Dear Depression

I felt you today, on my skin.

You were so warm and inviting, I felt like I knew you all my life.

And I did…..for the most part.

I think you showed up when I was 5?....or 7?

Yeah it was definitely 7, I remember it now.

You snuck up on me too…..I had no idea you were gonna wrap your arms around me when you did.

I didn’t know that you were going to attach yourself onto my skin, like...like..two separate magnets that have merged into one.

I don’t really remember life without you, I just thought that you would pass over time.

But you stayed with me...through my preteens, through what was supposed to be a few of the best years of my life.

You weren’t always this prominent

I didn’t even recognize you at first, I guess that’s how you work.

You creep slowly, like a thief through the night.

Slowly, very very slowly. You swallowed me whole.

You were right there and no one else saw you.

No one else saw the way that you made me feel, about my body, about the dark marks on my face.

No one paid attention to my bloodshot eyes, because I always excused it as the side affects of getting high.

Speaking of high...I can’t even enjoy a fucking blunt anymore because of you.

You’ve replaced everything that has made me me, with spending almost 2 hours in the bathroom crying, because that’s the only way no one would hear me.

You made me cancel so many dates with my friends, to the point where they don’t even ask me to come out anymore.

You’ve isolated me to the point where you’re my only friend. You’re the only thing that understands me, because you helped mold me into what I am today.

Therapy is too expensive.

Plus we’re black, and this isn’t the type of conversations you’d have in a black household

I can already hear my mom saying, “but you’re young….how could you possibly be going through this”.

As if you’re prejudiced, as if you carefully choose who you consume.

As if you only choose people who were old, unhealthy and poor.

If you did, so many celebrities wouldn’t have taken their lives.

But no one talks about you, we’re all too afraid to say your name.

No one likes to talk about you, and if they do bring you up.

It’s always some preppy kid who has absolutely no idea what they’re talking about, but they just want to seem “different”.

For them...you’re just a trend, a way to earn some sympathy votes.

For me…..for me you’re that voice in the back of my head telling me that I’ll never be enough.

You whisper into my ears when it’s just us at night, and you tell me all the different ways that I am worthless.

That I will never amount to nothing, that the only way to make you shut up is to…..is to.

But I won’t, I mean yeah I’ve thought about it

I even pressed the blade to my wrist that one time you were so loud, it almost felt like you were in the room with me.

I felt your disappointment when I pulled it away.

You don’t get to win. I refuse. I won’t allow it.