Warning-This poem contains themes of suicide, self harm, and depression.

My first depressive episode was last May.
My friend was on the phone with my boyfriend, and I worried he wouldn't date me for much longer.
I didn't even like boys,
I just wanted to feel loved.
I sat in the rain and thought about killing myself.
"What is happening to me?" I asked myself.
Maybe it was jealousy,
Maybe it was my period.
But I knew there was something wrong.

I had another depressive episode in August.
I couldn't stop thinking about self harm and suicide.
I tried to enjoy my vacation in Washington at my grandma's house,
but it was hard to enjoy while I was silently suffering.
I relapsed on self harm after that.

It happened again in November.
I filed a suicide report on myself at school.
Even though I had a school play that day, and a vacation later in the week, I couldn't bring myself to want to live.
I was pulled into the counselor's office at school and got sent home.
I cried on the couch when I got back home.

Again in December.
I was used to this by now.
I banged my head on my bedframe because I so desperately wanted to punish myself.
I was stuck in flashbacks of my trauma.
"If this is my life," I'd tell myself,
"then I don't want to be here anymore."
I cut myself on the train tracks and visualized myself getting hit by a train.
What made it worse was being cheated on.

The worst of my depression was in February.
I was hospitalized on Valentine's Day.
I had a plan to run in front of a train on the 15th,
and I had to sleep on my parents' floor so I wouldn't hurt myself
until I was admitted to a residential treatment center.

Now, I'm on better medications to help with my depressive episodes.
I'm still not perfect,
and not necessarily thriving or doing well,
but I'm doing better.
Thankfully.

Warning- This poem contains themes of depression and suicide.
Note-This is an older poem so it is a bit different from my other ones.

The skies are gray,
The curtains are closed.
My neighbors probably think
that no one is home.

I can't say I disagree,
I don't feel like me.
Maybe tomorrow
I won't be here anymore.

Sometimes I want to disappear,
So I just lay here,
practically in a sea of my own tears.
Thoughts cloud my mind,
Darker than the sky,
Cries and telling lies,
No one knows what's wrong with me.

I don't go to the doctor's,
But maybe soon the morgue.
Call the coroner,
Maybe they'll know what's wrong.

I think I know what's going on
But I don't think I can leave
This bottomless pit that has swallowed me.

Time feels empty,
but my mind is the opposite.
My heart is sinking
like an anchor on a boat in the sea.

My face is drenched with waterfalls;
Tears leave my eyes at a timeless pace.
All of this crying has stained my face.
My pillowcases are wet with sorrow.

I don't know how to live with such pain,
Yet I've gone so long.
But it's taken my life away,
It won't be long till I'm finally gone.

There's nothing more to say except the color gray.
It stains the day
And pains the way
That I can see colors.
It's been three years since I have seen sunshine,
A sweeter time.

When I was innocent,
And time came and went,
I could count seconds and minutes,
I felt I had no limits.
I could fly.

Now,
no matter how hard I try,
I am unable to fly.
My wings have been disabled,
Crooked with the passing of time
That of which I cannot sense.

I feel paralyzed
Like I'm trapped inside of an electric fence,
one with barbed wire that stabs my hands.
It makes me so tired to feel so trapped and unable to speak.

My body has broken down.
I've become weak.
All I can hope
is that the color gray
may not last another day.

Sometimes I feel magnificent.
I feel like I’m unstoppable,
a force to be reckoned with.
My actions aren’t well thought through,
with suicide attempts on impulse.
I’m running off of a few hours of sleep,
and I feel like nothing can knock me down.
I love myself,
and I love the world.

But then comes the lows.
I can’t get out of my bed,
and my pillowcases are stained with blood, mascara, and tears.
I claim I’ve never felt this awful,
which I’ve said the last five times this happened.
I sleep for too long,
and I feel inferior.
I hate myself,
and I hate the world.

Now I write my notes,
apologies for hurting everyone.
And then the good comes again,
but I only wait
for this ******* cycle to repeat again.

Trust me, I know it.
I knew it before you said it
before you knew it
before you even thought it.

I wasn't always like this and you know that.
I was vibrant and happy and free and reckless and joyous and dramatic and full and...
and...
and everything was beautiful.

But I know I'm not like that anymore.
Life has pushed me to the ground, held me there and made me watch.
I watched the life disappear from my eyes.
You didn't see it.

You didn't see me looking at myself in the mirror everyday.
Watching the confidence and light drain from my body like water running through a riptide.

So, yes.
Yes, I know I'm not, in your words, "The right head, no offence."
The polite way of calling me ****** in the head.
I know that.
I watch it get worse and worse evey day.
Until my clock stops ticking.

it’s midnight in laredo
and my shoes slap the sidewalk
like a dying heartbeat.

people pass by like ghosts
faces painted on smoke,
and i pause —
am i the only real one?

then loneliness crawls my back
like a wet coat i can’t shake off
and i keep walking.