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daffodils
I know the general outline of depression and it smells like daffodils, like you're stuck in a field of daffodils after the sun goes down and you can't see them anymore, but all there is is darkness and daffodils, smothering you with their flowery scent and soft touch, until there's nothing left but you, you alone floating in the sky, the daffodils far far below, and somehow even though you know nothing about where you are or how you got there, there's a stone lodged deep in your gut, pushing and pushing, telling you it's your fault. Oh, I know the general outline of depression and it tastes like car rubber, the bitter, rancid smell wafting into your lungs, until you're in an auto shop, watching the men and women toy with cars that can't be fixed, and they start moving faster and faster until you can't move and you're bound in place listening to the voices speed by as you wish you could cover your ears and scream but you're stuck with the taste of oil in your mouth, drowning you, suffocating you, until, until--! Depression is not violent although it is, a ship in a sea full of foam and crests ten feet high, passively bashing the waves around it, not even noticing it's both killing and dying as it sinks or as it stays--it doesn't matter, the storm has died down. It's a small toy airplane dropped to the floor and forgotten, or maybe picked up by a young girl who grabs it and zooms away, getting taller and face growing dimmer each step she takes, although she is still the same age as before. That jacket on the floor of your room, the ripped dark blue one which you haven't worn in years, oh, that's depression. They say it's all knives and sharp pain, but no, it can be so much more subdued than that, the daffodils coiling around your neck and smiling at the world. It's the sour aftertaste of car oil making its way across you and then falling from your hand onto the ground, creeping away silently. And your mind is being shoved into a pencil sharpener, shrinking and shrinking down into a bit sized eraser as the pencil is far gone by now, and all that's left is a gray scratch on a wall, fading away on the daily, but for now it's still there, and I suppose that must count for something.
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After Andre Breton's "The Verb to Be".