Not the unhappy everyone talks about.
Not just the lonely unhappy.
Not just the unaccomplished/unmotivated unhappy.
Not just the loveless unhappy.
Not just the careless unhappy.
Not just the “let down” unhappy.

I wish there was a way to better exert the meaning of what I’m feeling.
It’s the unhappy that makes me ***** before each occasion.
It’s the unhappy that makes me want to sink into the walls.
I want to break glass, break bone, break the unbreakable.

I want to rip and scratch.
Skin, lips, paper.

It’s like a downward spin that sometimes leaves me pleased…
and other times incredibly hollowed.
There aren’t any solid memories that explain why I’ve gotten so sad.
I do remember when it started though, or at least when I was old enough to understand it was not a good feeling.

Five.

Five years old.
Sitting alone in the heater room where my “tea table” was set up.
Tweety bird tea set.

I remember thinking about grown-ups and all that they do.
I remember not wanting to be a child anymore.
I’d get mad when someone interrupted my thoughts.
That was the first time I remember being depressed.

I’ve been depressed since,
but depression is a very small part of unhappiness…
or whatever it is that’s been sloshing around in my gut since age five.

All I know is that it escalates.
It always has and now I’m very afraid that it always will.