i was 18 when i learned to spiral out of control, when i learned what a car crash felt like and how it hurt to hit rock bottom and not want to get back up. i was eighteen when depression hit like a freight train, when i lashed out at love and learned hate, to have no one.   i was eighteen when the world decided to fall apart, when the sky crashed down and the clouds enveloped me in white, in wet; they left me to drown in emotion i couldn't control; it was an ocean of emotion in the sky, and i was learning how to fly right through it (but only to the bottom).   i was sixteen when i started feeling sick for no reason, when i wanted to cry or die or both. i was nineteen when i learned sickness meant panic attacks, when i learned there really wasn't anything else i could do to stop them except to wait for them to pass.   i was nineteen when the world fell apart a second time, when i had to learn to stitch myself back together on a dime with ink in the words that i had learned to adore throughout my life.   i learned to write when i was young, and as i grew so did the dictionary in my head, its pages imprinted on my tongue. i grew to love to lash out with words, to find how to cut deep and to heal with soft soothing slurs; i learned how to take the soul apart and put it back together again with nothing but vibrations and soundwaves.   i am nineteen and i lean on words to live a life free of pain and panic, to leave depression in my wake and learn to wake each morning with the light and let go of the dark as it passes.   i am nineteen and i run towards the future instead of clinging to the past, and my sickness may be forever but with words it will not last because i can cut it away with love stories and songs and send it back to the night where it finally belongs.   i am nineteen and my words have freed me from my monsters; i am nineteen and i can breathe again with the sun and not with the stars. i have fought my battle with pencil and tongue - i have done my duty with expression and for that, i have won.