pendulous

someone once told me that depression was god's way of weeding out the weak

as if there were no room in this world for people like me

people who can't just "suck it up" and be HAPPY

WHY am i obliged to plaster a smile on my face?

why do i need to convince you i'm okay?

i'm not okay

but i want to be

i am sick of oscillating between extremes

and sometimes i think that when God made me

he never meant for me to last

you see, i was born a ticking time bomb

set off by the tiniest hint of a breeze

i fall for every hint of breeze as though it were a hurricane

a loose cannon doomed to self-destruct again and again

i am the disintegration

ungrounded like quicksand

and i can hear the crack of my bones

as they grind against the axes of my existence

i

and me

are suspended in a perpetual disconnect

manic i

and depressed me

aren't even the same person

i am a seesaw in disequilibrium

trying to strike a balance

where there is none

eternally

trying to find it in myself to just be happy

like everyone wants me to be

but the opposite of depression is not happiness

it's vitality

my mouth is an open wound

unending verbal bloodletting

but i am not weak

nor is the rawness that defines me

still waters run deep

i am caught between floating on the surface and drowning in my melancholy

depression is like a lot like dying

but it’s not a death

as much as it is a continual rebirth

like a phoenix lost to the flames

just to rise from the ashes

again and again

there are moments like these