I will be stronger than my sadness.

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.

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.

FrozenRobot of all people should know that there is nothing beautiful or endearing or glamorous about sadness. Sadness is only ugly, and anyone who thinks otherwise doesn’t get it. I think what he means to say is that he and I are ugly in the same way and there's something familiar, comfortable, about that. Comfortable is different from beautiful.

I think about his drawing of me. That girl he drew, she was beautiful. That girl wasn't a gray sky. She had hope. Hope is beautiful.

Tell me more about it, your sadness." he presses"Why?""I want to understand. I like understanding you. It's been a long time since I related to someone else, but I think I get you."My black hole of a heart stalls, sucking all of the air out of my lungs

I think of my black slug, slithering around, slurping up my potential energy for joy. I press my hand to my stomach and desperately wish that it didn't exist.

I take a breath and notice the air has changed flavor from campfire smoke to sweet vanilla and there's a soft sound in my head that I don't quite recognize but reminds me of pennies being tossed into a foundation. The pitter-patter of wishes, desperate wishes.