one day ago, i was in a mental hospital. behind locked doors, layers of them. hidden from the world, hidden from the sun, hidden from you.

mental hospitals are built so the world doesn’t have to be scared of the people it decided shouldn’t qualify as people. mental hospitals are broken places, they are full of fear and indecency, and unfortunately, they fill their patients, doctors, nurses, and pill bottles with fear and indecency too.

not that i didn’t need to go. i needed to, the place, that time away from the flurries of chaotic euphoria that filled my life.

maybe some time away from the people i loved, not because they didn’t love me, but because they did.

in this life, we need the people in our lives to stand up to us. because there often is not much of a difference between standing up to someone and standing up for someone. i am fortunate enough to live a life where i have people like that in abundance. people who share their concerns about me. people who know me. people who

love

me people who know that though i don’t really have a normal or a baseline, i have a breaking point. and they know when i’ve reached it.

i reached mine a couple weeks ago, and it terrified me. it terrified them. it hospitalized my body, it crippled their hearts, and now we have all started to heal.

this poem is for the three people who saved my life. i’m not omitting their names, not this time, because the world needs to know about their

power.

alice.

if you don’t know alice, she’s the strikingly beautiful girl who’s hair color changes with the seasons and who dresses in ways that make you stop and say, “how the—where the—i love you.”

alice is an artist, a creator, and the world knows those are my favorite people. she can create anything with her small hands, fingers caked in golden rings, a little grin spreading across her freckled cheeks. we met over a bottle of tequila and fell in love over a bottle of vodka, on blue shag carpets, lavender comforters, and cluttered dorm room floors.

in montana, alice was, remarkably, in her element. her body belonged in front of the mountainous canvas of oranges and pinks behind her, her legs belonged settled in the yellow grasses, her smile worked among the wildflowers. i hope she found the place to be a sort of home, a sort of solitude, because she looked so beautiful there.

it’s nice to think the people from one of my worlds belongs in the other ones, too.

alice was the first to express her concerns for my mental health. she was the most on top of things, so to say, the quickest to act, and the one i will always, forever and ever, be indebted to.

alice knows me, deeply. we write poetry together. we explore piles of antiques together. we search the world for purple flowers and signs of magic together. with her, i share parts of my soul that i was once ashamed of. alice sheds lights on some of the deepest parts of my being, the parts that i’ve always sort of loved and always wanted to share with the world, but didn’t have the courage to before her.

i had the courage to post this blog, all of it, because of her.

there is nothing more magical than being appreciated, loved, and supported by a fellow poet.

i didn’t call alice as much as i should have in butler. i didn’t call anyone as much as i should have, not really. but she broke her neck for me.

that sentence felt appropriate.

she spent the past 10 days relentlessly, effortfully, ensuring that i was safe, happy, and stable. now, it will be my turn to return the favor.

alice, thank you. thank you for having the courage to point me away from living in such a way that thrilled me but terrified the rest of the world. thank you for knowing me, deeply, for seeing me, believing in me, healing me, and making me a better, more powerful, more vulnerable version of myself over and over again. you cannot be replaced, and you never will be.

i promise you this. i will never let you leave my life, and i know now that you’ll never let me leave yours.

thank you for living your life a little less this week so that i could learn to live mine a little more. here’s to living our best lives, together, as time moves on.

mia

mia’s voice is magic. i’m not kidding, and if you know me you know that i don’t speak of magic lightly. when she sings, i melt. my heart disassembles and dances in shattered pieces, swirling and spinning until the final strum of her guitar, when my mouth opens, my hands shake, and my tear ducts unload.

mia and i fell in love over glasses of red (and white) wine on mushy, cushy armchairs and flashing purple lights. we fell in love over little board games and cards that pressed us to be more vulnerable. we fell in love over songs that she wrote,

we fell in love because we realized that we both knew, deeply, that though love was irrational and confusing and dramatic and terrifying and so incredibly frustrating that it was

always

always worth it.

mia and i have often been scared to love. we both know what it’s like to run and to chase. we know what it’s like to be run from and to be chased. we know what broken hearts feel like, and we know how it feels to break them.

there are many moments i could speak to. that weird night in miami for one. but no, for now i will share this.

picture three friends sitting atop a rooftop on 23rd street. they’re surrounded by honking, flickering lights, houseplants, lawn chairs, and the sort of energy that makes hearts merge permanently. that night, i spoke to you about my broken heart, a heart that was broken not because it had been broken, but because i broke someone else’s.

that night, over laughter and the secrets you shared, i started to heal for the first time. alice, mia, i hadn’t spoken to anyone about the acres of blackness that filled my chest before then. i hadn’t been honest, to anyone (including myself) and i was lucky enough to have you bring out that part of me.

funny, to think before then i had only shared my poetry with one other person in the world. i had only ever really been honest with one other person in the world. i had only really discovered, deeply, my capacity to love with one other person. but you were a catalyst, one that showed me that i could create and produce and love others in deep ways without sacrificing myself in the process.

thank you for teaching me how to be myself.

anna

anna. where do i start.

i wrote once that there are people in this world that we are meant to love. there are people you fall in love with instantly, people who move through life the same way you do, people who you dance with, symmetrically, on the road to heaven itself.

that is how it feels to be with you. you dig deep into me, pulling out treasures and shoving them into my face, urging me to see the me i can’t see without you.

i need you anna. deeply. i need you in my life to keep me safe. i need you in my life to send me songs that change my life. i need you in my life to talk about books i don’t think anybody else in the world has ever read. you are my guardrails in this world and the next, the one who keeps me grounded. you keep me me, and thanks to you, i know how beautiful that person is.

the most remarkable part about you, perhaps, is that you do this for so many other people. people need you. people depend on you. it’s a big deal for me to admit i depend on you, really.

i’ve never admitted my dependence on anyone before.

but you do that, you push me to do things that i would never, ever do otherwise. you kill my ego a little bit with every conversation, you are honest and deliberate, you are thoughtful in the deepest way.

i would say thank you for saving my life, but that underestimates the gravity of our relationship. thank you for saving my life over and over again. since we met i’ve been an alcoholic, i’ve been destroyed my toxic relationships, i’ve been heartbroken, i’ve been wrecked, i’ve been euphoric, i’ve been a business owner, a student, a teacher, and a lover.

through all of these, you were there. you always have been. you were there stubbornly, even when i didn’t want you to be.

especially when i didn’t want you to be.

thank you for staying with me even when i pushed you away with every bit of strength i could muster. i promise i only ever did that because i’ve been scared by how much i love you.

keep scaring me, i beg you.

in conclusion, my friends, let me say this.

this blog is for you. these writings on love, on passion, on me, are for you. they are about you. they are to you. they always will be. i have no idea what my future brings but i know this.

because of you, and because of your courage to help me when i needed it most, my life, present and future, is undoubtedly, inexplicably, and powerfully bright. in many ways, the past few months has been a journey of self discovery, one that i am on because of the support the three of you provided, even before my mind started to slip. there were others, and i don’t want to diminish my gratitude for them, either. but there is nobody in this world

or any other

that deserves the sort of radical recognition i hope this poem provided.

i love you guys. maybe that’s clear by now. thank you for saving my life. thank you for making my life. thank you for helping me build my life, today, yesterday, and every day before and after.

here’s to more too-full glasses of wine, more poetry written on stone pages, more flocks of seagulls above freshwater, and more of the sort of love i didn’t realize i was capable of until i met you.

love,

mason