"Zara, have you ever felt tired?"

My heart clenches and I jokingly respond

"Of my 'dumbness' yeah"

"lol but no"

typing...

I know that isn't what you mean.
Don't take this the wrong way, but
I've gathered enough information about you secondhandedly.
I'm quite aware of your state of mind, and you are not okay.
Still, I am taken off guard that you're exposing this to me.
Because you've never shown me your weaknesses.
So much so that I seem to have forgotten what I heard.
But you tell me nothing, giving me no more to ponder.
The conversation swings, but I still feel uneasy,
I've gone through this before. This is only beginning stage.
You're carefully introducing me to your horrors.
The third conversation of it's kind for me.
The third conversation to leave me speechless.

How do you comfort a depressed person?
My Google history shows only this question.

The process is the same each time,
First page, second page, third page.
I've been scrolling blindly through, searchingly, Desperately, Till my sympathy feels shrunken.
Because there are only so many times that I can say, "I'm sorry,"
For a situation I only wished to control.
Sincerely, I empathize with you.
'It will get better one day'
I've typed in the letters to this five word sentence
Five times this morning. 'Keep your chin up.'
My fingers are not lying, but they don't feel authentic.
Not when my eyes are sore from staring at Google's homepage. 'You'll make it through this.'
I've varied in saying this ten times this week.

Please someone tell me,

How do you comfort a depressed person?
My Google history shows only this question

I check daily for new suggestions,
Refresh, refresh, nothing, refresh again.
Because there are only so many times
that those crafted words could hold meaning.
I utter them again, *'It will get better one day.'
Making it six times for the morning.
And I hope it will, I'm not saying this weightlessly.
Even though researched, these are my only responses
to your cry for help.
Because when you show me signs if indirect defeat,
And the Googled suggestions stand still, I become silent.
I have nothing to say, clueless as to what to do.
So I end up muttering meaningless sentences
That I know cause neither harm nor good.
Short senseless sentences that I can only hope will distract you, Confuse you till I collect my gathered sources of ease.

How do you comfort a depressed person?
My Google history shows only this question

Because I become muted without it. My words choke me.
I'm worried that I would cause your fragile wings
To wither even further. Like I have to the others,
Who settled on my fingers before you.
I'm sorry that I haven't got much to offer you,
But I'm used to making everything into a joke, laughing foolishly.
I do this to comfort myself. However most times,
I'm caught holding my hands together, whispering
To my lord, pleading in his divine perfect presence
But,
How do you comfort a depressed person,
When they don't believe in God?
Still I pray, and jokingly ask that his science
Brings him relief.

But you, you pray with me, and I'm unaware of methods To comfort you that you haven't already failed at.
I have so many strung up words that are familiar to you,
But I can't speak them, you've told me nothing yet.
I myself can relate, but Google is opened up again.
I have no first hand knowledge of your mental strength.
You laugh as I do,

"I'll message you later love. My parents are fighting"

A piece of you unfolds and reveals itself  to me boldly.
I don't know what to say.

"I'm running away"

But unlike with me, To you, your issues aren't funny.

My Googled message doesn't reach you.
"Keep your chin up," I said at your little revelation
Because it's easier for me than organizing the words in my chest.
"His mother is abusive."
"His father is absent."
"He stays in school so late because he doesn't want to go home."
"He lived on the street for some time."

Jokingly you'd say that your eating a tomato a day, kept the doctor away,
But the humour doesn't reach your eyes, it never does.
However, you leave it at that. You only reveal to me so much. I know it's coming, so I prepare myself,
Once again refresh.

Please someone tell me,

How do you comfort a depressed person,
When Google's suggestions are no longer working?

"Zara have you ever felt tired?"

"Of what?"

**"living"

tonight you raised a glass and carried a laugh to highly revered names
ears buzzed to their voices
You stood and told the story
of how the fall of creation was not the taste of a forbidden fruit
but was the threat of a being so whole the gods split it in two.
it was the birth of man, the enduring search for the other half of our whole being.
and i am told of this
secondhandedly
reveling in the light in your smile
of how you leaned on your brother’s shoulder drinking away being sober
And when your words spilled their eyes gripped onto your every syllable
full with the richness of your voice
hungry for answers
and questions clipping at their tongues.
tonight while everyone toasted you
i am thinking of how we are one in each other
and wonder if my half is real in you
if we have completed the part of the search to seek the other out
knowing if we’d split we would fall apart.  
i wonder,
if being closer to you, is ruling over the god that split us in two?
- e. m. h.