2023

 Hello old friend, it's you again,

back to bend my brain in two again.

A silent sadness.

The darkest dance.

Why can't my brain be normal? Why can't I ever  feel sane?

Why does life feel like human suffering is an integral part of this game.

Depression is such a finicky little lad.

Difficult yet relatable

Painful, yet comfortable.

Stable, yet unstable.

It's the life, I guess, I've chosen to live?

I met you in 2004, I was in the 3rd grade...

My teacher, Mr. Buyea.

As I looked around at my new classmates,

in my new town,

in my new school,

with my new teacher,

loneliness slowly slithered it's way into my existence and seemingly never left.

I was no longer invited to classmates' houses for playdates.

I didn't know why.

All the girls wanted to dip their sticky fingers into my pretty plats.

I didn't know why.

None of the boys would share their 'good snacks' with me like they did the other girls.

I didn't know why.

As an 8-year old you may not understand why you have to live in this new place called  the suburbs.

Nor do you understand why Daddy doesn't get to live there with you.

But lack of knowledge did not mean lack of pain.

Exemplified through my once chubby cheeks, often tear stained.

Flash forward to my teenage years when I figured out why.

"Do you wash your hair?" They'd ask with a repulsive smirk on their spray-tanned face.

"Twerk, Zara, twerk," they'd scream across the soccer fields, cackling with glee.

"Nigger," hard ER. That was damn near everybody.

As my classmates denied their hurtful expressions,

I guess that's when I just dove deeper into my depression.

I didn't realize what was happening when I would try to cut open my flesh.

I didn't realize why I found mental pleasure in starving my body for days and days.

I didn't realize why the fantasies of my non-existence, were the fantasies I enjoyed most.

So I found a numbing substance in a plant that promised to remedy the pain, bandage the wounds, and allow me to live another day pretending that things were okay.

Flash forward to present day when I realized why these things were happening.

"You seem to suffer from anxiety and depression," said my therapist in 2016.

"She could be bipolar," thought a psychiatrist in 2018

"Are you doing this for attention?" remarked an ER doctor in 2020.

As the times get colder, and the leaves brittle,

I am reminded yet again how unhealed I am.

Though I am now 27.

Inside, I still feel like that 18-year old whose body was taken.

I feel like that 8-year old who missed going to school with kids that invited her to play.

And I feel like the 3-year old who doesn't understand why mommy and daddy yell such nasty words towards each other yet speak so sweetly to me.

But I'm 27 now.

Why is the pain still here?

When will it go away?

Please go away!

I don't want to know you anymore Mr. Depression. I'm done doing this dance.

"It's not that simple," he slithers as he burrows his talons deeper into my back, arching them on the withdraw, snaking out the hope.