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Every Day Poems

A Poem A Day

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Depression Poems

“Alone and at Night” by: Eliana Sara

January 10, 2023 by Every Writer

“Alone and at Night”

by Eliana Sara

Do you remember when
We were walking late at night
And the streetlights went out

One by one
Like every horror film you’ve ever seen
At least that’s what you said
(I never went for those personally)

And we realized we were “city folk”
who are all marked by their shared fear
of complete darkness.

We ended up holding hands
and not admitting that
we were both more afraid than we should have been.

So you went to show off
following the path through the “forest”.
Really it was just a heavily tree-lined path
but to us, that’s a forest.

At home there is always some kind of
dirty, shady, (likely broken) light.
And even if they are orange and dim
our streets are never empty.

And we aren’t left to wonder
What’s crawling through the night
And if what we hear is human
Or something full of bright
menacing smiles and baring teeth
likely faster, stronger, than you
and hungry
for meat that’s fresh–
And you told me to stop.

I thought it was funny that I scared you.
I’m sorry I scared you.

Do remember we were sure we saw a fire
and you wanted to “check it out”
I had to admire your sense of adventure
(but now I think you just wanted to save face).

I reminded you of your horror movies
and told you that it was probably,
people trying to keep warm that night.
Besides all that, the leaves crackled loudly
and could easily give us away .

Then I had to remind you
as you were walking away
(because that’s the first it occurred to me)
that the cliché of
“straying from the path”
always ends badly.
And following lights past the dark
and through the leaves can only mean
that you wander off forever.

You went anyway
but I stayed.
When the lights came back on
I couldn’t see where you had gone.

###
Eliana is a Brooklyn based gal. This is her first piece of poetry appearing anywhere. Other writing has shown up in Ink magazine and Kitsch. She has a fairly new online literary magazine: http://thefuriousgazelle.com/

Filed Under: Depression Poems, Love Poems

Depression by Sarah Litchney

March 17, 2019 by Every Writer

Depression

by Sarah Litchney

All these structures fall in repression.
I am depressed and on this canvas I write on.
I attempt to make dazzling pictures with majestic peacocks and screaming sirens,
but only see the machinery of decaying forest.

You can have that part of me you desire,
all eight legs and venomous fangs,
with crawling silence of my footsteps,
I bite off heads and sliver in my solitude.
St. John was offered on this silver platter.
He made what was mortal some plea to the gods,
but I take head without offering any comfort.
I have no will to be compassionate.

The mind becomes a stretch of mute blackness.
The body is the vessel of torment.
I pull out each eyelash and grind them against my dry skin.
I seek the companionship of abandonment.

So clear a liar to myself and my other selves,
I close my eyes in hope of night.
No one to stop the circulation,
of rights and wrongs and ailments of blight.

###

Sarah Litchney is a student studying Creative Writing and English at Southern New Hampshire University. She has been published in a college literary journal twice for her poetry, and she won a national poetry contest when she was ten in middle school. She currently pole dances and Olympic weight lifts in her free time, and she loves dancing salsa with her Hispanic family on the weekends.

Filed Under: Depression Poems

Birdbrained Emotions by Jessica K. Hylton

July 21, 2014 by Every Writer

jessy1

Birdbrained Emotions

by Jessica K. Hylton

They say to get over someone
You’re supposed to pick up a new hobby
And apparently the most cathartic
Are the hobbies where you make something
So you bring a woodworking bench
Past the film cameras, the roller skates, the bass guitar
And hope that a new birdhouse
Will take away memories
Better than the temporary
Reprieve granted by neon flavored shots
And long legs that walk in directions
You don’t really want to go

But one birdhouse only leads to another
A gateway carpentry
And pretty soon the whole living room
Is filled with 353 birdhouses
Then you realize you don’t even like birds
Fucking feathered freaks that shit on their own food
Why do they deserve to live in such palaces
While you can barely afford a one bedroom apartment
That smells of burnt out cigarettes and stale new beginnings

In fact you hate birds
You think about taking all the houses
Outside and lighting them on fire
To be rid of the clutter
But while you’re looking for matches
You run across a keepsake that you shouldn’t still keep
And pretty soon you’re staring at a blank text message
Trying to think of the right thing to say to the wrong person

Thinking honesty is the best option
You start typing out “I mis–”
But you can’t even stand to look at the words
As if somehow seeing them makes
Them more real and you know honesty
Is only appreciated by hearts that want to beat
Not by those looking for refuge behind walls

You throw the phone across
The birdhouse mountain range
And do the only thing you know
How to do at this point
Start on number 354

###

Jessica K. Hylton writes most of her poetry while driving. She has wrecked three cars, but she finished her dissertation.

 

Filed Under: Depression Poems, Love Poems

Concrete Ground by Anne H. Bakke

June 11, 2014 by Every Writer

anna

Concrete Ground

by Anne H. Bakke

It’s that bitter taste
again
it comes and goes like the seasons; the sun and the moon; the rain and the sky; the wind and the stillness.
It’s windy out here,
in the cold
in the open
so fragile
I am
out here
Does it ever stop
that feeling,
I ask.
Yes,
you answer, when you are dead. You tell me.
But why does it have to hurt, I ask you again.
You smile.
No, it doesn’t always hurt, I tell myself.

###

Anne H. Bakke is from Norway, and currently studying European studies at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology.

Filed Under: Depression Poems, Moon Poem

1956 by Ray Stiefvater

March 4, 2014 by Every Writer

ocean

1956

by Ray Stiefvater

I am 14 or 15 here
I am at the local swimming pool
on Overlook Drive in Schenley Park
I am trying to dive into the water
but all I can muster is a
painful belly flop
that stings my chest and stomach

I am immediately embarrassed
because I am sure people have been
watching me
I imagine them laughing
I plunge through the surface like a rock
the water closes around me
it muffles the sounds of the world above me

I drift down to the bottom of the pool
and remain there for as long as
my breath holds out
I count to 20 and
bob to the surface like cork
I swim to the side of the pool
and climb the ladder out of the water

I feel the sun’s heat
on the bottoms of my feet
she is on the other side of
the pool with two of her girlfriends
they are smoking cigarettes and sunning themselves
on large beach towels
she is so absolutely perfect to me

I squint through the blinding sunlight at her
she glares at me over her sunglasses
it’s a contemptuous look
it’s like a slap on the back of
someone who’s sunburned
she can kill with her eyes

I jump back into the pool and swim to the bottom
I want to drown and be over with it
I’m so love sick
I hate myself bcause of it
I am 14 or 15 here and I love her with all my heart
but of course she doesn’t love me
I just irritate her like a paper cut

Filed Under: Depression Poems

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