current state of mind

I feel more deeply when I feel this way. It’s a wave of sadness that engulfs me, but though I struggle to breathe I also find that air feels lighter upon my lungs. I am drowning, yet the light of the sun seems to move closer and closer, even as I sink deeper down. Clarity. That’s what it is. As sound ripples away, light blinds me. Perhaps I feel it, the darkness. Perhaps I see it too. Either way, I am keenly aware of it. Yet I do not try to stop it, as I realize it is this darkness that guides me to the light. Mind you, not the light of happiness, not the cure to sadness, just to understanding, to clarity. I understand it all. I feel more deeply, yet I sink deeper as I do so. But I cannot decide. Do I choose to drown and lose myself, give up myself to the waves, yet remain enlightened? Or do I attempt to swim, rise up again, or at least pretend to, and lose this feeling, the beautiful feeling that can only come with sadness? This understanding of the world that brings tears to my eyes. And though my mind weeps my soul laughs in wonder. I feel it all. It is as if I am in a beautiful trance, as if my body tingles and glows, as if the world is new to my eyes once more. Yet it is always wrapped in a veil, obscured by something, tinted by my own darkness. But that is the only way I can even catch a glimpse at it, the only way I can feel this feeling. Through the darkness. I wish to wallow in it. Wish to float in a standstill, wish to be petrified in the water, wish for it to solidify around me, to never change. I wish for it to stop so I can explore it further. But the longer I spend here the more I sink, the more the darkness clouds around me. And the clarity too. It disappears. It fades. Until I am left completely lost, gasping for breath and on the verge of extinction. Until I am left simply with a choice.

Do I choose to die? Or do I choose to live?

prose poem, poem, poetry, depressed, stream of consciousness, thoughts