Dec 2016
You can count the little white pills with a green stripe around the middle
But you can’t count how many times in the last few years your mother looks at you with worry and resignation
Disappointment and consternation
You know she doesn’t know what to do, doesn’t understand that what’s going through your head are thoughts that make you lock yourself in your room and want to never come out
She doesn’t understand that the thoughts in your head are so dark you don’t want to wake up
And every day you struggle to find a reason to wake up, and when you finally wake up, the sun is blazing, burning itself into your sight, burning
Burning like all the secrets and feelings bottled up that are going to spill over at any moment, the bottle of feelings that cracks every night before you fall asleep, the liquid running and soaking into your pillow as you try to blink away your perspective on the world, on your own life
You try to guard your heart with steel walls, try to duct tape the bottle of feelings inside, crashing and thrashing around, being careful around the shards of your glass heart that have cracked and have come loose again
But duct tape can’t fix everything, especially not your heart, and every time you try to pick a piece of shattered glass heart up, you continue bleeding, pouring from the scars and wounds you tried to sew shut, the things from battle that will never fade
Your mind is an ocean of constant stress, worrying away at your very soul, your desire to live, and all life gave you was a little boat that was called Hope and walked away laughing, saying, ‘Good luck’
Your depression rose up in waves around you, dragging you under breathe in and up breathe out and under again, never calm, and you’re struggling on the outside, everyone can see that, but you feel like you’re the only one who understands enough, why wouldn’t you be able to understand yourself, why can’t you understand yourself, why?
Because your depression left you stranded on an island with no one to talk to, with nothing to do, nothing you want to do
But you did all you could. You wrote notes on whatever you could scavenge, pushed it into a bottle, threw it in the ocean and waited
Waited for the sun to come up, waited for another day, another reason, for living
It was like ordering something online, just when you think it’ll never arrive, it does
An orange container of white pills with a little green stripe around the middle and by then, you realize you’ve survived on an island by yourself, you’ve lived this long, the sun is still shining, birds are still chirping
So you dump the pills into the ocean and watch them float away, smiling and waving
‘Goodbye depression…goodbye’
And when depression comes back, washing over the island, remember that life gave you a boat called Hope and when it walked away laughing, saying ‘Good luck’ you smiled and said ‘Thanks, I’ll need it’
But you can’t count how many times in the last few years your mother looks at you with worry and resignation
Disappointment and consternation
You know she doesn’t know what to do, doesn’t understand that what’s going through your head are thoughts that make you lock yourself in your room and want to never come out
She doesn’t understand that the thoughts in your head are so dark you don’t want to wake up
And every day you struggle to find a reason to wake up, and when you finally wake up, the sun is blazing, burning itself into your sight, burning
Burning like all the secrets and feelings bottled up that are going to spill over at any moment, the bottle of feelings that cracks every night before you fall asleep, the liquid running and soaking into your pillow as you try to blink away your perspective on the world, on your own life
You try to guard your heart with steel walls, try to duct tape the bottle of feelings inside, crashing and thrashing around, being careful around the shards of your glass heart that have cracked and have come loose again
But duct tape can’t fix everything, especially not your heart, and every time you try to pick a piece of shattered glass heart up, you continue bleeding, pouring from the scars and wounds you tried to sew shut, the things from battle that will never fade
Your mind is an ocean of constant stress, worrying away at your very soul, your desire to live, and all life gave you was a little boat that was called Hope and walked away laughing, saying, ‘Good luck’
Your depression rose up in waves around you, dragging you under breathe in and up breathe out and under again, never calm, and you’re struggling on the outside, everyone can see that, but you feel like you’re the only one who understands enough, why wouldn’t you be able to understand yourself, why can’t you understand yourself, why?
Because your depression left you stranded on an island with no one to talk to, with nothing to do, nothing you want to do
But you did all you could. You wrote notes on whatever you could scavenge, pushed it into a bottle, threw it in the ocean and waited
Waited for the sun to come up, waited for another day, another reason, for living
It was like ordering something online, just when you think it’ll never arrive, it does
An orange container of white pills with a little green stripe around the middle and by then, you realize you’ve survived on an island by yourself, you’ve lived this long, the sun is still shining, birds are still chirping
So you dump the pills into the ocean and watch them float away, smiling and waving
‘Goodbye depression…goodbye’
And when depression comes back, washing over the island, remember that life gave you a boat called Hope and when it walked away laughing, saying ‘Good luck’ you smiled and said ‘Thanks, I’ll need it’
