Twenty-Two

TW: Mental Health, Depression, Anxiety

I opened my journal, unsure of what would flow from the ink of my pen onto the blank page. 

The poem you’re about to read is what transpired— raw, dark, and vulnerable. Let it be your reminder that what you see on your daily scrolls isn’t always reality. 

Depression is a bitch but you will dance again. I promise.

xo, lindy

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I woke up with a worry;

“Who was I before?”

When laughter was an easy addiction to feed

and anger was a bore.

Where’s that girl that loved to dance?

Joke?

Write?

Talk?

Adventure?

It’d be like me to scare her off

but damn,

she’s been gone forever.

I know she’s in there somewhere

keeping me afloat

hushed only by whispers of trauma past—

demons love to gloat.

“If she comes back will I know her?”

I wonder to myself.

“Probably not,” the voices whisper,

“You’re a Scorpio—

            they’re stealth.”

It started with a pill

and it ended with one, too.

That round, pink, tiny, magic

went down pretty smooth.

Then one day, 

with the beat,

14 swallows later,

I recognized her silhouette

crawling back from the danger.

She wasn’t sly or irritated

while we danced in the living room,

but a smiled filled soul of innocence past

who wasn’t ready for the tomb.

My life came back with a pill

and the demons died with 22.