blakereflected

I cannot sleep

The pain leaves me in vain

I toss, I turn

I sigh, I yearn

I think of the end

My thoughts don’t pretend

I wish I could dream

What have I learned

I feel sick to my stomach

I need to escape

I need a way out

I can’t even scream

I can’t even shout

What is this life even about

My world is at war

In a way like never before

I’m in a familiar land

But it hurts so much

It feels foreign, I cannot pretend

So I fall

So I submit

So I wait

And so I sit

This is nothing, but shit

Sobriety is uncertain

It is a curtain I wish to keep closed

As the song goes

One day at a time

Sobriety wants to be a friend of mine

I write like yesterday is forgotten

A new chapter has begun

I ash my cigarette

Full of a past I often regret

Letting go of suicidal ammunition

Now I journey to an unclear, uncertain destination

The music is loud

But lost in translation

As I put down words

Talking to myself as I do

It’s so real it’s absurd

Am I pacing in circles?

Chain smoking as I do

Gone are the ways I used to be

Now is a new day I’m glad to see

The past fills me with running thoughts

Mistakes I have made, over and over

Again and again

What keeps me breathing is the love of my friend

But I disappoint even myself

Am I worthy of a better life?

Do I dare handle the knife?

Breaking, not broken

Living, not dying

Can’t even begin to start crying

Paralyzed in a dreamlike state

While I sleep, no longer awake

And so I dream again for tomorrow to take me

Guided by my inner hatred

Of a life, so naked

Waking is exhausting

Tired, not even walking

Pain is so hard

But so easy to write

Blinded by day, guided by night

I want to change

God knows I do

But stuck in my thoughts is all that’s new

I did drugs

I’ve decided no more

For the sadness and hopelessness

Turns the next day

Into the next night

Sober today

Recovered from yesterday

Far from a couple days ago

I can’t take any of it back

For reaching towards the past is everything I lack

Change your life

Change your way of thinking

Keep your eyes open

Without even blinking

You’re all right

It’s okay

Let go of the past

Hold onto today

I hang in a mind that wonders why I should

And tells me why I shouldn’t

For the people I love I couldn’t

For family, for love, I wouldn’t

I untie the belt

I put it back on my robe

This room is a conversation

Only this one is one sided

Who am I talking to?

Walking through

Wanting and willing for so much more

This room has a door

But I sleep in a paralyzed state

Dreaming while awake

Not moving for I am in an exhausted state

I wonder where this blanket will take me

For when I hide under it

I am lost

For when I uncover myself

I just don’t know where to go

The grass breathes as the wind increases

And so I lay, on broken pieces

Waiting to inhale

And exhale, so broken

For through my thought, no words are spoken

I stay home, to forget

I leave without regret

And so, the stage is set

I cannot steer

Alive without fear

Dying seems near

I don’t know if my time is ending or beginning

I am empty with scattered thoughts that overlap

Leaving me with nothing, but a reflection caught in my mind

I wish I knew the day

I am lost in this rhetorical time

Sirens scream loudly

In a day so cloudy

I can barely see

Deafened by my own inner thoughts

Overwhelmed by everything

Surrounded by nothing

I want to lay

But instead I splash through a never-ending current

Crazy, I cannot be

For even when I am lost

Through darkness I can still see

This cannot be the way life should move

Is everything gained

When memories fade, and the past is no longer a journal’s last page

I ache from a numbness that feels so strong

I ache from things I just cannot say

Am I young

For, does it not feel so strange getting old?

It does

Lost in translation, watching traffic to and fro

Where do I stay

Where do I go

I listen to music drowned by a bird that hums

And so, my mind reels forward

Down a street driven by the blanket on my bed

Medicine is consumed by conversation

I just can’t stop talking

As silence is my footstep as I continue walking

Water flows in my dreams

Air is the canvas in which I lean

I breathe deeply

I exhale to the tune of a song

I do nothing, yet so much, as my life moves on

Poetic unchained melodies

Are the conversations I have, so seldom I can barely see

Yet the response is never the same

As all we are, are the verses of our names

Sadness seeps through days that never end

It stays as years vanish over and over

Happiness is a blink

I wish it were more than a thought

I wish it were permanent

For suicidal ideation, is a place my spirit wanders

The afternoon comes from a morning where I knew not how to wake

Dreaming of an escape

But the woman I love

Stands by a heavenly gate

She takes, always, my reflected hate

It’s the way she makes me feel

With her company

With her words

With her love

Happiness is a place

Where my eyes can stay open

And they do

Paralyzed Conscience

When the world is asleep

I am awake

When the world is awake

I am asleep

Dreaming in a state of paralysis

I beg to my dreams, wake me

For only then can I cry

For only then I can make sense of why

I fight to move

But breathing is easy

I wish the world and I could relate

I wish my ceiling was an escape

I wish my ceiling didn’t stare down in my depressed consciousness

I ache without pain

Dreaming of the night again

My pills put me to sleep

So sad I am I cannot even weep

I spill my drink

My mind races to think

Before I can even blink

I talk to myself aloud

With no answer found

I listen to music on this precious day

Awake for once, while the world goes to and fro

I write with the blinds closed

I don’t pay attention to the ceiling

I look through the cracks of my blinds

And I see the sky

I see no reason to feel

And so I let go, and to my greater power

I submit and I kneel

Scattered amongst the stars

Is a life that has felt scars

Amongst a pain that does persist

Is an angel living through the mist

In life, good company she had made

To the heavens, her soul, she has gave

Laughter is subdued by all of our tears

A life too perfect, to an end so near

Our thoughts do question, why is this so

Where is this angel, where did she go

She left you longing for us to stay close

For her love for us, was more than most

I beckon to the wind and look to the shore

I ask is this real, where is the door

Calling her name is what we can do

Seeing the pain, dampened by dew

I love the path that my friend made

Her soul now travels, her body is laid

The days are long

The years have been short

My mind inside carries thoughts through the dark

I miss my friend

I miss her laugh

I wonder now, what is her path

God can be harsh, life is so hard

But her breath was so soft, eyes lit like the stars

Her name was Amanda, and she was my friend

I wish in my life, hers did not sadly end

But I am certain she lived a life f...

On Sunday April 1st, 2018, my grandfather, my Popper, sadly passed away. He lived a very long, full life, of 94 years, but towards the end the fight he always had to keep living finally ended. He is the father of my dad, Walter Horsley, and my uncle, Peter Horsley. He was a man I always looked up to and deeply admired for the courage and pride he always carried and always displayed. He was a great man, one who fought for Canada and the rest of the world throughout the Second World War. In 1944 he landed on Juno Beach at D-Day and helped the Canadian army win won of the most important battles of that tragic World War. Though the war was a tragedy in so many ways, to my family, the Horsley family, it was also a very special blessing in disguise we all cannot deny. In that war, while stationed in Belgium, he met his future wife, a Belgian war Bride named Monique. He swept her off her feet and brought her home, to Canada, after the war ended, soon marrying her and starting the family that...

Steadily you write

As ashes hit the paper

Awake, though it is late

The night has come and so you wait

You dreamt tears of sadness

A pain that is deep within

A pain that seems, has always been

You dreamt and woke

It’s almost easier to be awake

For even in bed, you cannot hide from it

Where is the shore surrounding this empty abyss

You don’t know what you want, and yet it’s everything you miss

The blankets consume you, no longer with comfort

What is real

Is all of it pain

How can you feel, alone, wanting more

The rain does not fall, on this cold dreary day

The rain does not come; a bedroom’s ceiling blocks the way

If I could have started again

I know I would have lived different

If I could have started again

Would the pain have been lifted

I stay in bed until the night turns to black

Eyes glued to nothing, except thoughts of a broken reflection

One trying to go back

My only voice, scribbled on line paper in the middle of the night

Depression is just a part of this sickness

Depression feels like God’s love has been...

Is such a poem near or far

Are such words laid out like the stars

When you breathe do you choke on the choices you make

Is it life for granted with those drugs that you take

Sniffing and snorting, while you’re father is asleep

Fallen into heaven, making unnatural leaps

Oxycontin is the medicine, a pill in powdered form

Calm is the outcome, then drowning in a storm

As you lie awake, you itch from yesterday

Scratching weathered skin, now burning and blistering

Your scars, you cannot hide, not even without mirrors

You write thoughts of suicide, your own words you now fear

Tomorrow you will stop, you say this everyday

Tomorrow has now come, tomorrow is today

Kissing to stop time

Holding hearts in a night that shines

Walking through the vines, touching broken branches

Floating above ground, having infinite chances

The pendulum does not swing

Two voices connect, two voices sing

Crazy and calm, this can’t be a dream

Past is now silence, pain cannot scream

Love finds its place through all of this comfort

Love will not race in all we now run with

Two lovers repeating the words they already know

Telling each other over and over, they will never let go

Discovering new reasons to never think of leaving

Running through seasons, that change while they’re dreaming

Songs play now, like gifts from an angel

Songs that are written, telling beautiful tales

You held my heart

You kept me warm

You are my strength

Through yesterday’s storm

There is nothing in our way

There is only today

And I am not writing about someone else

You know who you are

You don’t deny all we have felt

So I’ll start time again and wait to see you, so very soon

And kiss you tomorrow, under Saturday’s moon

A breath lifts birds into flight

A breath gives strength to all life

The wind carries your body to journey’s end

A journey that does not bend, one will not pretend

You breathe alone

You breathe in good company

You breathe at home

You choke on one’s suffering

Left in the cold, you beg to come in

Always you’re told, is this how to live?

You climb the highest peak

You kneel on the shore

Finding the right words to speak

Begging life, pleading for more

Is this the life you expected?

Is this your dream perfected?

Why are you lost, why are you left in,

This place,

This stage,

This room?

You breathe, you can’t find your breath

You breathe, lost in regret

You breathe, not knowing what’s left

You breathe, as prayers are now debt

Words are formed, like a cluster of birds

With purpose or so it seems

Unified to those who speak

Tied to all, strong or weak

And so you leave your room and breathe

And so you fly, with the birds you see