Learning to treat her ugly wounds

As battle scars,

Turning her bubbling hope

Into boundless faith,

Convincing herself that she would make it,

To actually making it;

With her Pride intact,

Her Lifetime passed.