I can always tell when my depression comes creeping back.

The insomnia is first. Not every night, but a night or two a week I find myself exhausted but sleepless. I stare at the wall in the darkness and wait for....something. Something that never comes.

The second is the sensitivity. My nerves start to fray, my temper holds tinder, and tears spring from my eyes at the lightest affair. I seem to suddenly hold my emotions like a three year old that missed his nap.

The third is my music. I envelope myself in it, and usually end up listening to the same song on repeat for days. Until it is no longer a song. Until the beat plays in my bones, the lyrics embed in my skull.

I only know I have fallen once I start writing again. I return to the place that smells like damp air, tastes like chalk, feels like numbing nothingness. This place is where I write; where I find my depression. Or rather, where it finds me.