PostPoems Be Artistic. Be Creative. Be Inspired!

Having battled and fought against depression many times.

All my experience and knowledge does me nothing if I can’t share it.

If all the pain I have gone through dosen’t teach me to reach out to those suffering like I have.

Then I haven’t learned that lesson.

But I have,

 

In grade school I learned

when as a kid my dream of being an artist were crushed by a classmate

who told me that I wasn’t an artist, that he was the artist in the class.

When I saw the other kids playing sports and making the shots.

Yet I was happy when I could make it close to the goal.

When I sat on the side lines of the playground waiting, hoping someone

anyone would come up to me and ask,

Hey, Robert you wanna play?

I was so desperate for someone to notice me,

anyone, please.

I didn’t care who it was so long as they would play with me.

My grades were poor because I found the outside world more interesting.

But was told I was dumb because my grades were bad.

This paved the way for the person I was in high school

 

Once there more dreams were crushed

My desired career I was told was an improbable goal.

That years of education were required.

And that,

“My grades weren’t good enough”

So again I was told

“You dumb and that’s a stupid goal for you.”

I had my friends but even then I felt alone.

I still felt on the sidelines of life that despite all my attempts I just couldn’t make it.

I turned to music, and there I thought Finally somewhere I can call home.

And for a while I was happy. 

But then those fears set in by the past came calling.

Thoughts of

Why do I try and Who are you kidding you can’t do this.

So I gave up.

I stopped trying and caring if I did good. 

And like my grades that too slipped through my fingers.

They say the in high school while you are in your teenage years

You have the power of youth and love.

The only power I seemed to have was to drive people away.

I even gave up on trying to find love.

I stopped going to dances with the thought

“Who would want to dance with me.”

 

Then in college I coasted on that skateboard of broken dreams and emotions.

Guided by the pain I had received I made choices that I thought would help.

Only to be shown that they led to more pain and suffering.

My desire to work outdoors led to a further realization that,

“You’re not like everyone else here.”

That crushed more of me that was trying to grow.

Forced back into the darkness I would try many other avenues.

Only to be pushed back.

Again I tried to find love.

But was shown that it was a folly and again

“You don’t deserve this.”

Was the thought that came knocking.

 

 

By the time I left college and entered the Navy my compass

was pointed so far off course that I didn’t know where or who I was.

I was so close to killing myself that one push would have been enough.

I did find one thing that the ocean held a wonder that I had never known.

But that wonder was covered by the black haze of pain.

 

 

People that I thought were friends took advantage of my kindness.

pushed me over the edge. 

I could no longer hold back the wall of tears and pain.

The dam cracked and broke.

I had built it with the thought that I had to bottle it up.

That, it was what everyone else did.

 

 

I tried to take solace in the phrase

“Sticks and stones may break my bones. But words will never hurt me.”

That was a lie I told myself.

Of course they hurt me they did more damage to who I was then anything else.

This all culminated to me being admitted for depression.

The pain had boiled over.

The pain of crushed dreams and hopes.

The pain of being told I wasn’t smart enough.

Of being shown that love wasn’t something I could have.

All I wanted was the pain to go away.

I didn’t care.

I wanted to know why?

What did I do to deserve such pain and suffering?

What evil or sin did I commit to warrant such treatment?

I didn’t understand why people could be so cruel.

Did they not know that they were causing such pain?

Each jab, each rejection took me one step closer.

 

 

While there I learned that I was not alone.

That all my past suffering I had was to build me up.

That I had been getting up every day, getting stronger.

That one low moment did not define me.

I saw the while I had all this pain and suffering.

The balance was I could show someone else

that this battle can be won.

That you can be king again.

That your world does not depend the pain.

That the pain is only pain if you let it live there.

I had to pull my heart out from behind the wall I had built.

That a walled heart is a dead one.

 

 

And yes I still fight it,

And some days it gets the better of me.

But I learned that there is one place I can turn to for a smile.

And that is all the help I ever needed.

 

So yes, I am standing atop the crushed dreams of the past.

The ones that others killed.

I let them go and am using them as fuel to keep going.

My one goal, my one hope is that one who has suffered as I have

sees this and knows that it can get better.

That all it takes is the idea that hope,

can be crushed but never killed.