All better. Why does it still feel so alien?
I do not identify with 'severely depressed'. I do not identify with 'all better'. I do not identify with happy, I do not identify with love. I identify with the heartbeat in my chest, the backbreaking thumping in my ribcage that reverberates through my body. The one where it hurts to hold your breath, where it hurts to breathe, the one where it hurts to close your eyes. It's the one when you laugh at a table with your friends but you don't feel together, you feel like a piece of the puzzle that was jammed into place because you didn't want to put it back in the box.
I do not identify with depression, I identify with the ragged breath after an hour of unspoken tears, and the trembling hands that need to get these words out, get these words out before they build up and erupt like mini volcanoes, I have so many words that I'm typing messy and I'm shaking and I can feel the tears behind my eyes like cutting onions, like being pressed against a glass wall and seeing the outside world, but knowing that it's a society I can never be a part of anymore because of where I came from. A soldier returns from home, thinking yes, it will be the same, my dog will greet me with kisses and my house will welcome me back, but her dog is too tired to get up, and her house is rickety with wear.
I am the limbo between depression and all better. I am the ragged breath in my chest, the heavy, backbreaking heartbeat, the trembling hands trying to type out all of these words but not being able to because her eyes are blurry with the tears that aren't there, the faucet that isn't quite big enough, the water balloon that strains under pressure but isn't about to pop just yet. The feeling where you don't want to be put into a category where you don't fit into, but you put yourself into a category all the same; this world is made of boxes and stepping out of one will get you into another one in the first place, I'm typing and typing and I can't stop, my brain and my heart and my body are racing but I can't get out of bed to change my sheets, do my laundry, vaccuum the floors, take out the trash, I am trapped here and I can't do anything because I am afraid and I am the limbo.
I am the limbo between the two worlds, the depressed in which people get help and make things better, in which it's okay to see the world through chalk and dust and black skies. The world where the sky is blue, the grass is green, the house is white, the sun is yellow, the brick walls are red, the walls are cream, where everything is happy and right and everything belongs.
I am the limbo - I cannot scream, I cannot cry, I cannot yell, I cannot play rock or emo music because that is not where I belong, not anymore - I cannot laugh, I cannot smile, I cannot dance and twirl around in the sunshine because that is not how I feel - these trembling hands, fighting to get the right words out, fighting to do something, fighting because it's not okay to cry, it's not okay to bring back all the bad memories, it's not okay to do anything because that will just put you into a category all on its own, it's not okay to not be in a category because then you won't be able to fit in, it's not okay to not be okay and it's not okay to not fit in anywhere, but it's not okay to fit in somewhere, in this world where culture clash and categories are being swept aside, we're all clumping everybody together into one of them, in a world where we claim there is a gray area, we see from the black and the whites, from the left or the right, from one or the other. I am the limbo, and it is the thing that is saving me but also killing me at the same time. I am the limbo, I feel everything and nothing at all, I am afraid that if I stop typing even for just a moment I will explode altogether, I am afraid of everything in general, I am afraid, I am afraid, I am afraid. I am trapped, yet I am not, I am afraid, yet I am not, I stand up, yet I do not, the only thing I cannot stop doing is thinking and typing and rambling altogether.
Let's talk about love? Let's not, it's not my place to discuss such a topic, the one thing in my life that brings me both purpose and injury, maybe my entire existence is based on something to obsess over but never to love, maybe my entire existence is to be swept away every single damn time, maybe my existence is to be occupied and clenched in someone, something's fist, except that I realize too late that it isn't them that is claiming me, it is myself. It is always too late for some things.
To leave depression behind - only to fall into another sort of it, the lesser kind, yet the one that tugs on you the most, the one that makes you want to write and write and write in an obsessive way, the one that tells you to do this, to do that, maybe it's not such a good thing after all if I fall in love because it will end badly, maybe it's not such a good idea after all if I choose to spend my life finding myself because it's hopeless, or maybe because I already have - this inbetweenness, this trapped emotion, this obsession, this un-decideable feeling is all I have to live, the rambling of sentences are my very mind, body and spirits, the words but, although, however, still, they are my home, what if I don't find a place where I belong, and what if I travel the world like a wanderer only to travel again, every sentence that ends is another thing that ends, what if I cannot bear the thought of something ending, rather, a new thing beginning, this leaving friends behind for a second time, a third time, I need something to drown out my voice and something to drown out my thoughts, in doing this I turn to alcohol or drugs, thereagain putting myself into another category, jail, to drown out one's own voice is something that must be so very hard to do, I feel trapped again in the limbo like a fly in molasses, I can move but I don't get very far, I can move, I can move, I can move.
All these psychotic urges pulling at me, what if one day, what if one day I break, what if one day I'm standing over a dead body that's not my own, what if what if what if what if what if I can't control myself anymore, maybe this is just the animal inside of me that needs to escape, I am comprised of the emotions of loneliness and fear, because that is all I am and that is all I choose to believe.
Because it's not enough to shout into your pillow, it's not enough for just one wordless scream, you need the time and the space to be able to do this to yourself, my head is a drum and I'm hitting it on beat. Maybe it's the you want to die all over again.
