Black Dog

I feel so blessed. I’m lucky.
I have a job while I’m pursuing my degree. 
I feel blessed to be living in a metro city,
with a beautiful culture and community.

I am humble. I am free.
I live life the way I dreamed it to be.
I exist,the way I deem fit to be. 
I feel blessed,for investing in myself.
After years of rejection,and lost self-respect. 

I stood out of the balcony,
of a 9th-floor building, ready to grow wings.
But I feel blessed,
that the winds didn’t blow that evening. 

I stood on a chair and designed a noose,
to serve as my last neckpiece.
I feel blessed, that the slipknot couldn’t hold my weight,
although only hurting my jaw slightly. 

When I was in school, I saw love birds chirping,
living the empty classroom fantasies.
Red blood bangles were my teenage reality.
But I feel blessed, that the metal wasn’t sharp enough.
Although the scars still remind me of my kiddish insecurities. 

I feel blessed, I lived in my study room.
For a year during 2015. I created a path,
through the tears of my internal galaxy. 
I am in debt. Of my mother and the rest of my family.
I am in debt, to the bank’s generous college tuition fee. 

I’m extremely blessed.
That I now live alone in this city,
with no real witnesses,
to my everyday miseries or eccentricity. 

I feel blessed.
To have loved and lost.
It makes me want to invest in an afterlife,
beyond my struggles, years of self-pity or self-doubt. 

People come and people leave,
like the sun in the sky every day of the week.
But when darkness becomes your reality,
every ray of the sunshine hits you like the enemy. 

Still, I feel blessed.
I can lift my self up, after every depressive stunt.
I don’t grow wings or create jewellery anymore.
I only want deep sleep for my troubled Black Dog. 

I go through my lone weeks at home,
with intense emotions of happiness and woe.
I have clothes piled up on plastic strings,
and dishes growing dust in the sink.
But once in a while, especially when visitors pass by,
my house is spick and span clean,
strings empty and sink dry. 

Every once in a while, when I have an audience to please,
I put on a smile to disguise my shivering knees.
Or say it’s too hot when I’m sweating profusely. 
They are fascinated by the beauty I represent.
The ME, I present to them, with my words and poems.
The visions of an external wonderland.

But behind closed doors, I can’t even scream.
If I cut my heart out, there will be poison,
scarring my tiny family.
Like bloodless rivers, clouding their eye’s ageing dreams. 

So I feel blessed.
That I can lift my self up,
after every depressive stunt.
I don’t grow wings or create jewellery anymore.
I only think of deep sleep
For when it finally comes,
My Black Dog will be at Peace.