Dear Depression … Why?

Dear Depression,

Why have you chosen to follow me around? You watch with a menacing delight as the tears fall from my eyes. It seems you enjoy every moment of my despair. You stare so very intently. You laugh off my inability and feeble attempts to stop you. You drag me down with you until I have no energy left in my body and bones to move. I fall asleep hoping you will disappear but you are always there when I open my eyes. At times, I do not notice you there but we always meet at my reflection. I don’t seem to recognise myself since you moved in. I try and distract myself or even you but you never seem to give up. Why can’t you let me go? Guilt, hatred and anger stand around me holding hands. It was you that brought them here and now they won’t seem to leave. They have made this place their home. My mind is not their home but they claim it as their own.

I carry the weight of you and the others. Anxiety turns up just when things cannot seem to get any worse, it is always hiding nearby ready to join in. You made me forget the days before and I cannot imagine the days ahead. You consume me. You smudged the smile on my face until it no longer looks like one. You took my excitement, happiness and buried them beneath the mountains. You tell me this is forever and it has been forever. Forever has become a word I now hate. I have repeated it far too many times. You have engraved it in the depths of my mind. You live inside these bones and I wish I could scrape you off. You burn me from inside and even all my tears cannot calm the flames.

It was a sunny day but you are the violet storm that came along. They tell me that storms don’t last forever but do you have an end? I hope you leave in the same way you arrived. In the blink of an eye. In the flick of a switch. In the flicker of a flame. In the flutter of a butterfly’s wing. You always know when to come and crush the feeling of ‘happiness’.  I was better off not knowing of your existence. Of your pain. You made me forget how to smile and mean it. When I laugh you whisper and remind me it’s not real. I run and cry in the hopes of drowning you out but you have learnt how to swim. How do you do that? Why do you do that? You poisoned my every stem.

I sit here writing this letter knowing I am stronger than you are. You tell me to give up and I ask myself what is the point? I then remember the sun is always on my side. You may carry all the clouds in the sky but the moment the sun shines. I am free. Each time it shines, I run further away from you and closer to the sea.

Yours Sincerely,

Zo, S