Jasmine Warga

“I wonder if that's how darkness wins, by convincing us to trap it inside ourselves, instead of emptying it out.I don't want it to win.”

“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.”

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

“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.”

“What people never understand is that depression isn't about the outside; it's about the inside. Something inside me is wrong. Sure, there are things in my life that make me feel alone, but nothing makes me feel more isolated and terrified than my own voice inside my head.”

“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.”

“He can't make me love him when he's going to leave me.”

“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.”

“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.”

“Guidance counselors always love to say, 'Just think positively,' but that's impossible when you have this thing inside of you, strangling every ounce of happiness you can muster. My body is an efficient happy-though-killing machine.”

“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?”

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

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

“You're like a grey sky. You're beautiful, even though you don't want to be.”

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

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

“Anyone who has actually been that sad can tell you that there's nothing beautiful or literary or mysterious about depression.”

“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.”

“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.”