False happiness
Comes in an orange container
Little white pills
Much more powerful than they look

My mood has taken a 180
My anxiety and depression are nearly gone
I feel like a whole new person
But it’s not really me

My personality is fake
Some people get **** jobs
I’ve gotten a personality job
I don’t know how to feel about that

Society can’t accept who I am
Without my little white pills
So I have to hide my true self away
In order to fit in

The carousel
Goes round and round
And I am trapped upon it
I yell and I scream
But no one can hear
I endlessly ride
Upon my horse
There's no way out
The speed increases
I whip around
Getting dizzy, nauseous
I'm under the control
Of this diabolical
Machine
And there's no way to
Stop it

There's something so enchanting
About a summer rain shower
It transports me back to
The days of joyful puddle-jumping
I'd put on my galoshes
And splish, splash, splosh
Giggling gleefully
As water went everywhere
Yes, there's something so enchanting
About a summer rain shower

There was a woman
Who lived in a box
That got smaller and smaller
With each passing year

It was just her and her thoughts
Inside of the box
And as the box got smaller
Her thoughts got darker

She wanted to escape from the box
But her thoughts wouldn’t let her
They convinced her
That she was right where she was supposed to be

Eventually, she became claustrophobic
Her thoughts turned to suicide
But she couldn’t bear to hurt her parents
Who had always loved her

So she stayed a prisoner of the box
Going through the motions each day
Pretending she was okay
So her parents wouldn’t worry

She started to wonder
“What’s the point of my life?”
Yet that was a question
That had no answer

She tried to fill her time
With books, work, and iPod games
But nothing could drive
Her thoughts away

Sometimes it occurred to her
Just how lucky she was
But that thought just made her feel worse
As though she didn’t deserve what she had

She tried reaching out to others at times
Through the Internet
Yet her anger always caused her
To drive people away

The box has become a prison
And the woman doesn’t know how to escape
So she serves her sentence
Wondering what she did to deserve it

Depression follows me
Like a shadow
Taunting me with its strange appeal
Making me long for sadness

I try to escape it but when I do
It’s right around the next corner
I can’t run away from it no matter how I try
It’s everywhere at once

I might think I’ve outrun it
But it’s still there, lurking in the background
Looming over my every thought
Never leaving me alone

I often get exhausted
Tired of trying to outrun and outthink this entity
But I have to keep mustering up the strength
To try to outrun it

I’m in the world’s longest marathon
And it never ends
There are no rest stops for me
Nor is there a finish line

Earbuds in
Head down
****, she asked me a question
Pretend you didn't hear her
Chest tight
Teeth clenched
Good, someone else answered
My secret is still safe
No one knows I have it
The dreaded "a-word"
Anxiety

Cottony numbness
Envelops my lightning-bolt thoughts
Soothes me, insulates me
I can barely think
But at least I'm not getting
Struck by lightning
On a regular basis
Anymore