A way out

For several days, almost weeks now, I feel like I've been fighting off a big depression. Like an ache in the back of my heart, a slowness that sinks to my bones. I've been telling myself over and over that I can fight it off and keep it at bay and it doesn't have to come. I keep telling myself that if I deny it then it will be gone in the morning.

This morning I woke up filled with trepidation. I felt like I was forgetting something, there was something to be done. I got up from bed, looked around the room, searched my brain for what it was. Nothing came up. I felt strangely empty. Clear, empty, alone, and without a task.

All night long I had dreams about Chinese Re-education and burying books in suitcases and swimming.

All day long I've had these sinking feelings that I can't shake. My stomach has a hollow sort of pain. My throat is closing and makes it hard to breathe. Am I filled with anxiety because of this or is this caused by my anxiety?

This beast looking to swallow me whole is catching up. My feet falter in their escape. I couldn't run forever.

Every breathe causes an extra ache in my chest and that desperation begins to filter through my mind. I need something to stop this, I need something to soak this spilling mess. It's dripping from the back of my head into the front. It's soaking into my neck, my arms, my legs, into the tips of my hair. I'm floundering. I'm frantically seeking something to stop the spread. I can't let this depression wet me. I can't let it sink in. And I'm fighting it so hard that I'm causing further harm in the process.

I'm hoping someone can see, someone can hear, someone knows my call and answers back and saves me and saves me and saves me from whatever's taking over. I'm making calls and checking lists and sending messages. Anything, anything, anything, anyone. I just want want someone to stop this because I can't do it on my own.

But I have to do it on my own. And I'm tiring. And I have to remind myself that no matter how weary I grow, no matter what weighs me down, sinking isn't an option. Rather than give me hope, this disheartens me.

It's 3 o'clock and I have to keep it together for at least two more hours. When I think no one is looking I put my head down on my desk and I cry. I know this sounds melodramatic. It is melodramatic.

I'm just lost is all.

I keep a list.

I keep a list of things about myself that I think aren't worth loving.

I keep a list of things about myself that I know you couldn't possibly love.

I tell myself that this list is the reason we will and could never be.

I secretly hope that you'll somehow find a way to love me in spite of them.

Even though right in front of me I have someone that not only loves me despite them, but loves me for them.

I keep a list in my head of the millions of questions that I need answers to that I cannot answer. A list of the things I worry about that's burning and burning in the pit of my stomach, that keeps me awake at night.

I keep this list.

But I'm beginning to think it's just my way of keeping you.

I'm change-able and weak and moody. I'm depressed.

Not even vacations to beautiful places fixes this.

I'm looking through the lense of clouded cameras so everything I see is dark.

I want you to come save me. I want you to be here all day every day attending to my every whim. I want to be your only job, your only task, your only devotion.

I want you to give up working and give up yourself so I can have you. Have you when I shouldn't have you.

I'm feeling selfish (obviously) and I'm feeling melancholy (temporarily).

I don't really want these things. I don't want you to do these things. I just want to ask. And I want you to say yes.

And then we can go back to our normal everyday lives.

I want everyday to be spent in light. I want everyday to be worthy of film. I want to pull this polaroid apart and be left with some beautiful relic of what real life is.

I'm being indulgent of my emotional demands. I want to be sad so I allow myself to be sad. I feel a ringing emptiness within my chest and I allow myself to stop and listen.

The rest of my life lays ahead of me and at the same time: the rest of my life lays behind me.

I want to create somthing. I want something tangible from the work I've done. I want to stop working in zeroes and ones and in lost papers and files. I want to step away from the life I have created to take clay into my hands.

I want to muddy my hands. I want to push and pull with my fingers and I want to sculpt something. Something new. Something different. I want to sculpt a life that isn't like this one.

I used to think that every day I had the ability to change my life. That every day had that much power.

It does not. I am unwillingly tied to a past made of concrete: it cannot be changed.

All I can think and say is: I wish... I wish... I wish... gasping for air, drowning. My last words, my last screams, my last utterances and cries:

I wish
I wish
I wish.

Don't Look Back

Dreams of you are the bane of my existance.

I wish I could recollect more of what it was about.

Because the only thing that I remember is what it felt like to have loved you.