musa

a victorian woman with wifi...

[pleathefifth]

the last laugh ✨💕🌑

depression is not how they make it sound.

depression is not how they make it sound.

or at least,

not the kind i know.

i was 25 when the diagnosis finally had a name,

but i was 13 when i could first trace its shadow.

i know the gray skies.

the numbness.

the weight on your chest,

heavy enough that existing feels almost impossible.

yet somehow,

it is never loud.

it is an empty presence,

a constant shadow lingering at the back of your mind,

one you eventually learn to make peace with.

and you do.

you get used to it.

you learn its habits,

its silence,

its weight.

you learn to live beside it.

or at least…

to survive alongside it.

there’s only so much a person can cope with.

only so long you can keep making room

for something that takes up no space,

yet somehow carries all the weight.

they say mania is the dangerous one.

yet it’s the grayness that terrifies me most.

because there’s a difference between

i want it all

and

fuck it all.

a difference only a few people ever come to understand.

and even when people cannot understand the way my brain works,

antipsychotics have this strange way of letting me see my pain from another angle.

not erasing it.

not fixing it.

just giving me enough distance

to remember it isn’t all that i am.

right now i’m staring into a mirror,

yet all i can see

is the darkness standing quietly behind me.

watching.

waiting.

trying to settle into my bones.

and sometimes i wonder…

will there ever be a place

where we can both exist?

where i can understand its reality,

and it can finally let me have mine?

or have i spent so long surviving it

that i’ve forgotten where it ends

and i begin?

because maybe that’s what depression is.

not a monster.

not a war.

just a shadow

you become so familiar with,

you stop noticing it’s always standing beside you.

medication can quiet the storm.

but only so much.

because the numbness doesn’t disappear.

it simply changes shape.

the weight no longer crushing you into the ground,

only letting the gray ghost wander freely.

i’ve never seen its face.

but maybe it looks like mine.

because every time i look back,

i can feel it

staring through my own eyes.

if mania is icarus,

bright wings,

reckless hope,

flying too close to the sun—

then depression is hades,

not dragging your body,

but bargaining for your soul,

asking you to trade little pieces of yourself

until one day

you no longer remember

what it felt like to be whole.

people learn to step away from fire.

they fear what burns.

but shadows are different.

they ask for nothing.

they simply wait.

and before you realize it,

you’ve mistaken surviving them

for living.

so may you never know this darkness, love.

because it does not only steal your light.

it steals the music.

it steals color.

it steals hunger,

wonder,

laughter.

it reaches into every corner of your life

until even joy begins to feel like someone else’s memory.

and one day,

you look into the eyes of someone you love—

or your own—

and realize

even those pretty doe eyes

have forgotten

how to catch the light.

[pleathefifth]

i wish…✨✨

i wish you never have a broken heart,

let alone one broken by its own tic tac.

may you never feel the darkness slowly settle into your mind,

the way a storm arrives so quietly you don’t notice the sky has changed

until you can no longer find the sun.

may you never have to fight yourself

to return to yourself.

may you never know what it feels like to search for the right dosage,

the right words, the right hands, the right moment,

just to feel the world turn its volume back up again.

may you always, truly,

feel your smile soft and gentle.

may it always reach your eyes,

may it always come from a place untouched by exhaustion.

may you never learn how to fake it the way i do, love.

may you never have to master the art of saying “i’m okay”

with a heart that is quietly begging to be held.

may you never have to fear your own body,

to feel like it is fighting against you,

like every ache carries a memory

and every scar tells a story you never wanted to write.

may you never know what it means

to feel your own spirit fracture,

to carry pieces of yourself you don’t know how to put back together.

may you never know the loneliness of healing,

the kind where people tell you that time will fix it

while you are still learning how to survive each day.

may you never have to mourn someone who is still alive,

not even yourself.

i hope life finds you gently.

i hope it holds you with careful hands.

i hope your dreams remain soft,

and that the world is kind enough to let you chase them without fear.

may you never battle the anxiety that comes with simply existing.

may you never feel the weight of ordinary days become too heavy to carry.

may you never wake up tired of fighting.

may you never question if you are too much,

too fragile,

too broken to be loved.

may you always find a home in yourself.

may you always have a place to return to

when the world feels too loud.

may you never learn resentment.

may you never learn hatred.

may you never learn what it feels like to grieve while still breathing,

to mourn the versions of yourself you had to leave behind.

not even a little.

not even for a moment.

not even at all.

i wish life finds you well,

tenderly,

lovingly.

and that everything time some asks how you do,

you can say more than just “i’m okay”

-MM

[pleathefifth]

Nowhere, Fl✨🌑

somewhere between the long road
and the last cell signal
there is a place that doesn’t ask questions.

they call it nowhere.
but to me it has a name
that sounds like breathing again.

when the world grows loud
with its deadlines and bright screens,
i drive until the noise thins out
into crickets and wind through the grass.

there, the sky is wider than worry.

at night the moon and the stars
divide the dark between them
like old friends sharing the work
of keeping watch.

they sit above the fields
quiet and patient,
as if they know
how heavy a heart can get.

and when morning comes
the sun rises slow and golden
spilling light across the land
just to dry your eyes.

the people wave
like they’ve known you forever.

the animals move through the yard
as if the earth belongs to them—
which maybe it does.

the house waits the same way
a heartbeat waits for the body
to come back to itself.

it is quiet there.
not empty quiet—
but the kind that holds you
until the storm inside your chest
finally settles.

they say it’s nowhere.

but my heart
has always known the way back.

because that quiet land
those stars
those dusty roads—

that’s home to me. 🌙

-MM

[pleathefifth]

pretty little cell ✨🥀

pretty little cell keeps me captive,

yet i’m at ease.

pretty little flowers i’ve learned to keep alive

despite no sunlight ever comin’in.

pretty little cell,

do i really long to leave?

or am i simply afraid

of what would happen

if i ever dared to flee?

pretty little cell,

with no bars to keep me in,

yet somehow i never leave.

with enough longing for the outside,

yet enough comfort to keep me still.

pretty little cell,

with comfortable seating

and good reception.

i could be gambling with hades if you’d let me,

yet i’d still stay put,

because somehow

it feels okay.

was this what made persephone stay

in the underworld?

or was the world above

already cruel enough on its own?

pretty little cell,

i long to leave,

but the routine of living

has grown exhausting enough.

wake up.

work.

work out.

eat—

even that feels like a chore.

and what if i made a living

out of the things i love?

would they wither too,

becoming something i resent,

something blue?

pretty little cell,

am i clipping my own wings

while sitting beneath a window?

anchored to my desk,

imagining every life i could be living

if everything weren’t gray,

if everything weren’t numb.

would reality really change

once the right dose finally settles in?

would a spark truly reach me,

painting the world

in colors i’ve forgotten?

or would it remain

the same rat race

i had always known,

long before a diagnosis

ever learned my name?

pretty little cell,

i cannot help but write.

it is the only place

where my mind is allowed to fly.

everything else

has been stripped from me

since i was three.

yet my thoughts are stubborn.

they blame my aching bones,

my tired fingers,

anything

but the anxiety

that settles in

the moment i step outside

this palace of endless walls.

whether i speak

of the ones inside my mind,

or the ones

my mind built around itself.

pretty little cell,

do i truly have a place

in this world,

when my reality

and my dreams

refuse to meet?

is it a dream,

or only a mirage,

dear love?

why does it feel

so painfully real,

if it remains

so impossibly far away?

how cruel.

i can already picture you there,

standing exactly

where i imagine

happiness would finally begin.

and somehow,

it rhymes

with your name

next to mine.

pretty little cell,

have i lost myself again?

will they finally take me,

stripping me

of the only thing

i’ve ever truly owned—

my thoughts?

but if they always wander

somewhere far away,

can i really call them mine

at all?

pretty little cell,

it’s past noon

once again.

lunch is over,

and i’m back

to being a paid worker

daydreaming

outside working hours.

how cruel.

how comforting.

i know the loop

will keep me safe.

the shackles,

in place.

the medication,

steady.

or so i’ve been promised,

ever since

a quarter of a lifetime ago.

-MM

[pleathefifth]

not my own anymore. ✨🥀

do you know how pathetic it feels

to have a heart that no longer beats only for myself?

to have eyes that wander every room searching for where you are?

to have hands that flinch at the thought of someone breathing too close to you?

to feel something so enormous it becomes bigger than your own body?

to go numb before danger

if it means protecting a smile from you?

having a heart this heavy in this day and age feels strange, love.

it only seems to serve one purpose:

to write like this,

to let pages bleed the way my heart does every so often,

and to tell you, time and time again,

how deeply i fell for you.

things i almost said.

things i never will.

things i never will…

i wish i could put into words

how terrified i once was of carrying too much,

of being too little,

of becoming something that scared people away.

so i always let them in.

perhaps only showing them the ugly parts,

because frightening away the ones who were never worthy

felt safer than being abandoned by the ones who were.

but then i started fearing the loss of those who stayed.

because those were the few

who ever made me feel safe enough

to lower my walls.

can you die from a broken heart?

because loving feels like it.

every single day.

my heart is no longer mine.

it belongs to you.

it no longer beats for me,

it beats for you.

even if you cannot hear

how out of rhythm those beats have become.

because loving you means losing pieces of myself.

it means handing you everything i have,

even when i am not sure it exists.

would you hold it carefully?

would you keep it safe,

even when it burns?

even when its own biases and obsessions become too much?

even when its thorns press against its own wounds,

but never yours?

would you rescue it

from itself?

sometimes i wonder if you would burn down cities for me,

even while your gentle heart begs you not to.

if you would carry a silent grudge

against anyone who made me frown,

anyone who made me cry,

anyone who hurt the softness that once lived there.

the softness you had to revive from ashes

like some impossible miracle.

i know you would.

and maybe that is what scares me most.

not losing myself.

not losing you.

but losing us both.

because what else could be expected

when we were both born beneath the same moon?

look at me.

then look at you.

is obsession really that terrible?

is it even separate from love?

or is it love twisted into something unrecognizable

when my only thought becomes destroying every pair of lips

that ever dared to touch yours?

i don’t know, love.

maybe i was never meant to love at all.

because i cannot do anything halfway.

i either let it consume me,

or i let it consume us both.

and i think i already made my choice.

the warmth is comforting,

even if the fire hurts.

it is the only thing i have ever known.

so i will keep loving from afar,

because distance has always been the safest way

to admire the arson i have become.

this waltz of life was always meant to be

one person lost,

or two.

i already gave away my mind

to so many things before you.

so let this be the burning fire of my heart,

the one you are meant to learn to love.

i have bent beneath too many ceilings

that tried to keep me grounded.

i will not do the same

to this blooming passion of ours,

this impossible flower

that keeps growing in the darkest corners of my mind.

until this love reaches you.

until you reach back.

until you meet your fate.

until you tear down the walls

i spent ages building.

until the next moon

where i will find you again.

until our moon, love.

_MM