Who am I?

I'm seventeen years old and I am lost

Seventeen years old and for a while I did not want to be alive anymore

Seventeen years old and I was ready to be off this earth.

I didn't think I would make it

I thought I would drown.

Every day, every single day, I would wake up and fall

Fall so deep and so far that it seemed impossible to get back up.

When you're young, and you're hurting, it seems that no one can help.

My family, my friends, they threw themselves into my waves 

They threw me a life preserver and I pushed it away.

Sometimes I don't want help.

Sometimes when I'm seventeen and I'm lost and I'm hurting I want to drown.

I laid on the soft sand and looked up

I saw the light filtering through the deep blue

Bubbles trickled from my open mouth

And I closed my eyes.

When you're seventeen years old

And you are lost and don't think anyone can find you

Someone finds you.

Someone drags your limp, cold body from those waves

And someone breaths life back into your empty lungs

And someone helps you learn how to live again.

At first it was a woman with a nice smile and comforting words

Sitting in a comfy chair in a warm office 

Who would pull out a little notebook and a pen

And she'd talk about "coping strategies" and "positive thinking".

Next it was a woman with a doctor's coat and warm eyes

Who would ask you to fill out a chart rating one-to-five 

On how much you hated yourself

And those bitter tears would drip down your face

Salty and warm and rough, and you let them.

Pills, pills and more pills

Every morning at 6 o'clock before you went to school.

Escitalopram- what does that even mean?

Did you even care what it meant? What it did?

You swallowed those pills 

And you hoped to get better. 

Dark days, closed blinds, curled up in bed.

Never wanted to get up again, never wanted to see light again

It's so easy to let yourself be dragged under

Why did noone tell you how hard it would be to surface again?

The woman with the nice smile and comforting words

The woman in the doctor's coat with the warm eyes

Pills, pills, pills.

At first you couldn't breath and there was no end in sight

And then your empty lungs felt air trickle back in

And your family and your friends held you close

Breathing life back into you.

Suddenly the darkness wasn't so easy

Suddenly you didn't want to drown.

Pull back the covers, open up the blinds,

And let sunlight warm your face

Which had been cold for so long. 

And all those things you used to love

Music, art, books

You've learned to love them again

And you know what it's like to be seventeen years old

To feel so lost and so far gone

And now your lungs are full and your heart is expanding

And all you want to do

Is find someone who's drowning

And pull them back up.

Because when you're seventeen years old

You don't really know what it's like to live

And what you will lose once you're gone

And those months and months of darkness 

They've simply made you stronger.

I am me because of these struggles.

I am seventeen years old

And I wanted to kill myself.

And now I'm crying not because I want to be gone,

But because there's nowhere else I'd rather be.