depression is that guy on tinder who you swiped right to when you were half drunk and half not paying attention, but who keeps messaging you and wont leave you alone

depression is a virus containing every fear and every regret and every sad feeling I've ever felt coursing through my vulnerable veins like storm clouds in the wind

i have spent much too much time staring at a wall, too weak and unmotivated to even shift my gaze

it holds me down like paperweights on paper limbs that no longer feel like my own

i have too many ideas, and so i act on none

too many hopes and plans that i believe i will never get done

i watched my mom drown in her own mind as she slept through each day and night

but now i know what it is like

i want to travel to thailand and go on a mission trip and intern for a vegan magazine and go to europe and work at a vegan bakery and design my own greeting cards and sell illustrated apparel and volunteer at a hospital and work at an animal shelter and help every person i can and befriend every stranger and wander the streets and perform spoken word poetry and take chances and have wild sex in your apartment and see indie concerts and sell art and live my life and change the world

and yet i sit

i stare at a wall, paralyzed, overwhelmed i cant move

i must do these things, but depression forbids me

it doesn't make sense!

i pound at the black goo from the inside out, i try to drain it from my body, i try to pretend it doesn't exist

but it tires every muscle in my body

it over-rides my every thought

depression is frustration, aggravation, it despises my dreams and crushes my hopes

i pop a pill but it defends

they say, think on the bright side, but there is no bright side of a body filled with darkness

they say, exercise, but immediately, my anorexic mind gets triggered

they say, people have it worse, and no i do not object, but how can that fact bring a smile to my face?

depression claims to know reality, it promises to burn the sugar coating off of life until i am a skeleton laying in sickly sweet ashes

depression chains me and starves me and even though today i am again not strong enough to fight against its choking grip

even though depression may have won some battles

i refuse to let depression win the war

if i could tell you i love you, i would do it in the midst of silly jokes and you calling me a shithead

i would roll onto my stomach next to you and press the side silhouette of my body against yours like a puzzle piece that fits perfectly

i would nonchalantly flip my hair part to the other side and trace my finger across your lips that have spoken poetic phrases that i would never even think to assemble in the same monologue as a string of curse words

i would purse my lips and smile and tell you how i have always been afraid of failing to say what i want to say before it is too late

he will probably look off to the side as his mind races to seek out a time in his life in which those words can relate

and i will wait for his response even if the resulting story is 10 miles long and 15 years old but when i am sure he is done i will have hopefully bubbled up the courage to say

“i love you”

because truer words have never been spoken

and i will hesitate thereafter, expecting you to blow up or punch me in the face or something, who knows

but i have waited much to long

and this is the only truth i have never admitted to you

and then ill say “please don't freak out”

i will say it after the fact so that he doesn't get freaked out just by me saying it initially

and i will tell him that i am not saying it for him to say it back, that i don't care if he does or he doesnt, that that is not the point

but that i just need to release it into the open in the dorm room air between us

as we lay side by side, on top of wrinkled forest green sheets and yes, my mind is lost in the wilderness

it will be the first time i say those words aloud to a man

and probably about the 5th time he has heard them spoken in a delicate voice similar to my own

but it doesn't matter because if i dont, our promise to speak our minds and keep our cool on the receiving end will be incomplete

and these words sum up perfectly the way i feel my eyes shine when we are in the same room

the way that all i want to do is make contact with you when we are in the same vicinity

the way i tightly grasp onto every gesture and every word you say like it is the most beautiful seashell as the racing current tries to slip it away

so i don't mind if you do not return those three words to me

they will still always be yours to keep.

i reminisce nighttime road trips singing these lyrics with my sister in the backseat

but i never considered those words would ring so true

when the bones in my foot cracked and my ligaments tore apart like broken seams or cracks in the foundation of my precious childhood home i wept and i yelled

the regret for my stupid goddamn recklessness swept across my mind in dark, eerie waves like a memory you’d rather not remember because it makes you feel like a complete failure

but once the anger wore off and i was forced to lay alongside my thoughts for those months of bedrest, i discovered nooks and crannies of myself that i never knew were there

i realized how beautifully the human body is assembled, so that the placement of every bone and every vein allows for endless types of movement with a nearly magical connection to the brain

my sliced flesh healed back together, determined to recover even stronger than before

through my bedroom window i watched seagulls dancing gracefully with the wind, not realizing what it'd be like to have a broken wing

and the colors of the sky shifting like the communal paint water in a kindergarten art class

teasing us with a glimpse of what a masterpiece the world could be

i traveled to my dream destinations in my head and created new ones with ink on blank paper

and i am awaiting the day when i am permitted to be sent out into the real one again

and only then will i see reality with the refreshed gaze of a newborn child

i have never been one to dance, but i swear, i will sway to the rhythms of the traffic and the clouds

i have never been too enthusiastic about running but i promise you, i will wake up each morning before sunrise to soar through the drowsy streets with a newfound energy i can finally release

i will take you by the hand and we will explore all there is to see, on my finally functioning two feet, and i will learn what it’s like to walk and to live again.