(spoken word, in process)

i have depression.

now some of you were probably like “oh shit depression this is gonna be real” but, okay, really.
the thing about depression is that it’s hard dealing with the tension between reality and what you feel.
it’s tough dealing with the pressure thinking about what you’re going to do and with whom from point a to point b to point c to point do to point e to point eff this shit what the fuck is the point anymore.
you get lazy and tired and comfortable and every relationship you have with anything just plateaus.

it’s simple, you just don’t wanna fuck




up.

it’s when my expectations are as high as my cheekbones—but my face, as you can see, isn’t really that defined and people say i’m just a little cheeky but let’s be real, i’m still trying to find the meaning of life.
and it’s when i’m sporting eyebags so big you’d think these pretty little brown things are shopaholics
and drinking gets to the point where i forget my dad is a recovering alcoholic who has a hole in his liver the size of all the 
guilt he felt from all the holes in the walls 
and i would quiver
hoping 
i wouldn’t end up like him.

and that’s the thing about depression, you hope
you hope and hope and hope but nope nope nope
nothing ever gets done.
i spent so much time being preoccupied with the future
with hopes and dreams or worries and nightmares
to the point where at night i was too scared to sleep
and it’s not because reality is better than your dreams
but because you know dreams keep you from your reality.
i need to get a’s.  i need to keep in touch with my friends.  i need to be alert for my job.  i need to graduate.  i need to find an apartment.  i need to i need to i need to—NO
you hope to
but because there’s too much to do all you want to do is sleep
and fall into a hibernation where you’ll never have to leave
because upon waking up, leaving is all you want to do.

leave.
funny how those things on trees are called leaves, when the actual leaf is not the agent of action: it doesn’t leave, it is let go.
that is how depression feels, like the world let you fall only to be raked and jumped upon and crushed.  like when someone breaks up with you but you’re like PSHHH NO YOU CRAZY i did it.  like when the world let you jump high into the sky but doesn’t let you land: no gravity.  nothing to hold you down but yourself.  you go up but never come back down.

my depression was needing ownership and control of all the things i couldn’t.  but there was one thing i knew i could.

i got in my car at three in the morning and my spedometer went exactly how i gave:

up.

they say that before you die your life flashes before your eyes, and all i could see was the glare of red stoplights.

was that my life?  a bunch of nos, a bunch of stops, a bunch of, don’t cross this lines?  the glare my mother gave me when i forgot to take out tissues from my laundry and they shredded in the dryer while i shed tears.  my father’s face when he had one too much in him and my rooftop i’d jump onto and escape to out of fear.  the color of my grandma’s rosary.

(one) hail mary full of grace the lord is with thee.  
i’m not religious.  not anymore.  
(two) hail mary full of grace the lord is with thee.  
but i saw my grandma’s fingers on each of the ten red lights.  
(three) hail mary full of grace the lord is with thee.  
and i saw myself peeking through her door every night watching her pray
(four) hail mary full of grace the lord is with thee
wondering how she could be so peaceful when voices yelled and doors slammed and shit hit the fan everyday
(five) hail mary full of grace the lord is with thee
i was ten and
(six) hail mary full of grace the lord is with thee
ten years later we placed her rosary at the foot of her casket
(seven) hail mary full of grace the lord is with thee
and now i wondered if these streetlights would be at the foot of my life.
(eight) hail mary full of grace the lord is with thee
she always said if i committed suicide i’d be going to hell.
i wonder if earth is the worse between the two.
(nine) hail mary full of grace the lord is with thee
i think, “god, she would give me an ass-whoopin in the next life for doing this”
(ten) hail mary full of grace the lord is with thee
and i realize that all these streetlights were prayers for me.

hell may be full of my definition of grace,
and i slam the brakes
because no matter how alone i feel
i know she is with me.

i’m not cured, i don’t think i ever will be, but i can deal. it’s okay for me to want to hole up sometimes, miss class sometimes, skip friends sometimes, shut off sometimes.  call me selfish but sometimes i’m just too tired to give and my sanity is worth it.  i just don’t want to give anymore.  i don’t wanna give a shit, i don’t wanna give a fuck, a damn, a rat’s ass anymore—yo, now i slam poetry instead of doors!  but every night i think about the ten red lights, and remember the one thing i should never give: 



up.