For too many years I’ve been an unwilling host To an invader inside my head A parasite See, the thing about a parasite? It’s magnificent at hiding It starts out small, undetectable Worming its way inside your body, your mind But this microscopic monster starts to feed off you Eating away your existence from the inside out Tearing through your flesh with its piercing teeth Flooding your brain with searing poison It releases its young to metastasize the damage By the time you have an inkling of the war raging inside This army has grown by hundreds, thousands And they have nuked the battleground, leaving nothing behind. My parasite may be called depression but it works just the same Starting off in the shadows Silently entering your mind Feeding off your suffering Injecting you with its lies “You are worthless” “You’re a burden” “You don’t belong on this earth” These lies grow in numbers, destroying every inch of happiness Until you see the lies as truth in your corrupted lens You are filled with an unwavering dread Crippled by an interminable loneliness And you are at the mercy of this ruthless being Then you go days without sleeping Days without feeling Arms covered in red slashes to at least feel something The world starts spinning faster, but you’re still stuck in slow motion You want someone to hear your silent screams But your presence has become microscopic, invisible And how do you put into words what even you can’t understand? So the darkness consumes you until you’re nothing but an empty shell A ghost of a human being Going through the motions of life while no longer living And all you plead for is the pain to cease So you drown in a sea of pills and pray it’s enough to send you into eternal slumber. I may have raised the white flag on my battle But I was saved before my soul could flee this earth And I am grateful for each breath I still take But this war is far from over My parasite may have been pacified yet it still remains Silently pulling the strings in the background And each day I fear it will again grow too strong And conquer the battlefield of my mangled mind.
Depression is an invisible monster with the power to destroy.