Sion.

I'm tired of writing metaphors about  depression. 

Every time I look out a window I wish I was on the other side.................

                                                                                                                   ............

                                                                                                                               ...................................

.....

Every time I look into a mirror I don't see anybody staring back....................... .. . . ....... . . ...... ........

                                                                                                                           ........... 

I can't think right anymore.

Maybe.......

                   .........Just maybe I could do it......maybe                         

I don't want to die.                                                                        

I don't want to live. 

I don't know anything anymore.

                                                                                                                 

I don't want to live anymore.

I don't want to hurt anymore.                                                                                   

I can't die because I have to marry someone someday.                              

I can't leave her.

Would she leave me?

Where is she?

                                          

I don't even know her.                                     

I need to serve a mission.

I don't know if god is real.......

                                                ............maybe I do, I don't know.

I'm afraid if I died I would just wake up somewhere else. 

I'm afraid if I live I'll wake up in my bed tomorrow..... Different dream....

                                                                                                                   .......Same nightmare

I'm afraid if I live I'll wake up on life support.....death by inches.

What am I saying?

                     "stop writing this"

I live under a roof that's not my own.                                                      I can't print money.

.

.

I didn't sleep last night. Maybe I should go to bed. My house is a castle of cardboard boxes. We're moving and don't know where to. I'm staying. Never mind. I don't know.

I don't know.

"I'll skip lunch tomorrow too"

Don't comment #stolen like you want to steal my feelings!

That's the first time I've used an exclamation point.

This poem is the first time I've used an exclamation point.

and I'm done.

Don't post on your blog on little sleep.

My eyes are red and wet allot.

I can't sleep.

takeawalkanddontwearshoesandcursethemoonbecauseyousurvived.........................

I have friends.

I have family.

You can't see me.

You can't hear me.

Heaven is a distance not a place.

Nerf Wars

Our uniforms were different

Our faces the same--young and scared

Our mothers the same--old and weeping

We saw each other and did what we were told.

We sparred for hours till he drew his blade

The closing of our lives drawn on by our dying breaths.

His weight on the knife as is slowly sunk into my chest.

Blood filled my mouth.

Memory filled my mind.

Take me home.

Momma?

He did it because he was told to do.

I would have done the same.

Our uniforms were different,

but our faces were the same--young and scared.

Old love doesn't rust

They say old love doesn't rust.
Maybe old love is all I want,
to live and to die holding her hand.

When our biographies are written,
I don't want our marriage to be referenced as a date.
Like our marriage started somewhere?
As if it will end somewhere?

When our Obituaries are read,
I don't want the dates and places.
I want a poem to you that says what we never had to tell each other,
because the love was always there and we never needed proof.

Maybe I want our love to rust.
A new vintage character on the paint job.
Always aging and changing but never the same.
I want our rusted hands intertwined to be that proof.

When I look out the window when I'm 75...
I want to see our rust tilling the garden.

I want to see the rust that is...old love

Twyebuck River days

Little fishies in the murky water.

Little kiddies on the muddy banks.

The sunshine didn't come from the sun those days,

and the skipping stones carried our wishes with them.

Life on the Twyebuck was sewing a patch in my overalls .

Life on the Twyebuck was tallgrass in your mouth.

Life on the Twyebuck was the berries in the bushes.

Cops and robbers and no wussies allowed.

Digging for worms while our fathers dug in the mine.

Mother's supper bell rung high with the sunsets.

Honkey-tonks, Banjo's, and chew for the evening.

Life on the Twyebuck was a little house on the prairie.

Life on the Twyebuck was too early to bed and too early to rise.

Life on the Twyebuck  was casting a line, and catching every time.

The Teacher made dunces of us.

The sun shined but we stayed in the schoolhouse.

The chalkboard carried cursive.

The switch never made the joke worth it,

and the shady trees made the dog days longer.

Life on the Twyebuck was younger in my heart but old in my memory.

This for my old man.

The man was burned.
He stood as his father once did.
Remembered pain ripped into his ribcage.
He was baptized in the river Styx,
and his life held in the balance.

The lullaby he sang his son tilled his ears.
Under the harvest moon again talking to himself.
Whispering lies to himself.
He was baptized in the river Styx,
and his mind held on a tightrope.

The buried horse-master's words still hung on his throat.
"Older than the trees, younger than the mountains,
and still gripping the reigns without a pulse."
He was baptized in the river Styx,
and his son's life depended on him.

The black water before him fogged and all.
His broken frame upright and angry.
His heavy eyes laid to rest
He was baptized in the river Styx,
and his life was given purpose.

Clayton W. Whitestone (American fork canyon ca. 2016)

He came home smelling like campfire.

Strummed for a while and forgot it all.

Sang for a while 'till he got tired of his voice.

He never heard a crackling fire after that.

Blanket on his back and his worries forgotten.

A night lit by coals and stories.

Whitestone felt like fool's gold again.

Close enough to happiness,

but never the real thing.

This is what he said to me.

                                                 Waking up in your coffin.

Screaming and scraping.                             -

The felt covered insides underneath your nails.

                             "No air for you now.     -

                                                        No air little boy."

                                         "Sick little child living to die "

                                                                   -

                                        "Feeling faceless yet?!"

                     Swearing to end it all at one point.

                                      Living to die eventually.

Deep black.                                                  -

                 "Deep black with nobody to hear you little boy."

                                                                    -         No light.

                     Blood in my mouth and teeth scraping the wood.

                                                     "Scared yet?!"

       Frozen by death now.

                                             Every regret held at my throat by time.

Covered by seven feet of dirt and seventeen years of pain.

Can't move.

Can't breathe.

                          Can't shout...

NO more screaming and_

                                                           scraping........

You_

                 can't.

                                      "Feeling claustro-

                                                                  phobic yet?!"

                                                          "Feeling phobic yet?"

The day you were born was the day you were sentenced to death.

                   Your parents dug your grave.

                                             Born to find meaning, then lose it all one day.

Born writing your durge.

                                                                                               Born shaping your ebony crypt.

Feeling Nothing yet?

"Welcome home little boy"