I’m a functionally depressed person.
I’ve self-diagnosed myself as this
Because severe depression makes
Me feel like I should be lying
Around my house all day and
Although I’d rather wrap myself
In the blankets of my bed,
I push myself out into the day.
Dressed in an outfit that’s not
Sweatpants and a t-shirt, but
Instead, jeans and a sweater.
Long sleeves to cover the cuts
On my arm, or many bracelets
With no colors that match my
Outfit but they cover my
Self-inflicted wounds from
The night before.
I fake a smile at people
That I pass by during the day
And I hope that they can’t
See through my eyes and into
My head. I hope they can’t read
The suicidal thoughts swimming
Around, filling the lack of serotonin
That I’m missing from my brain.
Their eyes feel like lasers shooting
Into my brain like bullets that I dream
Of releasing from the chamber
To settle in my head.
I’m a functionally depressed person
Because I function in society
Without anyone knowing that
Inside, I’m already dead.

There’s an infinite amount of things in this world that I’ll never understand; an enormous list of things I’ll never know the rhyme or reason behind, if there is one. I can never understand why there are days when out of the blue, watching TV downstairs, that she’ll just get up and leave the room, making an exit to our bedroom, and our bed. I’ll never understand why her brain has less chemicals than mine, why she suffers from depression, and I’m just fine.

But as I watch her crawl up the stairs slowly, I know that the tears have already began to well up in her eyes and are threatening to spill over but she’s keeping her composure as long as she can until she’s hidden away inside our room. And thirty seconds later, she’ll have unleashed the flood of salty liquid down her cheeks until they mark the pillow case with mascara and eyeliner.

And after letting her sob in a silence that she thinks I cannot hear, I’ll make my way up the stairs to find her with her back towards the door, her shoulders shaking as she tries to stop the rain from falling, hoping I’ll leave it alone and leave the room.

But it’s too much to see her fight this battle on her own. It’s too hard to see the scars she’s taken in a haste to finish the war for the night and start again unexpectedly in the future. So instead, I don’t ask her what’s wrong or why she’s crying because I know that she doesn’t even know why the tears are falling so quickly. I know that she’s just as lost as I am in this mission.

So I won’t leave the room, but I’ll lay down beside her and listen to her as she continues trying to stop her tears, the sniffling of her nose before she knows she can’t win and let’s herself go once more in the presence of me. And before long, I’ll wrap my arms around her shoulders and hold her in them until she relaxes in my security.

There are things in this world that I’ll never understand, like how she can be so miserable and I can be just fine; why she was born with a brain with less chemicals than mine.

It takes both hands to count the number of times I’ve been ***** but doesn’t count because I didn’t say ‘no.’
Both hands to recall the men who I felt obligated to sleep with because I had turned them on it’d be ‘mean’ to leave them that way.
On both hands, I can remember the number of times the smell of alcohol on his breath made me want to ***** as he kissed my neck before thinking that I wanted it.
Both hands to count the number of times I wasn’t strong enough to push him off of me before he pushed inside of me.
Both hands to count the number of times he told me to ‘calm down, it was alright.’
I used both hands too many times to run my nails down his back, making him think I was enjoying myself; hoping to end it end sooner.
On both hands, I can count the number of ******* I faked on a different man’s mattress in a different position than the man before.
On both hands, I can count the number of times I said I liked it from behind the most so I wouldn’t have to see his face.
On both hands, I can count the number of men I thought might sleep with me and actually like me instead of using me as just another way to get laid.
Both hands I can count the number of times he finished and I got dressed in the dark so that I could leave and never hear from him again.
On both hands, I can count the number of times I’ve cried myself to sleep, feeling ashamed of the number of men I’d wished I’d said ‘no’ to.
Both hands I can count the number of nights I’ve stayed up only to cut another slash through my wrist and let his memory seep through the wound.  
On both hands, I count the number of times I didn’t want to have ***, but felt guilty and pressured into doing what he wanted.
Both hands I can count the number of times I’ve been *****, but didn’t say no, didn’t struggle, only cried in silence after it was over.

For every yellow cab maneuvering
Through the city streets,
Holding people who sit in the
Backseats, dreaming of what
Heaven might look like.
For every skyscraper standing
Within New York City,
There’s at least two people
Who stand on their roof tops
Dreaming of how it feels to fly.

I’ve walked through graveyards in the broad daylight,
Not to feel like I’m alive,
But to search for a place to die.
I want to know what section of the cemetery I’ll be buried in.
I’ve walked the grass between the headstones,
Reading the different names,
And in the far corner underneath a shade tree,
I used a shovel one night to dig out six feet
Of dirt which lies in a pile beside the rectangle hole.
I’ve knelt beside my plot and wondered if my casket
Would keep me warm after having left the cold earth.
The grass that surrounded my future home tickled my legs
As I prayed to a folded paper headstone that I held between my fingers.
Wrapped within the creases, rested my beloved razor blades
And written in the tear stained white space
Read the word, “depression.”

I threw the folded paper six feet under and stood up to refill the grave.

By the end of the tenth month,
I’d have cut myself at least ten times
On ten different nights.
Ten mornings I’d wake up and put
On a long sleeved shirt
And not because I was cold.
Ten bracelets would line my wrist
And I’d say that they matched my outfit.
Ten nights I’d cry myself to sleep
And wish that I was dead.
Ten mornings I’d wake up with my eyes
So red and swollen that ten people
Might’ve asked if I was okay
And ten times to those ten people
I’d say that I was just tired.
Ten Band-Aids would be laid to rest
Over my wounded skin.

And after the tenth month,
It would be November.

Depressed People Have Best Friends Too
I don’t think that people comprehend
That there are days when my bed is my best friend.
She holds me snuggled in her blanket arms and doesn’t
Mind that the night before, I was punching her mattress stomach
And crying onto her pillow shoulders.
The days when my black curtains make it harder to pull
Myself away from her full size body because they’re
Shielding me from the sun are some of my favorite days to spend
Staring at the ceiling until I’m too tired from doing nothing.
2:00 in the afternoon feels like 2:00 in the morning.
Sleep comes easier behind the daylight after silently sobbing
To my bed the night before while the rest of the world
Slept peacefully.
I’ve found that the brisk breeze outside often punches me in the face
And the spring dandelions, summer heat, autumn leaves, and
Innocent white snow kicks me in my ribs when I’m already down.
Each morning, I cautiously leave my bed and all around me
It seems that people are throwing daggers at me with their eyes,
Whisper spitting poison from their lips.
The pain is simply too much.
Staying in bed, wrapped in the comfort of blanket arms
Holding me while I sleep away the hurt is easier.

I’m sorry.
I’m sorry it had to end this way. I’m sorry to put you through this.
Nothing I say would ever make you understand the pain I was going through. There’s no way to describe the suffering I was torturing myself with.
I tried. But five years is too long.
Too many nights of cutting my wrist, crying myself to sleep, then waking up the next morning and pretending everything was fine.
Everything wasn’t fine. Nothing was fine.
Imagining your funeral day after day after night after night is not normal.
Thinking of ways to **** myself had turned into an everyday routine.
I couldn’t remember the last time that I was truly happy.
A smile is too easy to fake.
I’m so sorry, Mom. I’m so sorry.
I can only imagine that you’re going through Hell right now. And I never wanted to hurt you but I couldn’t live the way I was.
I didn’t know how to fix it.
John, please don’t do anything stupid. Mom doesn’t need to lose both of her children. I’m sorry I couldn’t say goodbye.
And I know you’re probably thinking half of this is your fault because you’d caught me cutting more than once and didn’t say anything because I promised the last time would be the last time.
This isn’t your fault.
I know people will say that they never saw the signs. But I’m still trying to figure out how everyone has missed them.
Too many text messages telling people that I wasn’t happy and I didn’t want to live anymore. Too many text messages telling those people that I wanted to die.
Too many text messages begging for help.
Too many posts on social media asking someone to save me.
No one ever cares until something bad happens though. Because now I’m dead and everyone is trying to figure out what happened and why.
I only hope that when word gets around that I killed myself, all the people who received text messages or read a post that they ignored, will catch their breath because they know they should’ve done something.
But it’s too late.

I’ve written my suicide note disguised
Too many times in too many text messages.
I can’t understand why no one is trying to save me
When that’s exactly what I’m waiting for:
Someone to tell me that I need help.
Someone who doesn’t just listen,
But takes me to the hospital.
Because I can’t bring myself to drive with scars lining my wrist
Through traffic lights under the stars to the emergency room.
But I can’t swallow the number of pills, I lost track of count
To take me out of my misery either.
Kissing a bullet through my lips
Is too much noise and clean-up,
But at least I’d be gone; guaranteed.
Thoughts don’t guarantee anything,
But they set the idea in motion.
Thinking of my funeral from afar,
Watching everyone dressed in black,
Crying their mascara down their cheeks,
Almost would have me fooled that they care.
The very thought of imagining my own funeral
Makes me think that I might just be able to create it.

I cut myself again for the last time the night before last, proceeding to fall asleep, hoping I wouldn’t open my eyes this morning.
Waking up to a floored mascara line so straight down my cheek, I didn’t know tears could glide so unbent.
Ruler aligned cuts stand ***** like railroad ties over the flesh of my wrist.
I walk around, careful because I’m concealing a secret that only I can possibly know.
The bracelets hugging the veins in my wrist are nothing but a fashion statement working to disguise the cuts that haven’t yet turned to scars.
I walk around, half hoping someone notices, but still praying they don’t.
The feeling as if everyone around me can hear the thoughts whispering inside my head as they grow louder the more I try and look someone in the eye.
Can they see that the dam inside my eyes broke and was put together when I focused on keeping the blood contained from my wounds?
Gambling with the idea that the people I walk by and next to and towards know that I tossed and turned too many times to remember.
Risking and hoping the **** Band-Aids won’t draw attention to the damage I’ve done to my skin,
Until I take them off, allowing the cuts to breathe,
To heal into scars.

Do you know how many times my mother coughs so hard in an hour that it still surprises me she hasn’t lost a lung?

I wonder if all the money that she spends at the gas station on that tiny cardboard box was saved instead of spent, if she could manage to pay the bills before the late notice arrived in the mail.

How many times do you think she tries to quiet the change being pushed around the tabletop as she counts out the quarters, the dimes, the nickels, the pennies before she has enough to slide the coins across the counter at the station?

How many times is her anger thrown at me because nicotine is absent from the house?

I can only imagine the color inside her chest, protecting her lungs with a black tar after too many years of flicking a flame to a thin white candlestick stuck between her lips.

The house smells of smoke and the yellow filter lines the walls, around the frames that hang themselves by nails.

I clean the mirror and see the paper towel golden from the lingering tobacco.  My clothes reek of a stench so strong no amount of perfume seems to be enough.

I’m paranoid that every time I’m in a room of people and someone mentions that it smells like smoke, if they know I harbor such a scent that I pour it off second handedly as if I inhale the drug too.

I open the mailbox and the temptation to “lose” the coupon booklet addressed to her grows stronger.

The business cards labeled with a barcode on the back subtracting a dollar off when you buy two packs strengthens the urge to scrabble up the silver coins or summons the question, “do you have five dollars? I’ll pay you back when I get paid on Friday.”

Friday never comes.

I often think about how much longer it will be until all the money spent on tiny cardboard boxes will be split between tobacco and medical bills.

How long can you smoke a pack a day and still be cancer-free?

And I wonder how it’s fair to watch your mother gamble with her life each time she places a thin cigarette between her lips.

Russian roulette with cancer is a game she’s become too good at.

******* isn’t the same;
My collarbone doesn’t peek up through my skin how it used to when I removed my shirt.
I can’t see my ribcage protrude over my flesh under each breast like it used to.
My hourglass figure has too much sand; it’s spilling over.
The mirror seems to hide its eyes and turn away and the scale screams for me to scram.
The numbers glare up at me as I look down over the overfilling sand to where I wonder what it’d feel like if the ocean washed up over my toes in a skimpy bikini,
My hair blowing in the wind as I let the sun kiss my cheeks.
How it feels to be kissed by the glass watching me strip into the dim bathroom light,
Instead of slapped by the picture I see in the mirror.
When I bend over to finish removing the clothing,
I have to look away from the extra bulge of sand that sits directly above my waist
And haunts me by the rolls that hang on to my fattened skeleton.
I wonder how it feels to be loved by the reflection staring back at me.