in my mitochondria

i live with you 

you crossed into my mitochondria

when i was a kid 

and we are inextricably bound

at the cellular level

facing life together

depression 

you cannot have me you

cannot control me you

cannot silence me

i live for those dashed upon 

your rocky cape 

whose spirits can be heard

in one hundred knot winds

whispering oh! if i had but one more day

what i would do!  

the sun has risen

the day given

you cannot have my motivation

my inspiration my 

determination

to live and fight

and love

 

#katyamills 

dys.mantle it

they pick your bones

because they can and 

you're supposed to take it

capitalism says so

you haven't figured how

to dismantle that so you get drunk and sad

turning your anger

inward   #katyamills 

charms

i got some lucky floating colored dehydrated charms. the old raisin bran didn't cut it anymore. i rode my bike ten miles after walking one. it's like pressing depression on the carotid artery until it passes out. f-you, depression!  #katyamills

the relatively unknown

at home

facing the faces of holiday cheer 

the relatively unknown 

dress and dial down fear 

with hopes

4 a fearless new year

#katyamills

all of this is hard

you gotta fight for what
you believe in


anything you don't fight 4
probably ain't worth much

anyway   #katyamills

march of the mobile homes

when water boils down to air

relationships and typewriters
take dust my health i try
to care. the country the past
the future. depression a sensual affair
worlds in the saucepan
wander they will the march
of mobile homes. pessimism a paved
road beneath which all
life settles and i
won't

#katyamills

pyro.cumulo.nimbus

o heavy cloud made of timber 

nuclear bloom over our 

reckless

global

nebulous 

careless affairs

breaking the 

sky 

the fire 

in my belly 

will not be subsumed

 

i offer these 

ashes

#katyamills

proz.ac

i was in florida and depressed when i discovered prozac and prozac nation. i liked the film as much as the book. then it jumped off the screen, off the page and into my life. my therapist referred me to a shrink who asked me questions, looked me over, took me for a ride for proper diagnostics, then wrote me up a script for prozac. i never got it filled because i refused to stop drinking. five years later i ended up on SSRIs. intermittent psychotherapy alongside antidepressants made it easier to get out of bed but it wasn't powdered sunshine and it didn't solve any other problems. it's a cast. to be held together pharmaceutically until you can handle life without it. for two years i was in the sunshine state and i never saw the sun.

hero.ic

super motivation for
emulation

you say i saved you
cannot we both be one another's
inspiration?

my trail is shorter than yours
i see you far ahead and what
has happened

weeks i was catatonic mired
in depression. could not write
my verses

we were meant to be
to resist to
fight this morbid tendency cannot
we read the story
aloud?

something about
being worn down and off
and out
so bad you become
real

27.20

i had to learn how to live all over again, after the trauma. i didn’t completely lose my ability to write or speak or communicate, but it did something to my nervous system, and i could not think clearly. my thought process was fragmented and tangential. my moods stood me up and walked me into altercations. my thoughts put on a show, racing recklessly into the night. i lived this way for several years. 7 years later i am doing well. i am calm and charged and can talk to anyone and look you in the eye. i am not easily triggered into fight or flight or freeze. i give thanks. i dedicate my life to communicating some hope to those who feel hopeless in the world. with love, from me to you.

feeling u belong

2 feel u belong is
a blessing...

to anyone who is inside
the pain

listen 2 me

there is a place
u belong

keep
keep
keep
searchin
i swear

solemnly
there is a place
4 u

journal. september 27th. 2019

i seem to always be working on the residuals of my mental illness, sweeping them up and out of my life. this is a maintenance thing, i mean, i have to radically accept the eternal presence of anxiety and depression. they no longer stop me from living my life like they did before (and after) i got clean, six and half years back. yet they are like a snake and threaten to constrict. i have to maintain and keep building. thank god i have a career that enriches me. i have a home and can cook my own food. i have my health and no longer take psych meds. the recollections of traumas have subsided though they sometimes resurface in nightmares and an uneasy mistrustful and guarded relationship with both internal and external worlds. i am working on self-discipline. my stress levels fluctuate but are more manageable when i eat healthy and exercise and stretch (yoga. asanas) with greater frequency. this requires mindfulness. i am drinking more of water and air (deep breathing) and prayer. i am devoting more time to reading and writing. i read at night, before bed. on weekdays i get up before dawn and write, more and more frequently. it is hard to build the life you wanna live but it sure is worthwhile.

response to a letter

Uncle Ramon, dear man,

You describe the mood swings of our lives so well. Life wants me around now, I can hardly believe it. It's not so hard hanging on...the lows are not so low, but the work never seems to end. But it's good work. It's useful work using me. And I like it. Depression no longer has me in a stranglehold. I cannot be bullied into submission. I won the fight this time. But I know each new day is another round. K

ohio suburb 1979

some days
the whole circle has come around
to all squares and

the sameness

gloomy unlit days neverending
sad forgotten  beneath spinning
blades of suburban Ohio

lawnmowers

steel coughing up blackness of
winter throat
coat

maybe the moon will pop
like a toaster

glowing

let’s play a video
game it’s better for original

screenagers

true two

i reinvented myself in motion yet stillness was my hallmark. i used to stare into the eyes of hurricanes until they closed. now i am underneath them, plotting a course for open ocean. still they settle into land by choice and suicide.

i wonder how i survive the oppositions. chaos wants me for my calm. the depressions look to me for uplift. they both know i have survived them. i have survived my self. know me for family. for i have lived there, too.

may you

may you see depression before it sees you. the black of the eye does not stop the eye from seeing. find your light and go there while you can. bathe in it. expand it. let others freely in...depression cannot stand you.

depression.ex

I won't allow my depression a millimeter, a fraction of a second, an incomplete thought, a syllable, a single note, a lapse of judgment, a crumb of cake, a seed, a drop of water, a feather to float itself out on... all my depression can have is a one way ticket to a polar ice cap, where it may freely melt itself out of existence.

see.blue

what can i tell you when i feel discouraged and you feel discouraged, too? all i can tell you is look, we all get down and see blue. all i see in you is you are real with that feeling, you are holding, exuding the pain. this is making you more of who you are. someone i can love. you are real to me. i can see your struggle in your eyes and hear it in your words. the depth of your blues mirrors my own, and you touch me where before i was alone.

it wants me

it wants me to stay in bed
the trespass of hope
it wants me in my head
dispatching despair

it wants to convince me
i am worthless
i am nothing it wants me to stop
 answering the door
and the phone

and i don't stand a chance
it wants me to die
each new day
and again

when i am worn out and have no more to give
it wants more out of me

it wants my dignity
my self-respect
my laughter
my smile

it wants what i cannot give
what i no longer have
'cause it took it from me
already

i say

just go away!
be done with me! 
move on!

you will keep on wanting and wanting
and i will be someone
you helped me become

someone who knows how to survive you
outlast you
outshine you

someone whose pain people
see in my eyes and
draw closer

in a fashion of caring

These days I see people in a sacred space who are tragically depressed, like they can hardly get themselves out of the house and make it to session. I see people who are in abusive relationships and sometimes with themselves. I see myself seeing people and I don't know how to help. All the stuff they taught me not always on the ready. What ends up happening is I help create the sacred space in which I see them, and we meet there, and I invite them there again, and I'm not always making any money cuz I volunteer, too, so I may be tired and permanently jetlagged by my nightshift, and I'm sure they see me tired and tryin to pay close attention cuz I care, and hopefully, just hopefully, they will realize they are worth caring for and start to care for themselves a little more, too, but even if they don't, well that's okay, too.