One very rarely sees me without a music player. Be it a phone, Ipod, mp3 or anything else, I have one with me at all times. Even if you don't see it, it is on my person or in my purse.


Music. It is the only thing that will calm, or at least drown out, the ever constant noise. The forever present calamities in my mind. The best thing to use to escape this world and become whoever you want to be.

Music has always been my drug of choice. Saving me from my episodes of depression. Making me feel like I had somewhere I belong. I know how silly it is to be in an 'army' of followers. But those 'armies' or 'crews' are a family. The music has brought us together. It has saved our lives and the lives of our friends.

Even when I was younger, in junior high, music was my best friend. Sure I had someone I called "best friend", but not that I think back on it, she wasn't much of a friend usually. Always pulling the guilt trip, making it feel as though most everything that went wrong between us as my fault. "I really, really don't like you. But you know I'll always love you." That line of lyrics in Reliant K's "Which To Bury, Us Or The Hatchet" had never been more true.

But it was music that had been there for me. Gotten me through the rough patches of life. Pulled me through the razor blades of depression to the rose bushes of life when I wasn't going through an episode.

Music had the words I couldn't say. When I didn't know what to say to someone, I could tell them to listen to a certain song. Eventually, most of my friends had picked up on the habit too.

But nothing can cure absolutely everything. If there was, it would be perfect. And I have never believed in perfection.


I am scared of the dark. Petty I know, but I am. I wasn't as a child so I couldn't really tell you why I am now as a teenager.

The glow-in-the-dark-stars and writing on my walls and ceiling couldn't illuminate my room enough that night that the monsters came. I tried to drown out the noise screaming in my head with music, but I couldn't. Lecrae, Taylor Swift, Blood On The Dance Floor, Black Veil Brides, Abandon All Ships. None of them helped.

Even with my lamp on it was too dark to scare them away. The monsters, I mean. I couldn't write the monsters away either. I couldn't write a single word, it seemed as if I had lost my ability to write a sentence, let alone an entire poem.

I knew that the monsters weren't real. But my subconscious makes them up. Gives them each their own face. Their own body. My subconscious makes them real.

That night, they were real enough to go for blood. I could hear them below my bed hissing and slithering like snakes. I could see them with my friends and families faces, as if they'd stolen them. Talking in various tones and pitches. But I could only hear and see them in my mind.


I thought that maybe talking to someone might help, so I texted my friend Sean with a simple "hey". We talked for a while, but I didn't tell him tell him what was going on. That I was curled up in a ball, crying silently, but without any tears. Hoping the monsters couldn't climb loft bed ladders. And that mom didn't wake up in the middle of the night and decide to check on me.

Instead, I imagined her there, next to me. Telling me that it wasn't real. That I was safe. That she knew and understood what I feared. That they couldn't get to me all the way up on my bed.


I couldn't move, I was so terrified. I could only muster the will power to look at my cell phone screen when I received a text. But only if I was hidden completely under the covers.

I could only lay there. My back to the monsters eyes shut tight, one ear bud in to try and dim the noise, overwhelming and numbing in my head, shaking with pure terror.


Sleep came eventually. But it was a restless sleep, filled with nightmares. I believe that was when my 'bad dreams' started. I'd always had bad dreams, even as a child, but not as frequent as they are now. Nobody ever tries to kill me in my dreams when I was a child.


I'd never had a night like that before. None of my long nights had ever been that bad. I can only pray that I never have another. But some how, deep inside, I know I will have another. And when I do, it will be even worse. And music won't be able to save me. And I doubt that anyone will know. Not even the one that could save me from it if I told them.