depressed is not an adjective
like beautiful or funny or intelligent,
it is not a compliment
or a feeling that fluctuates.

depressed is not an adjective
to use lightly as a way to say
you are temporarily upset by an inconvenience
because something didn’t go your way.

depressed is not an adjective
to throw around like stones on a river,
like a frisbee playing catch with a puppy,
like words without meanings.

depressed is not an adjective
to be romanticized
it is not a beautiful way of begging a hero
to save you.

because if you realized
depressed is not an adjective
you’d realize
we don’t need your heroism.

i made it seem like it didn’t bother me
so as to not scare you away.

i made it seem like the image of your body on mine wasn’t terrifying,
like i was okay with trusting you,
like my past didn’t haunt me with every boy who ever laid eyes on me,
so as to not scare you away.

i made it seem like afterwards i was okay with doing it again,
like it was a shadow in the past never to be seen again,
like it left my memory like an old childhood friend,
so as to not scare you away.

i made it seem like the words you whispered didn’t run through my veins like ice,
didn’t pierce through my heart like a knife,
didn’t take hold of my limbs and rip them apart,
so as to not scare you away.

“i’ll go slow”, you whispered,
so as to not scare me away.

as a child they told me sadness
would come in waves like the ocean,
but all i ever got
was the occasional trickle of rain
from the holes in the ceiling.

it wasn’t until i grew up and learned
that sometimes sadness would hit me like a tsunami when i least expected it,
when i had responsibilities to take care of,
when i needed my emotional stability the most.

like a wave pool
sadness tossed me around
until i couldn’t see my feet through the water anymore,
until water filled my lungs like a pinata,
until it felt like everything i ever knew was drowning.

nobody warned me as a child
that sadness was not constant,
rather fluctuating like the rise and fall of the tides.