The throb of my heartbeat is heavy behind my eyes. I blink slowly to slow the vibration. I am crying.

I swallow thickly to quell the rising scream building at the base of my throat. It hurts.

My stomach lurches and knots. I am frozen, unable to move for fear of my heart will explode. I am drowning.

I am alone. The full weight of life holding me down. Struggling to breathe and unable to focus, I rub my face and pull on my hair, rooting myself in reality and momentarily preventing a descent into madness.

I don’t know where to go from here.

The loss of color and beauty is the hardest.

But I miss it less and less as the gray settles deeper into my soul as reality.

Wading through the ashen haze every day is tiresome.

I need to close my eyes.

The ache in the center of my chest is a gaping wound.

Each beat of my heart violently pushes the blood out, spraying all over and pooling at my feet.

Unable to stop the bleeding, I watch the warm, viscous stream of pain fall out of me.

At a loss, I put my hands to my heart and feel it all.

Surely, my heart will explode and finally die, ending the pain and leaving me at peace.

I cannot keep cleaning up the mess…

Sipping my coffee as it rains, I feel the familiar pull of madness.

It is morning and the birds are singing.

The Sky is so darkly white with clouds I am sure the Sun has left me.

As the Wind blows, I wrestle with the urge to strip down naked, walk through the wet field, and feel the sticky sharp grass and wildflowers upon my legs and hips, as they leave marks and welts as proof of their unassuming strength. 

Within is the need to give my body over to the Elements and lay down as the Rain washes me until I shiver and finally fall asleep, lulled by a quiet death from exposure. Leaving my body for the animals and the Earth.

Staring out at my fantasy, I pick up my cup.

My coffee is cold.

The dryness of my soul turns to dust and falls off of me.

I sweep it up and put it in an old wine bottle.

I watch my soul bits swirl and turn red with the drops left inside.

I am hopeful it will work like old Magick and lift the dead within.

It is worth a shot. The bottle once was the tincture to soothe my soul.

I peek inside with one eye. I smell it.

In desperation for signs of life, I tilt my ear down and listen.

I only hear the hollow of an old bottle, loud in its emptiness.

I carry the remains of my soul to the Garden.

I dig a hole with my hands and a stick.

Making a tube in the ground, I drop the bottle inside the Earth.

On my knees, I cover it with dirt and then water the soil with my tears.

Too tired to move, I lay down and watch the dirt move about my hands.

Laying there, I hear my heartbeat as it pulls my soul back into my body.

It is painful.

The desperation of breath is sharp.

It’s a knife stabbing the fleshy parts of me from the inside.

It hurts.

Breathing in, I ache. Breathing out, I bleed.

Longing for a hand to hold, I navigate my loneliness.

The weight of Life may crush me, and there is no one to hear me scream.

My breath is a desperate grip on the minimum of living. Its sharpness, painful and bloody, is what I focus on to make it through the day.

The sharpness of it not just cuts but surprises.

The gut punches that come out of nowhere, making my underarms tingle with stress sweat, and my heartbeat pound so fast I have to put my hand over my mouth to stop it from flying out of my throat.

The tears that stream, reacting to the pain, fall in big drops of stored salty liquid off my chin, pooling on my chest as the heat in my cheeks burns. The sobs are the only way the ache can escape. 

My brain cracks, my soul goes dark, and my heart breaks.

Slow-motion waves of self-loathing wash over me. 

My brain hurts. 

A steady sting of pain within. 

Then my heart cracks loudly, opening real burning in my soul.

I sit back on my heels, tucking my chin to my knees, and curling in to ease the ache.

This battle is tiresome.

My depression is a vignette surrounding my mind.

Growing darker and threatening to overtake me.

Blinding me to what lies beyond the haze.

I’m trying to not let it touch me.

Once I’m in its grip, it will pull me all the way down. Placing weights upon all the wounded parts of me. 

Succumbing is lying on the bottom of the Lake and looking up at the surface, aware of the world beyond the waves but not having the desire to leave the cold depths that drown me.