This is a longer piece. I wrote it after my mom asked me why so much of my poetry circles around depression. I didn’t know how to answer right away — so I wrote my way through it. This isn’t a cry for help. This is just my voice, speaking honestly.
Not too long ago, my mom and I were sitting in the garage. I’d recently decided to engage in poetry more, considering most of my work revolves around prose and nonfiction. That day, I read a few of the poems I’d written over the past few days. She enjoys listening when I read. She says I can do spoken word well.
One of the poems I read was titled Habit.
It wasn’t particularly about me and a habit — more so the overarching act of one. I was trying to write about the reason we keep going back. Why we repeat. Why we return.
After I finished, my mom asked me:
“How come all your poetry seems to be about depression? It sounds like you’re still depressed.”
I sat with that for weeks.
She’s not wrong. A lot of my writing does orbit around depression, though not intentionally. It’s just a topic my mind returns to, like muscle memory. It feels ever-present, both outside and inside me.
Depression is a never-ending sequence.
There are days it feels far away — so far I almost feel free.
But it only takes a second for the feeling to circle back, preparing to land again.
I’ve never really categorized my writing as depressing. The intricacies I explore aren’t caged within depression — they’re engaged through it.
Depression is a style I wear over my naked body.
It covers the scars I carry from dragging it through years of mental disaster and deliberate sabotage.
I sweat depression when I work out.
I sniffle depression when I’m sick.
I scoop it from my plate with a fork when I eat.
I swipe it when I pay for groceries.
It plays in the back of my mind like the footsteps of the unknown figure in my dreams.
It props itself up on the saddle that bellows over my shoulders.
I wear it with confidence.
Comparatively speaking, life hasn’t felt incredibly heavy for a few months now.
That’s not to say life has gotten easy. It hasn’t. It’s just become… bearable.
I type that with a grain of salt — these things often shift in an instant.
I may not be living from depression right now, but my core comes from it.
It’s still boiling beneath me, always attempting to rise and engulf.
Depression lives inside me.
It sprouts between every line I write and winds through each sentence, showing itself in its purest form.
Without warning, it invades my creative brain. It forces me to view the world from a cracked lens. This lens is one I’ve spent my life learning to see through.
Depression may control the pen I write with, but I control where the pen goes next.
It resides in my voice.
It’s cracked the foundations that once held me upright.
It crashes through my senses like a bowling ball chasing pins, full force.
Yet I still write.
I write alongside my ongoing depression — not from sadness, but from a place of strange joy.
Joy in the way I’ve learned to accept the upset.
Joy in the way I believe in the Unknown, despite the weight I carry.
Joy in the movement of my gears, still turning, even when I feel entirely consumed.
Aside from my mom and her heroic instincts, depression is all I’ve ever known.
It’s been the safest zone in every danger zone I’ve entered.
It follows my every move, haunting me like a shadow that sneaks behind during a dark night.
Depression is the friend who walks away, only to return with a bow and arrow aimed at the heart.
It is my favorite song.
It sings in my ears with a melody I can’t forget.
The words twist and turn in front of my eyes, building figurines, sketching darkness across my sight.
Jesus Christ calls it the Devil.
Me — I call it your alternate self.
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