I'm fine

You only put one foot in front of the other,
not for progress but to find a better place to weep.
This is rock bottom.
It’s not predictable, the darkness appears when you least expect it.
In the middle of a smile or
halfway through enjoying the company of a good friend
and suddenly - there it is.
The rush of despair,
always brushing it off as something else.
Anything else.
When the truth is that you are in denial,
you  repeat you mantra over and over
trying to convince yourself
“I am fine, I am not depressed”
If you can convince your brain it might convince your heart.
And still your head ache in deafening silence.
You cannot seem to get so far as to ask for help
You find yourself freezing.
Moving forward seems inconceivable.
As if moving forward into the unknown might
cause  you to lose even more of yourself.
And wondering if losing so much of yourself
means that you have lost your mind as well?
How do you explain this blackness to someone else?
Sometimes the fear of it is crippling,
Making it hard to breath,
brings about an indescribable sorrow, engulfing everything.
It feels like a tidal wave in a rough sea,
pulling your defenseless body down in its violence.
Before you know it you are drowning.
Nobody knows that you feel  this way.
They whisper behind your back all the time
“She’s crazy. She’s moody”
And one and all say -
“Snap out of it”
like a chorus of demons sent to torment .
You are sure that if you can be un-sad you would be.
But even this is a lie.
The pain becomes a part of you
You feed off it, finding pleasure in the darkness
What ever...
At the dawn of a new day
you put on your war paint,
mascara, eye liner, blush and lipstick.
All to complement the fake smile you plaster on your face
as the only defense between you and the darkness
I now know how the Joker must feel: trapped behind the insanity of a scar-faced smile
The only difference?
He knew who and what he was.
I’m fine.
I’m not depressed.