When I’m facing problems I just lash out.
But I’d rather laugh now.
If it’s me and you, I’ll take your pain and all its lashings.
Then at least your demons wouldn’t have to act out.

Life is just differing variations of the truth.
I’m not above all the mistakes we’ve grown accustomed to. 
I just want a fresh start.
and to move on from all my worst ways I was stuck in too.

I’m need to part ways with whatever doesn’t serve God’s purpose for me.
My life’s mission is incomplete, 
if her spirit isn’t moving in tandem with me.
There’s too many pages of lines and thoughts from D that the world never should see.
Every time the pen bleeds,
I gain more insight inevitably.

I made a bad religion out of questioning my worth.
I thought love gave definition to the man that I am.
Even the purest church could wash me clean from these waves full of sins.
I just need to pull myself away from this stagnant stage that I’m in.

Again and again.
I’m saved by the pen.
But also torn by the words.
My heart’s breaking and then
My future and my past throw haymakers like heavyweights in this bitch.
Is this even manhood if my inner child hasn’t had his phases of wins?

I hope that filling these pages with my soul cement my adolescent’s healing. 
Looking at the two hand prints I left in the driveway of my old house and my layers start peeling.

I just need healthier ways to escape from my all that I’m feeling.
The pad and the ocean breezes are my only reprieving. 
Unseen damages erased from the page like messages never sent that I deleted.
All that I can be can’t be all that I’m seeing. 
I kmow that the ink blotches gives my depression’s journey its meaning.
This is a shattered heart giving light to dark nights when my happy is fleeting.
I held on to my demons too long now I think I’m scared to release them.
Or maybe I feel like I need em.
Thinking bout all the blessings I lost since I started to send prayers less frequent.
All the sharpened shards that my soul caught must left my spirit leaking & bleeding.
Too many days in the mirror I can’t seem to find D-Simms.
Did I just misplace him or did I leave him?
My mental guard strengthens as my heart’s walls start to weaken.
Cause I started to accept any and everything, especially things not worth keeping.
Who wants a love that feels like climbing to Everest’s peak?
I want a love I can geek in.
I look love in her face and lost faith in her planted seedlings.
The rotted fruit I was eating fell far from my tree. 
And now whoever I was has been lost for too many seasons. 
Losing myself was self treason. 

I had to learn to conquer my father’s rage.
I had to out grow my mother’s words.
And overcome my young lover’s hurt.
And learn to put in the work.
To grow through these growing pains.
Because we grown now and staying stuck in my troubled ways…
Is simply not on the pages.
This journal’s my only company on my darkest of days.

I abandoned my emotions.
Because I felt like a burden if I showed them.
Now I’m a not so young man that’s still shattered and broken.
But to sit in my heartache doesn’t serve where I’m going.
I use to pull the curtain and isolate in the darkness since I’m lonely.
But these words are written to share my failures and successes of growing.
Keeping pain quiet could make suffering feel quite homely.
I started to trick myself into believing my hurt was my home. 
I thought for certain I was defined by all the heartless stints I was showing.

But I had to protect myself while I healed.
I had to learn to sit still.
Even with laboured breathing during the nights that were sleepless.
I started to believe the state of hurt I was in was needed.
And deserved because of the person i was growing into being.

But watch me now…

The inspiration for this longer piece …