Songs don't write themselves.
Food doesn't grow itself.
Paintings don't paint themselves.
Music doesn't play itself.

It all comes from us.
Humans.

We are capable of so many things.
We can laugh and cry.
We can dance and fall.
We can do so many amazing things, yet we choose to worry.

We choose to be negative.
We choose to see the bad over the good.
We choose to prioritize our appearances.

What happened to living our lives?
Doing what we wanted.
Eating ice cream with friends
Going to the lake.
Building snowmen with our families.
What happened?

When did we start sitting at desks for hours a day?
When did we start checking on our phones more than on our mothers or fathers?
When did we lose our ability to perceive happiness as an emotion and not the amount of money in our pockets or makeup in out bathrooms?

It's time to be spontaneous.
It's time to be strong and brave.
It's time to sing songs in public.
It's time to buy a dozen balloons for the people we love.
It's time to eat cake when we want regardless of calories.
It's time to take that painted smile off our faces and replace it with a real one.
It's time to be happy again.

We are amazing creatures.
We are human.

Roar like the river
Open your eyes
Atune your thoughts
Meditate on happiness

Roam with those before you and those who will come after you.

I have this friend.

His name isn't important, he hardly even remembers it.

He suffers.

He suffers like I did.

He knows the cold nights that stick their icicle fingers into your thoughts.

He knows the days of bleak nothing.

He now knows what I've been through.

Last night he called me.

Told me he couldn't anymore.

That he had nothing left.

And it's true. He didn't.

But I told him.

"I've been there before."

"I've felt the temptation."

What he doesn't know.

Is that I didn't have someone like me.

Someone to say no.

So my brain told me yes.

Until I spat out the pills.

And let my heart take over my mind.

But he doesn't believe me.

So he goes back into the dark to suffer once more.

Things don't feel right.

It's like the world is painted in front of me.

It's like the ground is trying to swallow me.

I'm not okay.

The world is spinning.

My heart is racing.

I can't breathe.

I never. Wanted this.

This attack on my body by my brain.

People ask if they can help.

I want to say no, but my only answer is tears falling down my face.

My hands once steady are shaking.

Their own little earthquake that's wrecking my world.

That world painting is slowly fading.

This isn't okay anymore.

I can't breath.

I can't move.

I don't want this.

Things are okay, I know they are.

But my brain tricks my body into thinking they're not.

I'm left in the background as my body breaks down.

I can hear myself screaming but it sounds like some one else's voice.

Like a worn out recording I've heard a million times before.

And I watch as my body takes the brunt of the attack.

My eyelids are heavy.
Some days I struggle to keep my mind afloat in the ocean of fog.
My thoughts are thick and stagnant.
My limbs weak and unforgiving.

My eyelids are weighed down.
It's like thick, heavy broadway curtains over my brain.
Show's over and I hardly know my own name.
Thinking is out of the question.
All I can do is listen.
But all I hear is the hum of pointlessness coming from others mouth's.

My eyelids are slipping.
There's a buzz deep in my head. Like a million bees docile and drugged.
I don't feel safe anymore.
My body is falling apart.

My eyelids are closed.
I can't anymore.
Awake is a secductress.
Dark and brutal.
Nothing in this world is worth the hum of hopelessness.

Sleep.

Breath as you go.
Falling through the floor.
Watch as I disappear.
Forget this world as we know.
Ignore the trap door.

I wasn't made for this show.
I never wanted to be sawed in half.
Take me out.
Finish my waste of life.
Gather around for the show.
Do me a favour and ignore the trap door.

I didn't want to be here.
Falling straight down.
You stole my show.
My parashute will get me to the ground.
But you'll shoot me back into the air.
Ignore the lock on the trapdoor.

Sold out show.
Come watch me pull a heart out of a soul.
Watch my mind disappear.
Watch your step, you might fall through the ignored trap door.

I'm not sure if I wanna give you my secrets.
Magicians have plenty of those.
Watch as I disappear.
Nothing left.
Ignore the open trapdoor.

Breath as you go.
Please ignore the bleeding trapdoor.

The days of ice cube dinners and water lunches
The weeks of thin red strips carved into my wrists
The months of tears dripping into the toilet along with whatever was in my stomach

By the next year I was "recovered"
Now trust me that was not an easy road to get to,
and it was an even harder path to follow.
The red wells on my arms dried up.
My stomach became full
And my mind became clearer but I was still plagued by thoughts of my dark place.
It's seduction of safety and simplicity.
Of doing what I wanted to my body.
Until it too gave out like my mind had years prior.

By the next year I had relapsed.
RELAPSE
This word became plastered on every legal document I had.
This word was supposed to mean it was my fault.
That I had somehow turned around my progress.
What they didn't tell me is what the word truly meant.
Relapse means they never truly fixed me.
I was still broken and cracked under my new layer of paint.
My doll's eyes permanently captured sadness.
My porcelain skin scratched and scarred.

All it took was one push and I broke.

I. Relapsed.