born with it

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tw: depression, mental health, suicide

[a few words ahead: i have carried depression like a lifelong shadow — constant, familiar, stitched to my bones. no matter how bright i make my days, it feels like draping silk over ruins, a band-aid on a bullet wound. i‘ve lived years i never thought i‘d see, yet the thought of a long, happy life feels like a story meant for someone else. and every year is a bit more exhausting than the previous one.]

i have always carried a shadow.

not the kind that fades at sundown,

but one stitched to my bones,

woven into the quiet folds of my being.

it has been my oldest friend,

my most faithful companion —

the kind that never misses a season,

never forgets to call,

never lets me wander too far from its side.

no matter how tenderly i arrange my life —

stringing fairy lights across the ceiling,

filling shelves with books,

pressing flowers between pages —

i know i am only decorating the walls of a house that has always been built on sinking ground.

i have learned to smile with a bullet wound.

to laugh while fastening the bandage

over a place that will never truly heal.

when i was twelve, i thought my story

would end before the ink could run far.

at sixteen, i thought the same.

at twenty-eight, i am surprised at the stretch of the pages, at the way my lungs keep breathing even when the script feels finished.

i have lived long enough to imagine a future —

one where i am older, softer,

my laughter echoing in rooms i love,

with faces that look at me like i am home.

sometimes, i let myself touch that vision.

but it feels like a fairytale told to a child

who was never meant to grow up.

not in this life.

not in this body.

not as me.

and still, here i am —

walking with my shadow,

writing with my shadow,

breathing beside my shadow —

unsure if i’m keeping it alive,

or if it’s the one keeping me.

— Lux