Jasmine Warga

Sometimes I wonder if my heart is like a black hole--it's so dense that there's no room for light, but that doesn't mean it can't still suck me in.

It's hard to see where we're going since it's now dark, and I wonder if in some ironic twist of fate, we'll soar over the cliff without even realizing it. Like the universe's final joke: you can't plan your death, even when you try.

Nothing scares me more than a failed attempt. The last thing I want is to end up in a wheelchair, eating pulverized food and being watched around the clock by some sassy nurse who has a not-so-secret obsession with cheesy reality TV.

I can't wait until they don't have me here anymore.

Anyone who has actually been that sad can tell you that there's nothing beautiful or literary or mysterious about depression.Depression is like a heaviness that you can't ever escape. It crushes down on you, making even the smallest things like tying your shoes or chewing on toast seem like a twenty-mile hike uphill. Depression is a part of you; it's in your bones and your blood.

I don't know how to describe it, but the more I stare at him, the more I see his grief wrapped around him like shackles he can never take off.

I bet if you cut open my stomach, the black slug of depression would slide out.

He knows what he'll find if he digs deeper. there's no rush to unpack my insides. he understands there is nothing special about emptiness, nothing interesting about depression.

I've been thinking a lot aboit the energy of the universe. And if energy can't ever be created or destroyed, only transferred, what do you think happens to people's energy once they die?

There's no saving him from his deep hole. There's no saving me from my black slug.

I can feel everything. And I want to keep feeling everything. Even the painful, awful, terrible things. Because feeling things is what lets us know that we're alive.

I wonder what it will feel like when all the lights go off and everything is quiet forever. I don't know if it will be painful, if in those last moments I'll be scared, but all I can hope is that it will be over fast. That it will be peaceful. That it will be permanent.

Yes, I'm broken. And yes, he's broken. But the more we talk about it, the more we share our sadness, the more I start to believe that there could be a chance to fix us, a chance that we could save each other.

Do you believe in other universes? Do you think there's another dimension where we're happy?

Something inside me clicks. It's like I've spent my whole life fiddling with a complicated combination only to discover I was toying with the wrong lock.

I once read in my physics book that the universe begs to be observed, that energy travels and transfers when people pay attention. Maybe that's what love really boils down to--having someone who cares enough to pay attention so that you're encouraged to travel and transfer, to make your potential energy spark into kinetic energy.

I spend a lot of time wondering what dying feels like. What dying sounds like. If I__l burst like those notes, let out my last cries of pain, and then go silent forever. Or maybe I__l turn into a shadowy static that__ barely there, if you just listen hard enough.

Maybe we all have darkness inside of us and some of us are better at dealing with it than others.