Spoken Word | Stressed

Depression and suicide. Hopelessness, and isolation. It could be a wellness problem or clinical. Either way, we have a generation who struggles with their mental health and ultimately their identity.

Let me take some pressure off. Let me give you a spoken word that I wrote recently to help teenagers deal with total wellness.

STRESSED

Stressed and Desserts are almost the same words. Just spelled in reverse. You might think they look the same. But, one is a blessing. And the other one a curse.

Look at these two opposite concepts.

What a curse | It’s the worst STRESSED makes you depressed and feeling like less and like your life is a complete mess | For many reasons | STRESSED cuz we compare ourself to the rest | and see everyone else’s best |

STRESSED cuz we didn’t get invited to the party and sat at home alone on the weekend | BUT at least I wasn’t naughty | STRESSED cuz we just don’t fit or feel legit | no place to live |

I never had a place to call my own | I never had a home | ain’t nobody callin my phone | where you been where you at what’s on your mind |

Here’s the problem | Teens today are living in the same | kind of stress that Mental Hospital patients were exposed to in the 1950's Broken dreams and families | Not enough likes or followers and definitely not enough filters | Not makin the grades in school or hanging with the people who are cool | They don’t have the right label and def not sittin at the right cafeteria table | Life seems like a joke | With no hope

I’ve been running low | I’ve been takin my time | I feel like I’m outa my mind | I feel like my life ain’t mine | who can relate | (who can relate?)

Who can relate? | with death and darkness and trouble and loneliness and anger and bitterness and the rest of the list that you have listed and keep in your head | when you coulda and shoulda just burnt the list instead

I don’t wanna be alive | I don’t wanna be alive | they say every life is precious | but nobody cares about mine

Listen, if you can’t turn your life around for a minute | turn this word around and listen while I try to fix it |

Stressed is really Desserts spelled backwards.

DESSERTS

Flip the word and the issues and the problems | turn it around and taste something different DESSERTS. You deserve it. EATING DESSERTS. Not FEELING STRESSED. But you deserve hope and the best.

Hope is not just a feeling or a decision | Hope is a person. Jesus. A spark. A light. In spite of everything you are going through. Hope is a pie or some chocolate or a sweet cake and some ice cream with toppings. | Or peace | Or thanksgiving |

Tastes like a GREAT BUFFET | Feels like a GREAT SONG. Is like a long CONVERSATION WITH A FRIEND. Is like TAKING YOUR PROBLEMS AWAY FROM YOUR FACE so you can see again. | It’s refreshing like a NAP IN YOUR FAVORITE PLACE.

There’s always hope | to cope | even when you feel broke. Hope.

It’s like the very first breathe when your heads been drowning under the water | it’s holding on thru roads you can’t see | and when you’re staring at your reflection finding hope in all your days | and I know you’ll thank God that you did DESSERTS and peace and hope and thanksgiving | are the way.

The way out of pain | Out of strain and cutting | It stops self harm and cryin. It gives you the feelin | like you’re winnin | and still swimmin | and not drownin. | Hope is like baseball, apple pie, and the 4th of July. It’s like an ice cream sundae. It’s like a monthly birthday.

Hope is like a text from your best friend and a movie with your boyfriend or your girlfriend | Hope is like waking up and it’s sunny | It’s a great joke that is actually funny. And makes you laugh even when you don’t feel like it

And the great news is that hope is a person | JESUS | He’s like your best friend watching a late night | or walkin down a boulevard or laying on a blanket in the park | cuz if you gotta friend you gotta chance | a good chance | a really good chance | to make it thru the night and not stop at midnite all night

What’s the day without a little night | I’m just tryna shed a little light | It can be hard | it can be so hard | but you gotta live right now | you got everything to give right now

You see there’s always a light in the dark | but you say it might be a train | and rain and lightning | NOT a blessing or a real light | whaaat? A lights a light no matter how small the light and how dark the night

But you have to learn to see differently | not like a cynic or a critic | like you’re a Pharisee and Sadd-ucee | you have to see differently and believe that life is more than hypocrisy or a news release or a disease or always getting the least | or or or or PLEASE, STOP | Life is good it really is Hear me.

Life is not to be stressed. Life is to be desserts.