by Hanh Pham | genderqueer | they/them pronouns

Writing this on my body was meant to be a cleansing experience - and for the most part, it was. I have felt discomfited in this body for a while, and I am trying to claim the best parts of it that I can. I often feel like hurting myself, in mental and physical ways. Depression isn't romantic - and it's not cool, and I don't want you to look at my legs and think, "oh, they're really cool for doing this," and think that my sickness is pretty. It's not. I have mental illness - I have depression and anxiety, and it really hurts, and I have communicated that hurt in the most productive way I could. This is a declaration, a reclamation, and ritual to prevent myself from becoming so wrapped up in my head that I cease to breathe. Thank you, for everyone who takes the time to read this. I would also like to add some content/trigger warnings for suicidal thoughts. If you want to reach out to me to talk about this, feel free to message me on Facebook or email me at htpham@wesleyan.edu.

There are days when I feel –

                 That is to say sometimes I can feel

If numbness is a feeling I guess you could

   say I feel all the time

I wish I could say I was angry

                   (all the time)

At least then I’d have something in my chest

                   because sometimes I wake up and see nothing in the mirror

                                       and I hear a wailing –

                   the sound made by all the wind

                   echoing through the gaping cave I call a chest

Sometimes I think – why do you care so much?

And there are days I know the answer

                                       is that I’m making up for when I think,

                   quietly,

                                       loudly,

       – when am I ever going to care again?

I want to say depression is an allergy,

                    But in reaction to what?

How can I tell you that sometimes I think,

                                                           This sickness will kill me

or that sometimes I think it already has, because

What life am I living?

Perhaps I am allergic to life,

                    and my mind is trying to tell me so.

My symptoms:

                    that hollow feeling, like

I am a zombie, staring at a life not mine

                    Walking slowly till something looks at me and goes,

                    oh –

                                         and kills me

                    the inability to wake up – the feeling

                                         of strength and will draining,

a paralyzed patient waiting for a doctor to read out those last, fateful numbers

 this feeling of a cold that can’t be described or diagnosed

                                         the sense that my time is numbered.

I take medication every night

                    I see my doctors once a week

Sometimes they tell me I’m making progress –

                                                           I’ll see you in a week

I don’t know how they can be so sure,

because it’s so easy to forget those days I came in with

                    dead eyes and

                                         dead heart

                                                           asking for help –

                                                                                         for mercy,

I want to say my depression sometimes mimicks the feeling of death

                    but it’s not enough

because I am still alive, but

                    just sick enough to feel

Only I wish I didn’t.

(Only that is a lie).