It

It buzzes around my head whenever I’m alone

Screaming and shouting

Begging to be acknowledged

It won’t let me ignore it

It demands to be heard

To be felt

It brings tears to my eyes and makes me doubt my existence

It makes me wonder

“Why am I still here?”

“Does anyone care?”

“Will anyone miss me?”

It fills my mind with dark thoughts

It forces me to shut out the world

It’s the reason I close the curtains on sunny days

And spend my afternoons lying in bed with the blanket pulled over my head

It calls to me in the middle of the night and

Causes me to wake up in a distraught mess

It gradually becomes smaller until

I forget how to smile most days

Pretty soon I won’t even remember what

Happiness feels like

It plagues my sleep with nightmares

It hollows out my heart

 

One day it will come to me

And it will be harder to resist than before

It will take my hand and lead me to

A gun

A knife

A rope

It will convince me that this is the only escape

 

Its name is depression,

And it will be the death of me.