i. the look on your parents’ faces
when your room smells like pot and
you don’t know how to tell them
it’s the only thing that makes you feel okay anymore
and you don’t know how to explain
why you have two empty fifths
and six wine bottles in your closet
and how your adderall prescription
disappeared from the drawer
in your mom’s nightstand overnight.
ii. your heart feels bolted shut
and you don’t love the people
you should love anymore.
you ask your boyfriend of two years
if this is all just a sick joke and
the harshness of his voice is enough
to send you into a panic attack.
he doesn’t understand why
you don't look at him like you used to
and why you never initiate sex
and you don’t know how to tell him
that your hands clawing his back
is just a way to fill the emptiness.
iii. so you stay silent.
you stay silent because
when you don’t, you words
are throwing themselves off
the tip of your tongue like
a suicide mission and
you’re saying anything
you can to ignore the fact that
you have nothing to say.
iv. waiting rooms make you anxious
but you always end up in them
so you bum a cigarette from the guy
next to you and lie when you tell him
you forgot your pack at home.
your nail beds are disgusting and
you did your make-up in the car
and you don’t think you match,
but at least you woke up today;
that’s what they say, right?
they still stare.
no one congratulates you on that.
v. staring people right in the face,
trying so hard to grip their words
like a safety net, but you have no idea
what they are saying because
you are drowning in your thoughts.
they don’t know how difficult it is
to uncover memories accurately
when you are living in a haze.
vi. eating mac & cheese in a wawa parking lot
at one in the morning and
telling your friends you made it home safe
as you cover your backseat in trash.
fluctuating between eating so much
you nearly throw up and
eating nothing but a freezer-burned
ellios pizza in two days.
vii. forgetting to take your medication
and screaming at your dad
until your voice no longer carries.
running up to your room and slamming
the door so hard, your house shakes.
collapsing into your covers crying
for no reason at all.
listening to him threatening
to take all of your privileges away
from beneath the stairwell.
viii. feeling lazy, unmotivated,
sneaking drugs in the bathroom
instead of going to class.
feeling like a burden,
a bad kid,
nothing but an outcast.
what no one tells you depression feels like - it’s not just “sad” (via achingchest)