The Swallows and the Sunsets

All I Know How to Do

It isn't always the inability to get out of bed.

It isn't always staring at nothing and sobbing.

It burns more often than not.

Like hydrogen peroxide on an open gash - lemon juice on a paper cut.

The burn of your lungs when you're underwater for too long.

The wind in your face when the car window is rolled down and you feel like you're suffocating but you smile in the face of it because you can.

That's all you know how to do.

Because it's funny how too much air is deadly, when it's a main thing keeping you alive.

Because it's hilarious that a necessity is sometimes too much.

My depression stops me from feeling.

My anxiety stops me from being numb.

Two opposite ends of a magnet pushing but pulling at the same time and you get the grey space of emptiness.

You're no longer numb, but you're no longer feeling.

But I guess that's better than nothing, huh?

Because I'm still breathing.

Because there's too much of this, that I'm suffocating.

Because I'm smiling.

Because it's all I know how to do.