The following starters, have been taken from the poetry book Depression & Other Magic Tricks by Sabrina Benaim. TWs include: depression, anxiety. Please be cautious.
my body is a garden rooted in gratitude
my heart is a messy bedroom i always distract myself from cleaning
i’ve got this violent tendency to see a bubble and want to pop it
have you ever felt the ache of swallowing starlight?
i’m allergic to liars, they cause my tongue to swell and sharpen
my kiss tastes like a shotgun to the lips
do you ever sit on the end of your bed and listen to the world spin?
i hear the song everywhere.
i am best prepared for the worst case scenario.
you are a ghost & i talk to myself
i’m sorry it’s so dark in here
why am i banging my head against a brick wall?
there is no sleep for this lonely
my depression is a shape shifter
i call the bad days, dark days
i’m not afraid of the dark
perhaps that is part of the problem
anxiety holds me hostage inside of my house, inside of my head
where did the anxiety come from?
insomnia has this romantic way of making the moon feel like perfect company
i will never truly know everywhere i have been
my heart has developed a kind of amnesia where it remembers everything but itself
it’s weird…. how a jacket can be more reliable than a father.
armor is for women who have something to lose
there are nights my smile is the simple act of baring my teeth
when the full moon howls, i howl back
i am at the grocery store because i feel sad.
nobody is in love with me but everybody loves me
crying gives me a headache.
headaches make me want to crawl into bed.
crawling into bed is what sad people do.
at the grocery store, at least nobody knows there is nobody in love with me.
is it that you are forgetful or sadistic?
there is a stillness now.
i’m sorry it took me so long to get here.
i hope i’m not too late for the party.
there is not enough time.
i like how looking at you makes me feel.
i miss you, but i don’t wish you were here.
you wear sweat shorts & i still want to fuck you.
if you came back, i would not ask why.
you may say none of this ever happened.
between my orgasms i try not to cry
i’m just trying to be less predictable.
i don’t know how to connect in a world like this.
is time a sleeping language?
the fantastic devastation of unwanted silence.
i went looking for our bridge to burn.
there is a condition called rapture of the deep. it occurs when a deep sea diver spends too much time at the bottom of the ocean & cannot tell which way is up.
the echo is what drives girls like me, mad with remembering.
our brains remember the infliction of pain, be it physical, psychological, or emotional. we remember this hurt as a means to avoid it in the future.
i remember the shape my hand held while in yours.
i wish i could forget how i got here.
in silence, it’s hard to tell what the other person is thinking without looking them in the eyes.
you would not look me in the eyes.
i have been practicing forgetting.
we cannot control what we remember, but we can control how we remember.
i think i’ll prefer you a stranger someday.
is it just easier to look at yourself in the mirror is you are not human?
does that make it easier to pretend you don’t have depression; because depression is exclusively human.
every felling i have swallowed.
i was too anxious to leave.
how did you do that thing that you did to my heart?
her fists are filled with the laughter of ghosts.
holding love makes the girl feel helpless.
did you hear me? i said i love you.
the refusal of offered love is some kind of death.
there are ghosts in every version of this story
there is no mystery there
i am just happy to know you