TW: Suicide Dear Little Boy, In 2012 you threw up on me while I was sleeping. I never forgave you because I suspected it was on purpose. I’m writing to tell you I forgive you now. In 2012 I was only seven and I didn’t know how much I’d need you, even though by then you were already sick. You were so mean to people, you used to bite my friends and leave shit outside our neighbor’s doors. Why did you want to sleep with me? I wasn’t so nice to you. After you threw up on me I locked you out of my room. Mom and Dad say when I was young I would always pull your hair. I thought it was funny. They’d run to pull us apart– you’ve taken out eyes for a lot less. But you’d only push my hand away and lie with me until we fell asleep. One time when I was 12 Dad filmed you fighting a raccoon. I got mad at you for fighting it and mad at him for not stopping you. He said it was fine because you were winning. He showed me the video. I saw that you were so frail already, skin hanging loose from your bones. Dad saw that you left the battle without a scratch. I didn’t let you outside for two full weeks. This weekend, at your funeral, Dad told me the raccoon had been trying to steal our chicken’s eggs. Little Boy, add this story to the list of things I’m sorry about. I remember when you lost your sight. The doctors said you could only see outlines of shapes and blurry colors. After, Mom bought you that stuffed banana on a whim. You kept it with you all the time. You couldn’t see anything, but you could see the banana, with its bright yellow and its big smooth edges. You slept with it tight in your arms until it was gray and limp. You screamed when Mom took it from you to put it in the wash. When your banana went missing your screaming didn’t stop for days. In 2018 you found me in my room standing at the window. It was 3 am. I was trying to get my other foot over my sill. You screamed and screamed and you woke everyone up. They made me get down, made me go to therapy. They wouldn’t let me chop vegetables or shave my legs. I never stopped blaming you, Little Boy. After you died I only cried twice, once when I learned the news and a second time yesterday when I found your banana, hidden in the back of my sock drawer from all of those years ago. We buried you this weekend in the garden by the house. Mom thought you’d like the blooming hearts. She says you’re in heaven. Everyone else thinks you’re in hell. I’ve never believed in heaven, but I hope it has lots of banana trees.

You dissolved through the haze of summer. Disintegrating like melanin in my subtle bronze as months passed on. You decayed beneath gaps of autumn, quicker than a pumpkin left to rot. It wasn't in your best interest to linger no longer. In a rush. Hurrying, swooping pile of gradient leaves. Before I exhale a misty breeze... you evaporated. Not a trace of you had been left with me. Except a lilac bag, I can't even bear to look at. Filled to the rim, with dried out lavender seeds. You cleared just as winter came, now I happen to be numb outside, just as I am, within.

This piece is a retro futurism inspired tryptic based on body image. I used body image and the fears that can come from it and sculpted three faces frozen in a state of the mind versus the body. https://www.instagram.com/parkercraige

Sticks crack, snap, and break apart under pressure. "Jonny" explores the progression of their relationship with a man who held various sticks over them. Man with a scepter, a lone humble man The ruler of life for whom they walk Looked down from his perch and raised his head In designation. Do what you have to do. He asked. What do I have to do? I asked. Throw me a lifesaver, I'm drowning here. Bones won't keep my head above water. I'm still breathing, but I won't float. Man with a stick, yelled fetch and threw it far away I'm man's best friend, I will come back Chasing after someone's tail. This is me trying To make the impossible possible. It's all in a day's work. Granting master's wish, such a good boy The boat is sinking, what a bad place. Man, and his penchant for sticks Got me sentenced, got me walking the plank Leash tight, lost sight, least of all, I'm not alright. Knock, knock, anybody there? I'm only a twig against sticks and stones. One snap away. Don't poke the bear. Knock out, the match is over. Man doesn't win when I lose. Saved by the bell, left in the ring My shattered soul. Picks up the pieces and stabs him to Styx Hit him where it hurts, I hit to my own beat With these drumsticks, I write to Sandman Let me rest, let me dream Heart clenched and fist pumped high The quicksand swallowed me whole. Man with his crutch, alone humbled man The head of the pack could barely walk Looked up from his perch and bowed his head In resignation. What have I become? He asked. What have we become? I asked. Throw me a lifeline, I'm dying here. Hope keeps me from leaving you at sea. I'm still seething, but I won't gloat. Man with his stick, yelled fetch and threw it all away I'm man's lost friend, I won't come back Chasing after my own tale. This is me getting another try To make the possible not impossible. It's all a work in progress. I'm my own master, what a bad dog The boat is leaving, such good riddance.

Fear does appear differently for every individual. Here, it appeared as a naked maestro, sitting in front of her orchestra in an extensive, intricately detailed but colorless theater. The essential meaning of this metaphor is that having the instruments, opportunities, and a stage to perform- life itself - creates all this potential yet it can easily be held back by fear. I kept attention to the pose of the maestro to create an exhausted look, still coloring only her even though the background is vast and detailed. The spiral carries the sign that the individual has the energy itself. The concept and the artwork are dark. However, if there is a splash of color, there is hope. https://www.instagram.com/dilarasyonel/

A visual illustration of grappling with the overwhelming sense of pressured constraint, mental or physical.

Today a heart squirmed with free will- Perhaps another delusion that lies obsessively still to cheat a feeling, or cut the artery short And make the strings painful; Tears follow and come to a heavy press like the rubble of war, rolling down the valley to make a mess When everything is dull, it stares and births a welcome change from the unrest; it revolves around itself to collapse a chest Into a Dunlin's murmuration that carry the sadness with it, the sound of an emotion trapped-cold and in the sea shore lapping the untold. It's a hallmark- dark and miserable in space acre, Dismiss, it shuts the eyes and the heart altogether

The first notion I want to drive home via this poem is that your failure in one aspect is the first step of your success in another one. Secondly, only you can help yourself to eradicate the darkness from your life (one can be helped if only they want to be helped). Others might or might not believe in you but you need to continuously have faith in your abilities! And only then can others put their faith on you! https://instagram.com/burn_t_lootus?igshid=ZDdkNTZiNTM= As the others enjoy the night I cannot but behold the sight Dark as it becomes then I shiver and whimper in fear and so I crouch in the corner. It's all happening again Hands-on ears and closed eyes I battle hard to shun the cries and those flash up of an image I’m hallucinating my failures the dismay, horrors, and terrors When darkness looms large. All of the haunting words of condemn wails of distress and giggles of disdain Echoes loud and never-ending The fallen faces and gazes of ignominy My desperate move to end it all, finally Comes to light in the darkening. “Failures are for losers,” they taught “I cannot but ever fail!” I’d thought I dread failing; being a loser! Whenever I ponder “What if I fail?” The darkness replies; tells the tale. Fails can ne’er be to me ever. O! What fool of me to think so lame! For it did arrive, the day of shame. Can one forever escape failure? Yes, I’d failed! All of those were true All the premonitions came through And how the naïve heart ails! I’d confronted and combatted it steadily, conquering it, bit by bit At last, I defeated it, YES! emerging to be much stronger fathoming the truth of failure. Sowing the seed of success! But those sights still do appear Darkness descends, whenever But scares me no more For along with it also recurs my victory against the fears I’d fought it to the core. Darkness has had its own beauty. It pacifies me with its tranquility Now, in it, I find peace. So! At night I sought no sunlight, relished in the serene moonlight. Fears? I have got this!