CREDIT: ARTWORK BY AARON DOUGLAS

Introduction

This poem was dedicated to my struggles with mental health due to my personal financial circumstances. Depression, anxiety, etc. all surrounded me and tried to get me to fold under pressure but I began writing poems in order to cope with the pain. Therefore, I was able to find light in the darkness and keep going. Life is about endurance, perseverance, grit, and grinding. Without struggles, hardships and adversities, we can’t build patience and long suffering. Patience and fortitude are the abilities to endure pain without complaining, murmuring, or feeling despondent. As a result, instead of dying, I live, I survive, I thrive, and I breathe, I breathe!

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Breathe just breathe

Feel light like the leaves

Breathe, just breathe

Hill, Grass, and the Trees

Breathe, just Breathe

Now listen to my story (X2)

Have to relax, life brings stress

Adversity trials to put you to the test

Depression, sadness all in your chest

Living life full of curses, not feeling blessed

Thinking to yourself you have no worth

What’s the purpose of being on this Earth

But it’s okay, you lived another day

Get on your knees, have to just pray

Thank God, God, God

That you’re alive, that you’re alive

That today you live and won’t die