I Will Shed the Parts of Myself That Don’t Really Matter

I wanted to be the kind of girl who’d steal smokes from her mother’s purse & booze from her father’s cabinet, who’d sneak into R-rated movies at the local theater & lose

her virginity to an older boy who had his own car & liked to do it in the backseat, become a dangerous girl who’d drive in the middle of the road & wouldn’t obey stop signs. I imagined that girl, hurried, naked —sweating with a forbidden lover on her twin-sized bed,

under striped sheets & posters of boy bands,

feeling no regret when daylight came,

turning the sky from purple to blue, & then to a shocking

bright light. I wanted to be wild. But I barely understood the language of flirting, dating, love, passion. When my papa broke the porcelain vases, & my mama

went to bed

with a crust of tears

drying on her cheeks, I stared at the dark television, & in the curve of the screen, my reflection was at the end of a long, black hallway. I walked outside & the world looked flat & the sky was the color of the sidewalk & the people on the street

looked like people on any street.

The clouds above me were bland. Everything was bland. That was before I learned to sharpen my heart like a bayonet. I know that even if I pull it out, I will not bleed to death. I can always piece myself together,

& give myself back to me.

***

An excerpt from Happy, Okay?: Poems about Anxiety, Depression, Hope, and Survival

Confront Depression, Anxiety, Grief, and Loss through Poetry

Are the usual depression books helping you find a path to healing? No? Try this poetry collection especially for those dealing with mental illness and for people closest to them.

Create hope for the future. Paloma is faking it. On the outside, she’s A-Okay. She’s electrified at work, there is a cadence in her step as she walks her dog, she posts memes on Facebook, and she keeps up with most relationships. Looks can be deceiving, however. Inside, Paloma is just going through the motions, and she feels like things are spiraling out of control. But when things are at their darkest, dawn arrives with clarity and focus, and with it, healing. Paloma learns to value small glimmering moments of joy rather than searching for constant happiness, thus building hope for her future.

A manifesto for life. Happy, Okay?: Poems about Anxiety, Depression, Hope, and Survival is not simply a narrative spun in verse by a masterful poet. It is an invitation to readers to shake off the stigma and silence of mental illness and find strength in the only voice that matters: your own. It can be an electric roadmap to healing and a manifesto for wholeness.

In this inspiring and heartwarming book, you will:

• Understand how to make happiness a decision, even when you don’t feel it in your bones

• Find out how to exercise patience and self-acceptance

• Attract hope and purpose back into your life

Fans of Milk and Honey by Rupi Kaur, The Witch Doesn’t Burn in this One by Amanda Lovelace, Depression & Other Magic Tricks by Sabrina Benaim, Our Numbered Days by Neil Hilborn, or Nothing is Okay by Rachel Wiley will love Happy, Okay? by M.J. Fievre.