the melancholy soaks your heart in an ocean of ice. you
are drowning but feel no pain, just a
numbness that spreads to your fingers and toes and
a cold whose depths have no limit. your mind is the
two-faced mayor of your body, knowing that everything is
all right but
plunging and holding you under at the same time,
torturing you only to show that it can.
it knows every beautiful thing in the world but also every
unflinching horror, and
pries your eyes open to parade in front of you
a sea of images of utter despair and desperation.
it is like the world's worst propaganda, the most corrupt
media company ever to have existed. it  
brings you from the pinnacle of your existence, the
sun-dappled happiest moments of your life, to lying
fetal and trembling
in the dark
alone.
it is an 80-foot monster wave that is the purest
adrenaline rush you have ever sought, and in a split second, it
holds you under until you wish you were dead.

you still have air in your lungs, though, and a heart that stubbornly
refuses to stop pumping and bringing life to your body.
you have legs that remember, and enjoy, the gift of walking, of running,
skipping, skating.
you have fingers that know how to hit keys on a keyboard, wrists
that can bend to let you write and draw anything that you want.
your mind isn't everything and you can beat it,
no matter what it tells you.