I don’t want to be sad anymore.

I want to feel happy
For more than just a day, or a few hours at a time
I want to be happy

I don’t want existing to hurt anymore.

I want to wake up in the morning
And want to get out of bed, or at least want to exist in my bed

I don’t want to live anymore.

But I want to want to live
I want living to stop hurting so much that I want it to stop

I have long thought I would rather
Fall into an abyss than
Continue to live, work,
Force myself through every day
It is not easy to want to die,

But I will not, die that is,
**** myself, I guess, I
Will continue to push myself
Out of bed every morning,
Force myself into life

But it is not force,
It is how things are, how
They are meant to stay
Life is only wasted on those
Who choose not to live it

And I will not be wasteful
Will not crawl into the hole
My depression wishes
To keep me in,
I will not die, but not only that,
I will live

The princess glides across the dance floor
On the tips of her toes
Barely touching the ground,

She is not dancing, no, she is not so simple
The princess is flying, free, forgetting
That eventually, she will fall

Her legs will begin to shake
After hours of torture, her feet will swell
In the shoes two sizes too small

Her ankles will crack under the pressure
But she will keep dancing
The princess cannot let anyone see
The pain that she is in, after all,

Beauty is pain,
But pain is not beautiful

i remember
the first time i thought
taking medication was a bad thing
a thing
i would be better off not doing

i remember
wondering if it would make me a different person because
if it’s changing my brain, and i believe my brain is what makes me me, isn’t it changing me

i remember
taking it anyway, because it was supposed to help, and it did . . . sometimes
but it kind of made me worse,
the first one did anyway, but that’s another story

i remember
taking the second kind and knowing
that this was helping
it was making me feel better,
but then

i remember
my cousin telling me he didn’t need medication, that it wouldn’t help him
plus,
he was strong enough without it anyway

i remember thinking
“doesn’t that make me weak”
and i didn’t want to be weak
so i stopped taking
my medication

i remember
my cousin telling me i wasn’t weak either way
that i should take the meds if i needed them
but he also said “throwing meds at a problem isn’t always the solution”

so i remember
deciding it wasn’t the solution i wanted
i’d find a different one
i would be fine on my own
so now . . .

i remember
when I was taking medication
the lows weren’t quite so low
but
the highs weren’t quite so high either

i remember
my assistant speech coach
thinking my poetry performances on depression were just because it was a good topic
not thinking it could be because i’d felt that

i remember
performing in practice and her telling me
“you portrayed the sadness really well that time”
and i said,
“that’s because i’m sad right now”

i remember
her telling me it’s different
that i'm too happy to be that sad
“but you’re always smiling” she says
like that has anything to do with anything

i remember
being angry at her
for not knowing, not seeing i wasn’t really that happy
for telling me that i was

i remember saying
well that’s just the three Kickstart energy drinks
and the antidepressants i've taken today
and knowing she thought
i was joking

i remember
when i first went to the doctors for help
my dad took me
because my therapist had suggested I look into medication

i remember
the doctor telling me what
“the good thing about depression and anxiety is”
and i knew this man hadn’t dealt with them personally

i still remember that
because I thought it was funny that
he had the audacity to tell me
“there is something good about you always being so **** stressed and sad”

i remember
the doctor left, halfway through finding the right meds
he went to another town, another hospital, other people because why not

i remember
thinking i guess i’m not important enough
for even the doctor to stay and help
and i get that it’s not personal, but
it still feels a little bit personal