Young and depressed

There’s a young man in my neighborhood,
Who always has his head in the clouds,

Broken and in despair,

He would stand drunk outside and yell for hours of how nobody loved him,
How everyone was out to get him,

How everyone just wanted to sell his happiness,

And minutes after, he would break down into tears and with a cracked voice he would say, I can’t do this no more.

And although everyone in the neighborhood were convinced he was a mad man,

Every night I stayed up crying for him,

My heart was aching as to how a young handsome man couldn’t keep it together,

I remember I stayed up one night, looking out my window and waiting for him to stagger down the street to his place,

He was the neighborhood’s drunk,

The neighborhood’s reason to gossip,

Young and stupid was what my papa called him,

But my heart broke for him, 

no papa, young and broken is more like it

But I wouldn’t dare say it out loud.

One weekend my parents took a “Lovers Trip,” I was home alone and my elder brother had paid me to keep his secret as he went partying with friends,

So I went out too,

I waited at the young man’s porch,

I was determined to know him, I saw pain in his eyes everytime I walked pass him and it made me uneasy,

What are you doing here? He asked, swinging front and back

I’m here to talk to you, I said

About? 

You,

He laughed as though mocking me but I ignored,

You are too young for me child, go home

Now it was my turn to laugh, I’m not here to talk about that, silly. I see you and I sense something is wrong, I’m here to lend my listening ears,

We jogged round with words as he insisted I left, but I was persistent and so he gave it, he ushered me in but I refused, (don’t blame me… He was considered a mad man by the people around, I didn’t believe it, but I wasn’t going to take any chance)

Okay what do you want to know?

Everything, I said

He spent close to two hours talking and I spent every minute of it crying through voiceless words.

After our talk and my short prayer with him and his less reassuring promise not to drink again. 

I sat on my bed and nodded in confirmation, he really was broken and I feared in my young heart that he was unrepairable, issues of rejection and abandonment webbed his soul, and drinking was just a way for him to be a man and not cry himself to sleep every night,

He didn’t care what the people said about him because he was trying to find himself but everytime he tried he got even more lost.

It will be okay I promise, that’s what my tiny voice spoke out,

But in my heart I knew a miracle would be needed, but I prayed still for his lost soul.

And damn on damn did I realize that a young depressed mind and heart could do so much damage.

Fiction… Not real

This month of September, I want to make aware the effect of depression.

I hope I do well.

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