Like Water in My Lungs

My depression does not always arrive screaming. Sometimes it slips in quiet, like water under a door, like a tide I swore I could outrun. At first, it is only my ankles. A heaviness. A coldness. A little less wanting to move. Then it climbs. To my knees, where standing feels like begging. To my chest, where every breath has teeth. To my throat, where all the words I need turn into bubbles and disappear before anyone hears them. I try to explain it, but how do you describe drowning when everyone else sees you standing on land? They say, “Just swim.” As if I have not been kicking until my bones became prayers. As if I have not reached for every piece of light floating above me. But depression is not water you can simply leave. It is the ocean inside my body, the weight in my lungs, the silence pressing blue hands against my mouth. And still, some small part of me keeps rising. Not gracefully. Not easily. Not like some beautiful survivor written in gold. More like a broken thing refusing to sink all the way. More like a heartbeat beneath the waves. More like me, still here, still reaching for air.