Mary Steffen

2020-10-13 06:25 am

As I see
World's fire
No end soon

Together
We are strong
Fight fire

Arise now
Golden light
Great beyond

World of hope
Happiness
Full of love

Laughter here 
Forever

Innasense

2020-10-10 09:54 pm

Warning: this is looooooong and if you’re a sensitive individual the first parts may bother you. But hopefully the last part will inspire you. Speak your truths friends. The ones who matter will love you all the harder. #worldmentalhealthday

Hidden Stories 

They smiled, jokingly told her 
she looked tired, 
“Must’ve partied hard last night.”
Smile quietly returned, 
“just didn’t sleep too well I guess.”
She didn’t tell them how hard it was to get out of bed this morning, 
How sleep never came last night, 
How it felt like the darkness would just swallow her whole, 
How she felt hollow and empty 
and there weren’t any tears left, 
just an ache deep within 
that wouldn’t subside. 
And maybe if she just squeezed her eyes shut and stayed in that bed 
in the blacked out void, 
She wouldn’t have to face another day of faked smiles and “I’m ok” lies. 
“Just tired today I guess.”

“It’s warm today man!” 
“What’s with the long sleeves all the time?”
“Got some crazy tattoos under there?” 
He smiled, laughed along with them, 
Self-consciously ran his hands 
over his wrists. 
Over the bandages binding his secrets.
They didn’t know how close he got last night, how he almost let go, 
How so much blood, HIS blood 
swirled down the drain, 
mixing with his tears. 
He was sure no one would miss him, but he wondered if he would miss this world, 
And the good days out in the sun, 
Few and far between as they were.
What would they say if he were gone tomorrow?

“You should’ve come out with us last night. You would’ve had so much fun...”
She nodded and made those
“next time” promises, 
though she knew they were lies. 
She’d stay home again, 
Wrapped in the icy grips of loneliness, 
Which felt somehow better 
than her burning cheeks 
when the right words just wouldn’t come, or the wrong ones spilled out, 
and she felt their eyes on her,
Panic rising, thoughts frozen
Wishing she’d just stayed home, 
Away from the judgement, 
And all the wrong moves she always made

“Haven’t seen you around in a while! Doing ok?” 
His mouth smiled, head nodded, 
lips formed words he’d said so often, automatic. 
Because, really, he thought, 
How could I describe 
that moment last night, 
body curled up with forehead cold 
against the kitchen floor, 
Ears covered to block out the voices, 
Silent screams wracking his body as the panic overwhelmed him, 
No breath to speak, 
And who could he call anyway, 
How would he explain these moments of pure fear that slipped in unnoticed
and become everything, took everything, until he was a shivering shell of himself. 
Sometimes he wondered, 
if they could see through him, 
would they think him weak? 
Would they walk away...?


These people are all make-believe, 
but the experiences are not, 
taken from articles and discussions 
and sometimes even revelations from 
real-life friends. 
These are not my stories, 
but they are someone’s truths, 
Not their weakness, 
Not their short-lived sadness
that they can just “get over” if you try hard enough to make them happy. 
(My gosh do I need to remind myself of that part sometimes...)

But that doesn’t mean you stop trying. 
Love them y’all. 
Love them so damn much that you’ll sometimes break through the cracks in their self-inflicted armor. 
Listen to them, 
Give them the chance to be 
open and honest, 
And if what they say makes you flinch, imagine what it must feel like for them. 
Do something kind that makes them smile and get ready to do it again tomorrow.
Smile and laugh with them. Cry with them.
Be genuine with your 
thoughts and feelings. 
Give them space, but check on them. 
Pull them out of the dark for just a moment, say, 
“I’m here for you when you need me. 
And I always will be.” 

Mental health issues are often invisible, 
but still feel debilitating to the one 
inside that head. 
Stay educated. 
Be understanding. 
Love the hell out of each other. 
❤️🧡💛💚💙💜🖤🤍🤎💗

Gord

2020-10-07 08:27 am

Of dying and fighting,
Best saved for last,
Apologizing and crying,
Inside the eyelids:
Kiss my ass, my lover lives.

Wind, harvested by mills,
Jacks, coveted by Johns,
Songs built by peoples,
Hymns for the seasons.
Rescinded politically,
Not knowing what to believe in.

Gord

2020-10-06 02:11 pm

Make a face, disappointed,
Hopefully it stays that way,
One appreciates a boys wit.

What is pain but pain,
To call a spade a spade,
Our nature trail is grey.
They say save whales,
Scream of the rape of males,
even in the face of change.

Change my name,
Change my state,
Changing shapes on the screen again.

Innasense

2020-10-05 08:49 pm

If all our troubles 
Could grow wings 
And flutter away 
How much lighter
Our hearts would feel 

I’d go bird watching for OCD 
Or photograph Anxiety
Capture Depression in my lens 
Wait quietly for Loneliness and then 
Watch them all take flight, 
bright wings 
While my unburdened heart doth sing 

Innasense

2020-10-04 11:21 pm

I miss that girl who wore the moon on a chain,
The one who found happiness 
in solitude and rain,
Who wasn’t smothered by the 
endless need-to-dos, 
But instead made simple moments her muse. 

I miss the girl with the honest, unforced smile,
The one who could always stay for awhile,
Who took endless photos 
of sunsets and trees, 
And spent time, just being, 
under canopies of leaves.

I miss the girl always seeking out the new, 
The one whose blue days 
were ephemeral and few, 
Who spent her Sundays, childlike, 
taking trips to playgrounds, 
Instead of as an adult, 
pushing expensive mops around.

I miss the girl who wore pink bandanas 
and braids, 
Whose undercurrent in life wasn’t always  “afraid”, 
Who wasted away hours in 
make-believe lands, 
And felt no guilt 
with book or controller in hand.

And I miss car rides with no destination, 
Enjoying the lilting song of a clock for pure relaxation, 
Not feeling enslaved by my own procrastinations, 
Making last minute plans, happy deviations,

I miss yesterdays that happened years ago 

And I miss the me that I used to know

Innasense

2020-09-25 08:01 am

Throw back the covers on 
the incessant redundancy 
of another day. 
Putting in time for a world 
we no longer believe in, 
if ever we truly did. 
...Them rose-tinted glasses 
were long-ago shattered...
Our dedication repaid 
With more stolen hours 

Coming home with less time 
To spend with ourselves, 
Or perhaps those we purposely 
surround ourselves with, 
Than we’ll spend talking to ceiling tiles 
in the dark later on. 
Droning away the limited hours, 
The constant pull of a thumb , 
—Refreshing—
Giving our ❤️s away 
In an opinionated match game 

Finger-fucking ourselves to sleep 
Just to say we felt alive 
Before succumbing to darkness 
With a see-you-later sayonara 
Whispered into black, 
Just like the onyx air pixels 
we’ll be counting later 
to lure heavy eyelids 
back into a much-too-finite slumber 
...Or maybe the fluffy white bastards 
will do the trick 
Whatever helps you sleep at night...

Next day, the inbox the same, 
Full of spam mail we unsubscribed to 
ages ago 
That somehow keeps rearing ugly heads, hydra-like 
with a pretty new name every time, 
to keep us believing in the possibility 
that this particular lovesick prince
will be our salvation. 
DELETE to clear our foggy heads 
While trying to remember 
which ones are the liars. 
The mirage keeps on shifting. 

Repeat, repeat, 
World keeps on turning, 
pulling us along, 
A child’s toy on a string. 

But what if, for a moment, 
We turn away from from the 
unending axial spins, 
Sidestep the scythe again, 
seek out the sunrise...
Find the beauty brave souls! 
Crack open that Earth-shaped geode and search out the wild world within 

And you know what...
Go buy you a new pair 
of those pretty pink shades 

Gord

2020-09-23 08:19 am

Single planet of written language,
Little matters of bigger battles:
Mirror dragons, bitter captains,
Speaking lingua franca to a pier.

'They see not what is near'
Between fits of passion, screams,
Film seen backward, guarantees, 
Hears nothing but laughter.

Gord

2020-09-22 04:26 pm

Some composers write bland forever,
Passionate sellers, mechanical components,
Bad poem after bad poem;
Best service as archers than soldiers,
Philanthropists of the moment, 
Amateur poet of farmers knowledge,
Larger wage, cannabis smoker;
Boxer of drama, reading poems and novels,
Softer and lower, he sees darkness;

Innasense

2020-09-20 08:33 am

Third time was the charm
A tormented soul bled out 
Life worth loving, lost 

Lonely surrounded,/
A house filled with laughter, but/
Today I feel blue 

Under darkest shroud/
These green eyes find no sunshine/
Not today at least 

Force another breath
This impenetrable funk 
And me stuck in it 

Static in my head/
A sound no one else can hear/
And I can’t escape 

It’s a feeling blue 
For no good goddamn reason 
Sucky kind of day 

Disconnected from all 
Desperation rules my head 
The world seems too small 

Innasense

2020-09-17 05:44 pm

I may have recently found a love of haikus...enjoy a heap of them! 


Such a small creature 
A fascination in green 
Life measured in hops 

Grading seems endless
Constantly processing...sigh, 
Your work is due friends 

Bike accident, ow!
Purple bruise on my kneecap 
Tiny tragedy 

Dead creature, a gift! 
Spare me your adoration 
Love in kitty form 

Humanity ruins
Each other, our home, all things
The one true constant 

Build each other up 
A constant stream of kindness 
Love creating joy 

Sleep eluding me 
Again I’m counting critters 
Heavy eyes please close 

This day could be good 
But only if you live it 
Stay here, keep trying

Tiny puzzles these
Haikus pieced together and 
Shared with awesome friends 

Gord

2020-09-16 02:35 am

By tribal elders,
Despite wire fences, 
Highest pleasure, 
By mine forever;

Blake Garner

2020-09-15 10:47 am

No secrets
You keep me speechless,
I can not lie
I hate that I love you,
If you knew the damage
Would you love me correctly,
The hell you put me through
I no longer want to be on the ride,
You knew I from the start
That I fall hard and fast,
I try to feel ok
While you play with my emotions, 
There's no need to explain
If you think what your doing is ok,
I can try to get up and feel ok again
But I'm just domino in your game,
Does this make you feel better
Being on top in this one sided love,
I wake up in terror
To ask myself what am I doing here,
Why do I let myself endure
The torture of your love,
I can not lie
I love you,
No more holding inside
This dirty little secret I keep,
I'm tired of the mistreatment 
I'm tired of the avoidance, 
You say I hurt you
From a drunken fight,
Its time to bring to light
Your drunken words,
When we met you knew
I was unwell,
One night amongst your drunken lips
You spoke to me a terrible fate,
It haunts me in my thoughts
The DJ to my demons party,
You spoke love sober
Yet you spoke death drunk,
Your tinder lips slipped
I wish you would've died,
You hated me for what I did
You hated the fact I was broken,
I set it aside for the sheer fact
That I love you truly,
However you still to this day
Blame my mental instability, 
I try so hard every day
I fight for my next breath.

Innasense

2020-09-14 11:17 pm

”The End”

The night is young, 
Barely swollen with stars 
When the illusion shatters

As though everyone I had ever known
was gone
The world as I had come to know it, 
Ended.
Apocalyptic, 
And without near enough warning. 

Those paper souls lost,
Their memories fast fading, 
The stories they told, 
Words lost in the wind 
Some names forgotten,
Others stamped permanently 
onto my brain, 
autographs on my heart. 

I reminisced for a moment 
On the places we’d been, 
Conversations had, 
Friendships shared, 
Hardships weathered.

Bright sunny days spent outside 
Or solitary nights spent avoiding sleep, 
Blanketed by the silent words between us, 
Alone but for each other’s company.

Now I just feel alone, utterly, 
This finality staring me in the face 
Nothing left to do but face this music
Slipping away at too rapid a pace
These final notes, 
One last embrace. 

I tell myself I must accept this end, 
But allow myself one backward look 
Steel my heart,
Heave a sigh, 
And with great trepidation...



close this book. 

❤️📚💔

Gord

2020-09-13 11:11 pm

Global player who creates the local cable,
Writing nomenclatures with known names,
Hoping workstations become playstations,
Whose drone planes zip along to no shame;

Teaching to make rain and thunder,
How your shame is the pain of others,
Whose praise and worship is nonsense.

Space traveler, declares his slave radical:
"No place for a sail with no waves,
No stone age for a failing sage,
Place the stones on his grave,
Then walk away."

Teaching to take pain asunder, 
How should I, seek, become a hermit,
With my star-ship lacking an AC?

Innasense

2020-09-13 09:17 pm

“Wake Up” 

Ahh, the unexpected depression 
of waking up to greet another day 
This menial mundane monstrosity 
Shaded in varieties of gray 

Sloughing through
begrudged routines,
Caged in by an endless checklist 
Punctuated only by commas. 

Collecting “cherished moments” 
On your camera roll 
To say the day was a happy one. 

Hiding behind the infernal screen, 
A spyglass to a world you don’t even want
But hold onto anyway 
with white-knuckled grip, 
Afraid that reality won’t measure up 
To this life stickered with fantasy labels 

And you wonder when the dreaming stopped, 
Probably that moment you realized you still hadn’t woken up a superhero, 
Or that unicorns don’t exist outside of fairy tales

When tomorrows bled into yesterdays 
And you looked back in wide wonder 
Questioning how you collected so many rings in your trunk 
And pondering where all the whimsy went 

Chasing shadows of what was
And what could have been, 
Gazing into the abyss of what-ifs 

Unnecessary self-induced miseries. 
A waste of numbered moments.

Time that could be spent counting freckles that bridge across tiny noses, 
And listening to the relentless chatter 
Of a little heart that has not yet been broken, 
And who still believes in the maybes. 

I see you little souls. 
For you, I awaken. 

Innasense

2020-09-13 09:15 pm

Poetry Satirized

What is this thing they call poetry? 
It’s mostly “pretty words” you see 

Ok, maybe there’s a bit more to it... 
I’ll see if I can walk ya through it. 

We rap similes and metaphors, 
Figurative language whores 

Plays on words 
And turns of phrase
Emotional squalor 
And issues for days 

Lovers lost 
And sadness deep 
Words that when trapped 
Keep us from sleep 

“Racing to the finish” 
Or dragging our feet 
And not to compete 
or attempt to defeat 
But simply
To complicatedly complete 

Alleviate or desecrate
All depends upon the date
Or what kind of day we had 
Pissed off, celebratory, sad
Or in poetic terminology, 
Raging, blessed, melancholy 

We personify and mystify 
“Let them see it through our eyes” 

We rhyme and reason 
Or sometimes we don’t 
It’s not that we can’t 
It’s more likely we won’t 

Abstract or concrete 
Or both all at once 
Painting deeeeeep pictures...

But sometimes only of confusion 
Poetic delusions 😉
Words made in illusions 
Or maybe allusions?
No wonder we can’t always reach a conclusion...

So “pretty words” 
though they may often be, 
There is a bit more to this thing...

Poetry.

Innasense

2020-09-13 09:12 pm

OCDemons

An O for the things that I just can’t let go 
And maybe it’s not even the same things as last week,
But there all the same, 
Ground into my head 
As though they were the only thoughts that ever mattered
Sacred and necessary 
Though likely invisible or nonexistent
just a few days ago 
And maybe tucked 
back into the void 
In just a few more 

But I suppose it’s better than time spent 
Wondering 
What a head-on collision would be like 
Or how it might feel 
To put knife through bone 

It’s dangerous 
Inside my head sometimes 

C for the things that I just can’t not do 
Always look right when crossing a bridge 
Wear just enough purple 
Get the numbers right 
Watch the color patterns 
Check and check and check again 

I tell myself I do these things  
To clear a clouded head 
Unfortunately 
Seems to do 
The opposite instead 

D for the disorder in my head 
Brought on by 
A record on repeat all day, 
A ridiculous collection of 
unbreakable rules 
And the “honestly, 
what would REALLY happen?” 
Thoughts that make me feel insane 
The static buzz inside my brain 

So I 
Read it away. 
Write it away. 
Breathe it away. 
(Over)Think. It. Away. 
To Hell with you demons. 
Go plague someone else today. 

Oh...and see you in a little bit. 
😉😑