Picture It Now

What if my mental health was a landscape?

A cliff in the desert, dry and crumbling 

as jagged sand falls off the edge of the precipice where I currently reside. Cornered by looming shadows

of my past inching forward as I step backward.

A grassy field underneath the soft sun, 

perfect for a frolic amongst the bugs and the birds.

With mounds of gentle dirt lumping against the sprouting buds of potential and success,

leaving room for imagination to run wild.

A ravenous ocean swallowing me whole,

bobbing up against the slamming waves alone in this eternal portrait that surrounds me. 

Bubbles rising towards the very surface I sink under,

grasping fistfuls of salt water suffocating my lungs. 

An everlasting tunnel of time, stretching

forward and blocking out the external light

that shines outside of my dim perimeter. 

Tracks rumbling as a train comes towards me.

Have I fallen off that path, or will it all come crashing? 

Falling, falling, falling

through watery storm clouds, nearly

avoiding the lightning strikes that spark

against the droplets that return to the ground rushing closer with nothing to catch my descent. 

Or is it sitting on a city bench with handles forming uncomfortable barriers waiting for a bus that will never arrive? I grip my coat tighter around me, as if that 

will protect me from the bitter winter winds. 

It is an ever-changing kaleidoscope of terrain

forming mountains and sunken volcanoes 

blasting geysers of impatience across my mind.

Ghastly explosions of neurons firing up to think a single lingering thought. 

My canvas painted over in eggshell white,

made up of the cracked fragments I would dance around to avoid confrontation. Limitless in possibility but stumped in creativity

as my paintbrush sits on a blank palette.

Landscapes created daily as the clock 

resets to accommodate a new day in the 

middle of the night, ushering in a new chance.

An opportunity to detail the very existence 

that surrounds my entire tumultuous life.