Sometimes it’s quiet. Almost not there. A shadow of a whisper wrapped in a mist that settles slowly to the bottom. It evens out sinking softly into a low murmur somewhere behind your eyes deep in the rooms of your mind. Sometimes it’s quiet.
Sometimes it’s jagged. Ripping and swirling in evil circles carving new lines that bleed black under your eyelids. Festering and picking at half-healed cuts deep in your brain. Till it fills your mind with sour that clings to everything and makes you gag. Sometimes it’s jagged.
Sometimes it’s darkness. Deep and dark and so slippery, it’s almost not there while growing more and more. Hungry and feeding on the edges of your thoughts, forming a barrier from all that’s good. Growing and engulfing everything like a tidal wave from hell. Lurking in the corners before racing over everything. Sometimes it’s darkness.
Sometimes it’s loud. So loud. Screaming and wailing locked in a reverberating tomb. It’s a broken record scratching and stuck yelling the things you don’t want to hear over and over. Sometimes it’s loud
Sometimes it is cold. Time that stands still and locks you in place with it. The past that comes haunting back in a swirl of ghosts, should-have-beens, and never-enoughs. Breath stolen away by a future you don’t have. Crystalizing inside you, offering stability in exchange for warmth. Frozen on the inside and stone on the out. Sometimes it is cold.
Some call it depression. Some call it an illness. That thing in your head that has its own emotions and drives you mad. The thing feeding on your insecurities as you find them and reminding you of everything you’d rather forget. That thing that causes you to curse yourself, curse your mind, and curse God. The thing that brings you to your knees in an effort to breathe while you beg for silence in an empty room. The thing that lives and breathes as I do.
I must learn to live with the darkness in my head.