When I use words to explain my depression, I use those of others.

I claim to be a writer and yet I become so certain that what I have is too little.

As though the same force that has been pushing me down every day for almost two years-
has taken my words and squished them down just as small.

Until eventually the words were too small to make noise.

Until I was too small for the words to make it out of my mouth.

The words that others have given the world.
The words that have been spoken before.

The words from people who have already
found the courage to let themselves have a voice-

-I can say those words.

I can let myself become a part of the us who have depression.

I strip the part of myself that desperately wants to use a metaphor other than 
drowning because even when I allow myself that part I still find myself in 
the same place.

Drowning. Anchored down with my own limitations. My own fear.

Stuck to the shore in concrete shoes as my own depression washes in around me.

I haven't seen low tide in two years. But I remain just close enough to the surface
to know that there is one. To see a light peeking through but find myself unable
to reach for it.

So I use other peoples words.

Because I can form a ladder from theirs. Something to offer others so they can
understand how to free me.

I can't form a ladder from my words. No. My words are stone. Piling around me 
and raising the water level ever so slightly as each one sinks down.

Even if that stone is building itself into stairs.