"Screw you"

In a world where mental health is being acknowledged,

Where people are willing to hear stories,

Hoping it will help the storyteller to live that day,

Sleep that night, wake up the next morning,

Without the thought of killing himself/herself;

In a world where people are trying to understand,

The beginnings of anxiety or depression,

And ways to cope with it,

My mind shouts, “Screw you.”

For as far as my memory allows,

I remember the desire in my 8-year-old heart,

I remember the desire to die.

It wasn’t a desire that came in the pre-teen years,

When I began believing no one understands me in this world.

It was a desire that I truly wished to be true,

So I asked my then believed ‘god’,

To give me end stage brain cancer,

On the days that I cried as well as when I laughed.

When I was diagnosed with initial stage of cancer,

I began believing that there is perhaps someone out there,

Who heard my voice and responded wisely,

To my unthoughtful, perhaps, stupid but not hasty desire.
I didn’t die but if I were to be honest,

I continued to think of dying.

When I had my first heartbreak,

I believed love was for a lifetime,

And that, love might not happen again.

I wished to die every night I went to sleep,

Knowing I will wake up fine,

Go about my day and make people smile.

Even then, I wasn't suicidal.

I thought of dying and ways people chose to die

I just did not see the point in death, either. 

Believe me when I say,

I was not tortured, I was not cheated,

I was just young to have known better,

Too young to have dealt with delicate hearts better,

Too young to have dealt with my actions better.

So, you might ask,

“Why did you want to die?”

Where do I begin?

For some time now,

I have asked myself the same question,

Over and over and over again.

I fail to reach to a point,

Where I can say,

‘this is the moment in time,

When it all began.’

I go over all the uninvited remarks

On my dark skin, shapeless body,

And future (read, no) prospects of marriage.

Did it begin with social rejection of my body?

I go over the times when I wanted attention from men,

Because that’s what a girl was supposed to do,

And I ask, how did I not recognise physical abuse

From attention, knowing something was terribly wrong?

Did it begin with the abuse of my body?

I go over the times,

When my family was divided,

For reasons unspoken and forbidden

Did it begin with the loneliness of tiny little mind?

I go over the times,

When I broke a boy’s heart,

Which seemed like the biggest felony,

Did it begin then, with the self-loathing of my mind?

The sleepless nights, the wet pillows,

The phrases from a chick-lit or a popular romance,

They were real for years that I didn’t count.

The need to not be lonely at 8,

The need for attention at 12,

The need to be ‘good enough’ to be seen at 16,

They shaped my childhood and teenage,

When people usually said,

“Oh! Get over it already!”

I did not speak out loud, that I needed help.

I hoped that someone would suspect,

Why does this little girl make others smile;

Make self-deprecating jokes;

Running away from relationships;

Saying ‘I don’t believe in forever’,

When girls her age dreamt of a knight in shining armour?

Now when I read about symptoms,

Of depression and anxiety,

I am scared to the core of my spine,

Most of them have been a very active part of my life,

Even when I didn’t know they could be put in a box.

I was silent outside, I was happy outside,

And I survived within,

One day at a time.

When people come out,

“I am depressed”,

I do not understand what good it does.

I respect them for accepting their state,

But I don’t understand,

What good comes from saying out loud?

Perhaps, they have more faith in people than I do.

Perhaps, they believe that people can help.

I do not.

Today, people are reaching out, sharing helpline numbers,

I wonder if those, “I am here for you”, really help?

Are there words in any language,

To make a person feel any less lonely?

Are there gestures in any community,

To make a person worthwhile when they feel meaningless?

Perhaps, I have waited way too long,

For words and gestures and people,

When I reached my rock bottom,

I obsessively indulged in reading novels.

Those books helped me survive,

One story at a time,

For my death wish to slowly decline.

Would you then blame me,

If the presence of physical bodies of stories calm my restless mind,

And presence of human bodies,

Makes it go wild into doubt, conflict and unreliability?

People are different, so are their minds,

Books have gotten me out of lowest times,

To the times where I could build myself again.

Repressed anger remains in some corner of my brain,

I’ll deal with it, in another ten years I tell myself.
I am in no hurry, and I don’t want people to remind me,

‘Oh! Your best years are passing by.’

So, when people tell me,

Let it out, talk to us,

My mind shouts, “Screw you.”

For when I do tell my story,

It remains incomplete,

For some of it is forbidden in its raw form,

And others are called silly when put in the best words.

Tags are easy, comfort isn’t.

After all these years of lone struggle,

“I really am not sure if I want to let you in.”