There's a small thing I can't live without

it beats inside me,  no matter what

it scratches at the silver linings of my brain

sometimes it fools me into believing I can have anything.

 

There's a thing I can't live without

30 days, 31 days

time relevant only when the thing decides to let me go

the thing is me.

 

I can't live without the other me inside my head

she doesn't do anything

Oh! but she does

she is the voice inside my head that tells me I am not enough even when it's a lie

 

There's a me I can't live without

She and I have been together a long time, but I don't remember when we first met,

whispering sinful thoughts into my head,

a lovely "you can't" too often and the more than occasional "why are you alive" into every atom I consist of.

 

I don't want her to leave so I welcome her into my bed along with me,

she is me after all,

to warm and wet the cheeks of the me everyone else sees with her version of the world

She is the thing I can't live without.

 

She is the thing that will never leave me, the thing that I have grown so accustomed to that I don't mind her staying anymore

but even so she hurts me

why does she hurt me

I thought I was supposed to love myself.

 

There's A Thing I Can't Live Without

She is a person who lives inside me

She is me but she doesn't share the same name, no

Today she told me her name,

Depression.

 

I hear negative things of her but I don't believe them

she is me

surely she wouldn't lie to me.

I trust her,

 

but there are times when I glance at a foreign happiness

times where she sleeps and lets the physical me take over

and I can see how good it feels to be alive for a moment

for just a moment, I can do anything again

 

For just a moment, Depression leaves me.

 

in that moment she regains all the energy she had lost before,

she laces my mind with a sadnes i've come to find beautiful,

because to me her tactic is beautiful.

she is the best of us two.

 

I think, "you will get through"

because I will, I always do.

And when I do she gives me the most beautiful reward of all.

She gives me another small glimpse of that happiness I told you about, and I love her

 

I am grateful to her.

She's not evil

She is just me

a me that got beaten down too easily, or maybe just too hard.

 

But I am helping her

I motivate her to keep trying when I am able

I think it worked

She's smiling now

 

but the world doesn't want her to stay up

She's not smiling anymore

and she punishes me

this time I don't glimpse anything, not for a long time and I forget what it is I was even hoping for

 

I don't feel

anything.

I don't care.

She can just lay there if she wants.

 

I realize it's not her fault, or mine

so I continue the struggle.

Depression is inside of me

but one day maybe I can show her how great the outside is and she'll leave and be happy elsewhere

 

Until then, She is the thing I can't live without.