You Want Me to Talk About Depression by Marina Simms
Read by Conner Arnold
Depression is….um, it’s like the ocean?
There’s waves and—okay wait–
Depression is like an ocean during a storm
because the waves are rocking you and
you’re being pushed down,
wave after wave,
sinking deeper and deeper and deeper and—
No, wait,
that’s been done before.
Okay, let me try this:
Depression is like, well, it’s kind of like a weight.
Like lead,
or titanium,
or, like, picture a whale
laying on top of you,
crushing you under the massive ton of blubber and flesh and fin,
weighing you down.
So that even the most menial, mundane action
feels impossible,
that even moving an inch
is beyond mere human strength,
it——-
Um,
Well I mean,
God.
This metaphor feels flat.
(pun unintended but taking credit for it anyways).
Um, well…..
Come on, think,
What does depression feel like?
Maybe….like bones…
like I’m…..covered—no, wait,
I’m trapped.
I feel trapped in my bones—
No.
In the bones of a beast,
long and dead and forgotten,
like the ruins of a city that was once beloved,
once feared,
once on every map in every language around the globe.
Once this beast was named,
this name was whispered in the dark,
in bedrooms,
of terrified children
and worried adults.
If you are bad they would say It would come and find you.
But now it finds no one.
No one whispers its name,
no one even knows its name,
and no one will care to come find me;
to come rescue me.
I’ll rot here.
Inside the hollowness of its rib-cage.
Leave, you would say, if you saw me.
Leave, my mother says, as though that’s all I ever needed to hear.
Leave, my father says, would say, if he wasn’t tired of hearing me cry about it.
Leave, I say, to myself, as I stare at the world beyond the bones and the ruins and the hollow feeling.
Leave.
But I can’t,
I don’t know how,
I— I’m sorry.
I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to—
No I can’t–
……no, I don’t have anyone to call.
………..yes I would like a tissue.
…… ………..
I don’t know how to explain what I feel.
Maybe that’s what depression feels like.
