Every human walks around with a certain kind of sadness
stitched into the tag in the neck of their coat.
They carry it like a wallet weathered from use
and old gift cards in the pocket poke at the seams.
They keep it tucked away like a pressed flower
in between the pages of their favorite novel
and find it while they're thumbing through
for that line about love that they have forgotten.
They leave it in the bottom of their shoe
and let it poke at their soles when they walk,
and, becoming accustomed to it,
no longer feel it at all.

Jesus Christ I swear I'm trying it's just not working, everything keeps falling through, keeps slipping through, and maybe I'm not doing this right, maybe I'm just making mistakes, but I don't even know where to start, I'm trying to take it one step at a time but everything happens all at once and I'm not fast enough, I'm not strong enough to carry on like this, my feet are tired and I don't care enough to try any harder, I'm giving up, I'm sorry

Please understand that when I say these things it's not really me talking, it's the concrete in my stomach, it's the staples in between my toes, it's the zip ties around my wrists, it's the scars around my wrists, it's the coals in my throat, it's the liquor in my throat, it's the liquor in the cabinet my mom never had to put a lock on until I started hiding in it, it's the noose around my neck, it's the smoke in my eyes, it's the bullet in the barrel, it's the gun in my dad's closet, it's the gun in my hand, in my mouth, when I say these things it's not really me talking, it's all these things trying to get out.

In speech class they taught us that people speak only to entertain, to inform, or to persuade so when I texted you at 4:31am after swallowing the liquor cabinet and talked about three years ago in Michigan when we watched that movie after everybody else had fallen asleep, I was trying to entertain you, trying to remind you of all the fun we used to have together before you changed and when I told you I missed you I was trying to inform you of the pit in my stomach that you left when you removed yourself from me, of the way I feel when you say my name and of the fact that yes, I did notice that you stopped saying my name and when I told you I was dying I was trying to persuade you to come save me, made it life or death so you only had two options and if you made the wrong choice at least I wouldn't be around to see it, I was trying to convince you that you needed me by showing you how much you would miss me and when you showed up at my bedside, I know you were trying to tell me you loved me.

you wished me well with my addiction
refused point blank to write your poetry
where it could be injected medicine
distilled from the pages of history
the agony of the reality made me wander
aimless and homeless broken and desperate
I chewed on the leaves of empty pages
pretending I could hear you singing.

It seems sometimes that depression has no cure,
you just can't be happy and people call you immature.
People just don't seem to realize that this won't go away overnight,
the thoughts and feeling hold onto you so tight.
People always think that everything's for attention,
but what they don't realize is that it's like you are stuck in an invention.
People just don't understand how this really feels,
they think that calling 999 would make all of this heal.
The truth is I am not the person I used to be,
I used to be happy and energetic which you just can't see.
I do my best to hold back and pretend,
like everything's okay and this will mend.
It's easy for people to say you'll get over it,
but they don't realize that all you want to do is quit.
You just can't bring yourself to think about the future,
because in moments like these you count yourself as the loser.
You can't sleep because you think about what happened,
this is not at all as you imagined.
But you know in your heart that you can get through this,
all the bad things that happened you just need to dismiss.
You just have to remember that your not the only person going through this struggle,
you know that you will find the light at the end of the tunnel.