DEPRESSION IS REAL.
depression is not being sad. depression is gray-tinted glasses that affect how you see the world, depression turns your emotions from stone to glass, you never knew the meaning of "emotionally unstable" until someone drops you half of a foot and you shatter. until someone cancels on you and somehow you find yourself sobbing in your room because the demons in your head tell you that nobody ******* cares about you, nobody ******* cares about you, nobody ******* cares about you.
depression is real. i can feel it in my chest and on my eyelids and in my head and i can even feel it's iron death grip on my throat.
some days i swore to God there was a four-ton elephant sitting pretty on my chest, but i was the only one who could see it. some days there were five-pound weights hanging from my eyelids and the only way to keep myself awake was to pump myself so full of caffeine that my hands shook while my eyes were still tired, making me exhausted and anxious and hyperactive all at once. some days it took hold of my head, squeezing my eyes so that my reflection was warped and twisted and grotesque, whispering into my ears that i needed to eat less. you need to eat less. some days it attacked my heart. i can not describe the sensation better than to say that some days it felt like my aortas were being beaten by dull wooden stakes or like my blood had been replaced with icewater.
you're sitting in class enjoying a captivating psychology lecture when that thought pops in your head: "why are you even alive?" and your blood freezes, your ribs tighten, and something grabs hold of your windpipe so that all you can do to not say "i want to die" when the teacher calls on you is shake your head and say "i don't know."
you're sitting in math class and you're supposed to be learning about integrals but all you can think about is everyone's reactions if you didn't wake up the next day; you're sick but all you notice is that no one noticed you were gone. maybe no one would notice if you were gone.

one year, food was all that could make me feel happy; i found hope in the dopamine rush from the sugary calories; i rejoiced at the satisfactory feeling i got from devouring half of a pan of brownies.
the next year, yes, i know i have always loved dark chocolate but today i just can't seem to taste it. or anything for that matter.
the only thing i could get myself to ingest were liquids that would take my memories away for a while. i had no problem pouring cheap caramel apple ***** down my throat but could not get myself to pick up a golden delicious and bite into it because i knew i wouldn't have be able to finish it anyway.

depression is real. depression is a ****** up monster that leaves no part of you untouched and can steal the very essence of who you are if you let it. depression can ******* rip you apart. someone will tell you that they love you and all you will be able to say in return is "no you don't."
depression takes away who you are. because you haven't always cried every day, you haven't always been unable to eat, you used to be able to stomach an "i love you" and you used to smile when you saw your little sister.
this is not you, this is depression, depression is real. you are not pretending, you are not 'not trying', you are not 'broken'; honey all you have are some unbalanced chemicals in your brain. but we're going to try as hard as we can to make them go back to normal. i know you're in there.

depression is real. but so are you.

Lying there lifeless

pretending...

Pretending to be asleep
the gray ceiling drips onto my face
with each passing second the
room gets smaller and
hotter

Smothered by restlessness
suffocated by longing
I sigh a heavy sigh
expelling another moment from my muddled life
debating on whether I should get up or not:

     The effort of pulling off the iron covers
     the indecision, the fear
     afraid of being caught


Sneaking out to do naughty things?
                  I think not.
Something I shouldn't be doing?
                     Hardly.


Taking slow strides across the room
my eyes adjust
just enough
to bring forth indistinguishable shapes
I rely only on the silent energy
that the darkness emits
my ears pivot to pick up the blackness' ululating drone
I tune into its mystic frequency
abandoning all mixed signals that came about today

The slits of oceanic blue light
slather the window's opposing wall
an illuminescence too scarce to peg the door's frame

I twist the cold brass **** until I hear the click of metal

Tip - toe - ing . . .
through the never-ending runway-hallway that seems to  

S T    R       E          C            H        o  n   f    o     r        M  I       L           E                  S 

strafing crucified
agaist the wall
still hitting every
creak I had been aiming to miss

Descending down
the steps
I reach the
Flat 
one more step down and my excitement rises

I glide across wooden floors
stirring up invisible dust...
I am the lazy particles that float in the air
minus the fanned out beams of sunlight
shining through cracked blinds
to scream out my presence
and fuel my pestiness

Finally I am close
close enough to breathe steam on the storm door
remove the stick

push up the lock

pull. slide. open.

Ahhhh
The cold air knocks the wind into me

My first barefoot step is into a pool of icewater
turning to close the door I enter hypothermia
my body crystalizes, cracks, shatters, and re-crystalizes again
sitting down on the step I become inorganic

I tilt my empty heavy head up to the heavanly sky,
howling my thoughts to our silver satellite

I try to find comfort from afar - comfort my bed alone could not supply
my insides evaporate from my
frozen skin and
disperse into the air
my particles grow incandescent wings
the kind that effortlessly ***** and flutters

My molecules are ****** up towards the sky
they leave me behind to join the stars
I welcome their departure and wave goodbye
I hope when they return they bring back good tidings

Now that my insides are gone, my particles adrift,
My frozen-solid body is hollow
and so, a weight is lifted
(even if only temporarily,
the numbness is temporary)

Still gazing at the infinite clusters of stars like
woven celestial patchwork
littered across infinite black plains
I feel content admiring the lone stars
adventurous and brave as they come

    Feeling like those lone stars,
    trying to find my place
    I snuck out to my backyard

All I needed was some space

I smoke cigarettes to deaden the taste of you against my teeth.
You are.
You will be.
You were the only one.

The bile rises up into my throat like swords slicing the flesh of innocent men.
The rage contaned in me is that of a cannon in the breeze.

I am light.

You are dead.

I loved you with passion.
Red roses.
Satin sheets.
A racing heart.
And a jealous mind.

You slipped through my fingers like hot wax in icewater.
Your name tears my muscles and breaks my bones.

Showers made me feel clean.
Now I'm covered in oil.
I'm drenched in the feeling of your sweat against mine.
The sound of your breath in my ear shatters my reality.
It throws my mind back into a cyclone filled with pretty things you said.
And all of the lies that dripped out from between your lips.

I thought you cared..
I thought we meant something.

We were nothing greater than myself.

We were nothing greater than the air we breathed.
And the wars we set inside ourselves.

everything, ever'one and they mama
remind me of you
god******
songs you never even sang
and every western movie that doesn't
star Wayne (I kept him for myself)
people drop you in
conversation real casual like
and I still go a little cold
like someone done pour
icewater down the back of my neck
but I can't admit to how much
it still hurts to talk about you
'cause that would be some ***** ****
so I smile and let you roll off my tongue
as if there's not a single thing in the world
that tug at my heartstrings anymore but
you still do


you still do.