Broken Poetry

Depression and Anxiety

Short story.

In the darkness I lay, tears flowing down my face. A loneliness so thick hangs in the air, poisoning the breaths I take and seeping into my head. My stomach twists and turns, and threatens to spill, my lungs burn with sobs, and I struggle to breathe.

I can't hold it in anymore, so I rush to the bathroom and cry while purging years worth of clustered depression from under my bones. My head throbs with pain, a constant cry for help coming from within the locked doors of my mind. I sluggishly move back to my room, and stare at the pile of homework on my desk.

I should try.

So I sit down and open up the book, but the longing for rest slips into my body and mind. Memories of pain play on the pages before me, dancing above the mathematical problems and words. Taunting the tears I hold back to come out and cry. I close the book. I'm done with trying to fix myself, I'm too far off into the darkness of the deep sea to be found. The pencil within my hand breaks under the pressure of my enclosed fist. Rage, panic, disappointment, pain... I can't survive like this for much longer. All of my happiness is gone, I'm down to living off the last drop of a smile.

Doesn't anyone see? I'm trying and trying, but these thoughts pull me back and chain me to this wall in a room filled with horrifying scenes and memories. The mask I wear is broken, cracked beyond repair. The smile it once held, now shattered and lost across the floors of this world. No matter how hard I try, I just can't seem to meet the expectations people set for me.

I'm lost, so lost. I haven't found the motivation to continue down this path we call "life." It's impossible for me to function when my mind cannot process the things around me.

I take a step back from the world, and close my room door. I lay on the floor, stare into nothingness, and let the beasts that thrash against the cages of my mind run free. They eat at my flesh, scratch my skin and shatter my heart. They chew on my throat while I struggle for air, and destroy my body and mind.

Emptiness, exhaust, pain, numbness. It's all I can feel, yet those feelings are so vastly ironic.

The girl I once was lays dead on the floor of this room. Her smiles and laughter long gone. Look at what I've become... this gloomy, sad soul. I just want to be normal, to be able to focus on the task at hand. To get up and continue down the path of life. To smile and laugh with the people I love. I wish to be normal, so I can be happy once again. Why?

Because normal people can live, they can move forward, they can succeed. Unlike the brokenness I've become, they are whole, pure, and untainted by depression or anxiety.