Mentor

My mentor once told me

That I write using too many metaphors

And maybe I should just say what I mean.

Maybe it was that my mental state

Could be summarized by my Spotify playlist –

Maybe it was the fact

That the ice-pick scars on my body

Tally-marked the days since the happy was drained out of me –

But I could never be my own doctor.

I could never say with a straight face,

This is what’s wrong with you,

And this is what you have to do to fix it.

I was the new definition of broken

But I didn’t want to hear that my prognosis

Was likely shorter than a year

If I didn’t swallow the pills they gave me

And face fact –

That not everything in this life

Has a way of being explained

Other than the definition

You can find in your local Barnes and Noble

Oxford Dictionary.

Maybe the only thing

I was good at running away from

Was the truth —

I was far too good at reinventing something

By slapping a new name onto its package —

iPhone 6, McRib,

The Lord of The Rings Trilogy

Extended Edition with Director’s Commentary,

And “Happy,”

So I slapped on another fake smile,

I touched my pen to paper,

And tried to find another way to describe

What being face-to-face with death felt like

Without referencing the kitchen knife

That inscribed the prophecy of my own death

Into any surface on my body I could cut —

The only reason you don’t see many scars on my wrist

Is I know how to properly dress a wound —

I know how to lie to myself

And say that I am fine

When I am clearly bleeding out onto the floor of my shower —

I was able to convince myself

With the image of closing a book

And forgetting the plot

Until the second before someone brings it up

Ten years later,

That people would be able to move on

From the tragedy that would be my split veins

And my drained heart.

I was never good at describing the big picture.

When it comes to hope,

I always pictured

An empty bucket with one grain of sand,

When I thought of love,

I created a bottomless ocean,

And when I think of metaphor, —

I think of me lying to my mother,

Telling her everything was going to be okay

As she cried in front of me

On a bench halfway between the emergency room

And the psych ward. As a poet,

I have driven myself insane

Trying to describe things

In a way that people won’t expect.

But sometimes,

The best way to describe life,

Is to get naked,

Undress the truth you try to hide in your words

Look at yourself in the mirror,

And be honest.

I’ve lied to myself enough.

I’ve lied to others more.

So now,

When I think of miracles,

I don’t imagine a flower.

I know

That what a miracle is,

Is the fact that I am still here.

This is me.

This is who I am.

And there is no metaphor

In an infinite vocabulary

That can describe that.