She.

Emma-Jane is her name,
But lately she hasn't been seen.

People call for her,
And get a response from the outer shell of her person.

The girl is in there somewhere,
But where, no-one knows.

She tells tales of being fine and okay,
But really she doesn't know the meaning of those words anymore.

She lives with a mask glued to her skin,
A set of emotions that are automatic.

She lives with an insidious demon,
It's name is depression.

It crushes every last bit of her,
Until it is the only thing that remains.

And sometimes it just sits on her shoulders,
Bearing the weight of the world upon her.

"I'm tired is the usual reason for feeling and acting shitty,
But the 'tiredness' is just a state of pure exhaustion.

She exhausted from pretending,
Pretending to be okay.

She feels she has no choice in the matter,
She is an actor in her own life.

Portraying a happy, smiling young woman,
Who is really crippled and dying inside.

"How are you doing?" people ask,
What she hears "Are you still not over this yet?"

She doesn't control her emotions,
They control her.

They run her life,
She has to just bob along with them.

She is always riding the negative thought train,
It doesn't matter how upbeat she seems.

The bad feeling never just goes away,
They can become ingrained into who a person is.

She constantly feels like she's lost something,
At what she lost was herself.

She wants nothing more than to reclaim her life,
And to be able to look into the future and see that she's still alive.

She knows that she won't be 'cured',
That's not her goal.

She wants to live and grow old,
And give her one children the things she didn't have.

She doesn't want her future messed up,
Just because of the past.

She wants to help people,
And somewhere inside there's a little light saying "You can do it! " "I have faith in you!"

She wants to be there for people,
Because she knows what it's like to be truly alone.

Emma-Jane Gwilym