A lot of people have trouble expressing themselves;

dressing in distress, sometimes unable to address themselves,

lost to guess where they should go next

and they go by themselves.

Because the hardship that they experience

is not the death of a loved one,

but the death of themselves.

 

Depression is the worst monstrosity

and comes with great velocity;

making itself an authority; a priority

and you’re simply a vanity.

Force like gravity pulling you into a cavity

ripping holes in your sanity

when it brings with it anxiety.

 

And strips you of personality.

 

It’s fear constantly in your chest;

your knees always shaking

as if the ground below you is quaking

like it can feel your chest aching

and your heart breaking

because you still cannot get out of bed

but you are still afraid not to.

 

It’s as if you were dropped in the middle of a lake.

And you cannot swim

and you cannot scream

and you cannot breathe

and you cannot see what is directly ahead of you

so all you know how to do

is to just simply be.

 

But that is not good enough for me.

 

I wanted something more

than the sadness seeping from the pores in my skin,

late nights standing over a trap door

until the light of day came flooding in,

going to war with demons

with my head spinning, monsters grinning, my spirit thinning;

but I swore I would never let them win.

 

 

 

Silent was each victory;

Silent was the rest of my success.

It was my feet meeting the carpet in the morning

when I was absolutely convinced

that I was even less than a mess;

I was a wreck of stress.

But I was only a work in progress;

 

Recovery is a slow process.

 

We all find salvation differently.

I tried them all;

I stopped climbing my bedroom walls

as I began to paint them when my brain began to stall.

From drawing to writing,

art kept me fighting

and it was there for me at my beck and call.

 

The one that reined over all was music.

It wrapped me in a warm blanket

and made the demons fade from existence.

Because I could create something that only I could understand

and for once I had something

that could fully understand me.

But as Tyler Joseph promised,

 

I wasn’t the only one using headphones to try to fall asleep.

 

Ten percent of America’s population suffers from depression

and eighteen percent from anxiety.

We stand in a crowd over three hundred and fifty million people who are just like us,

and yet we have never felt so alone, lost with no home,

not worth the stardust in our bones.

I stand for the ones who feel

like they are standing on their own.

 

I stand for the twelve year old girl

who has stared at her body for so long

that it has begun to look wrong

or odd

like when you stare at a word for so long

that it begins to look off,

like it’s misshapen or misspelled;

 

out of place and out of shape.

 

 

I live to stand

for the high school boy in sinking sand

drowning by his parents’ hand

feeling lost in a wasteland of a dreamland

dreaming in achieving what he has been believing in seeing

but instead is left to sit and grieve because they cannot conceive

that this is what their son is meant to be.

 

I am not a savior

but I’m not such a major failure, weak and wavering like vapor,

unstable and meek.

I have come so far from where I was,

trapped in a monster’s jaws,

shattered on the floor like my mother’s favorite vase,

getting frustrated as I cut myself trying to pick up the pieces.

 

But now I’m at peace instead of deceased.

 

You asked what hardship have I experienced how it has affected me.

I told you about my fight, but if it’s still not getting though

then I’ll ask if you can stand at the end of a knife

threatening your own life night after night

and come out alright, the same person

belonging to the same name playing the same old game

letting their flame grow dim.

 

I could have come to an end,

silencing my demons by sending a bullet though my head,

leaving my friends to wonder if they could have lent a hand.

But I am so much brighter now

and I spread it like mad cow disease,

dancing with ease to the music in the rain

because never again can Hades overtake my brain.

 

Because I have known what it’s like to be dead, I have started to live again.