Depression suffocates me
until I am begging
for just one more breath on the floor -
the aftermath of my overdose taking its toll.
Poetry is my oxygen tank.

It is a bit challenging to accept
that after feeling so low,
I felt that getting high was my only choice.
To wake up to hell for 16 hours a day,
only to have nightmares
I have never found myself able to outrun,
no matter how fast the alcohol seeps into my bloodstream -
it's almost scary to realize
that my life has fallen to this.
Long nights in basements
filled with scarlet red cups become synonymous
with dreadful episodes in the bathroom
staining the sink blood red -
We're merely trying to escape.
Depression, however, isn't just a phase -
It's a lifestyle.

Depression isn't feeling sad
when everything goes wrong -
it's not being able to accept
that everything is alright.
It isn't crying over spilled milk,
it's being the delicate glass
that was tipped just too hard,
rolled over and cracked
with a resounding smash
on the ground.
What people don't get
is that no matter how much tape or glue you use,
that glass will never be the same as its original self -
It isn't temporary - it's permanent.

It is hard to admit that I am sick.
The pills won't help,
the drugs won't help,
the people won't help -
the scariest part is that
I have to help myself.
When you've fallen into a hole this deep,
you don't simply climb out -
you claw and fight
until you can finally get a grip
on the beauty that life holds for us
and keep it to you tighter than ever.
Whenever I love something,
I hold onto it like the Earth
keeping the moon in perfect orbit
until the end of time,
in the hopes that it's not
just another wandering asteroid
that accidentally found its way into my atmosphere,
in which case the impact
leaves permanent craters on my psyche,
splashing the debris into the air,
covering up the sun
until I'm done tripping out and finally come to.

On one random Wednesday,
I blacked out.
Hours of my life in my memory
are simply gone.
Over the course of two hours,
I found my way
to the 5th floor of an unknown dorm,
face down and unresponsive in my own *****.
The next two hours consisted of EMTs
trying to force me to keep going;
all I uttered for those 7200 seconds:
**** me.

When they held my body,

Long detached from conscious thought,

I felt like I was being pressed into nothing.
As they held me down
with enough force to subdue my thrashing nervous system,
my world slipped away,
l i t t l e   b i t   b y   b i t .
I felt the dry heaves push out
any remnants of life I had remaining.
When they stuck me with the IVs,
needles pierced every inch of my body
for hours on end.
I saw hell for one night -
scary enough, in my period of unresponsiveness,
I crossed the threshold of life and death once.
I lost my heartbeat for three seconds.
Who knew that one **** hit
would almost give me one last night on Earth?

We all have our ways of coping.
Some cut.
Some rebel.
Some don't care.
I write. I speak. I live.
Poetry is my lifeline.
Somehow, words become much more
than just a collection of letters;
they become my heartbeats
translated into English.
It's almost scary that the only words
besides '**** me' that I remember from my trip are,
'you have to write about this. people have to know.'

Poetry is my oxygen tank.
*Take a deep breath with me.