This is a poem about depression, my depression specifically. My depression pulls me into a deep worrying that makes me crave sleep. But it’s not just the depression that pulls me in, it’s everything else around me: the do's and don’ts of the world that I can’t tell the difference of and the words I say and know I shouldn’t. This is a poem about my everyday feelings of being tired.

When I say I need a nap

I don’t want to go to bed

I don’t mean I want to go to sleep

I mean I’m sitting here in class

Not paying attention to Hamilton’s Method

But wondering why my heads spinning

And my thoughts are telling me

That I shouldn’t be here right now

I mean I’m up at one in the morning

Folding my laundry

Drinking a monster

With my shoulders aching, my back on fire

But I’m wide awake, restless

I mean I’m walking to class

Not thinking about stopping to get food

But thinking about how I left my room a mess

Fearing that my roommates going to see it

And think that I’m a slob

You see

I’m not tired

Meaning I want to sleep

I’m tired

Meaning I’m drained

The thoughts inside my head

They hold me back

From wanting to be out there

Being with friends

Being who I am in the world

I’m tired of feeling

Like I’m not good enough

Like I’m not doing good in college

Like my mind is taking over

And I can’t take control of it

I want to wake up and not be tired

I want to take the world

And make it mine

And be tired because

I’m doing something with my life

My depression has made me tired

And has made me unmotivated

It has made me weak

And it has made me small

But I’m taking myself back

This semester

My first semester in college

Has totally kicked my ass

But next semester

I’m not going to be tired

I’m taking this new seed

And planting it

And instead of growing a bush

I’m going to grow an oak

And branch out the most I can

I going to need a nap

But this time

It’s going to be because

I need sleep

After all of my achievements