[AUDIO] Depression Speaks

Chris Davis

Photography by Austin Neill, via Unsplash 

[Transcript]

Sometimes I want to be free

The real and true kind of free

Like down a gallon of bleach or wrap my car ‘round a tree

It’s twice the price for a life though ‘cause all my fam pays the fee

And I don’t know if there’s a heaven

Let you know when I see

I’m tryna be a ghost, Danny Phantom catching a fade

A diesel engine I’m clutch ’til my wrist hits the blade

Today’s haze

So I always got tomorrow on my mind

Will I even be alive?

Will I even have the time?

I’m feeling heavy with every breath

There’s too much weight upon my chest

Throw it over my shoulders but boulders just ain’t weighing less

It’s the pain and the stress, it’s the stress and the strain

It’s like a pack of hijackers with barrels pressed to my brain

Testing my aim

It’s like opening my eyes when I rise

Realize my dream was added to a list of “tries”

Daily struggle there’s no air inside this bubble

But I’d crumble in my troubles if I step outside the bubble

So I stumble

For days and days in ways and waves

Behaving strange like the game has changed

And I still play the same

Pain is viral, no immunity for memories

The suicidal thoughts and their tendencies

The “no one will remember me”s.

Pleas are ringing out me silently

These thoughts are spinning violently

What’s going on inside of me?

I’m just tryna get better, I’m just tryna get better…

 

But the devil is forever clever never skipping beats

Never forgetting the sentences and names on his attendance sheets.

Just some peace of mind or a piece of mine

But mind your piece ahead of time and read the signs

Depression keeps me on my grind

Keeps me finding rhymes in between the lines

And the lions in between the bars

In between the fresh skin and the new scars

In between the darkness and the brightest stars

Near or far it doesn’t matter where we are.

It’s time to spar with the demons

I’m diving down in the deep end

And finding out where they’re sleeping

Release the beast from his leash and just let him eat

See him feasting?

These leeches keep me from the reaching

The highest peaks and the ceilings and I’m sick of this kneeling

Concealing anger and feelings

Say it’s the way that I’m healing

Tell my homie “what’s up?”, I need the drugs that he’s dealing

I’m seeking highs when I’m low so I’m calling it even

Even though I know it’s really just some loving I’m fiending

Reading through magazines, I imagine dreams

And the magic seems to capture me

Or is it Satan setting traps for me

Or actually the pinnacle of rhapsody

Incredible, a masterpiece could put me in the master suite with centerfolds.

 

See that’s the vibe that it’s giving me

Identity a hostage to the enter key, I stroke it tenderly

Evoke emotion or pretend to be an ocean in corrosive locomotion

I’m explosive to my enemies.

My energy’s the remedy

Relentlessly pursuing recipes to kill the rest of these psychotic centipedes infesting me

Eradicate them chemically so I can be the me that I was meant to be

At least, eventually.

Let’s break it down for a minute though

‘Cause you don’t know the flow until you’re in it

And you can’t change the channel, only option is to swim it

Run the race until you finish, eat your spinach, slowly watch the pain diminish

The only power that it’s got is what you give it so pivot

Your life is exquisite

It doesn’t matter how you split it, go out and live it

And paint a picture so vivid they put your life in exhibits at the space museum

For being fly as pi has scientific digits.