Thoughts from your neighbourhood insomniac: spoken word poetry

Explaining my depression to my mother:a conversation

Mom, my depression is a shapeshifter
One day it's as small as a firefly on the palm of a bear, the next it's the bear
On those days I play dead until the bear leaves me alone
I call the bad days, the dark days
Mom says, "try lighting candles"
When I see a candle I see the flesh of a church, a flicker of a flame, sparks of a memory younger than noon
I am standing beside my mothers open casket, it is the moment I learn that everyone I will ever come to know will someday die
Besides mom, I'm not afraid of the dark
Perhaps that's part of the problem
Mom says, "I thought the problem was you can't get out of bed"
I can't
Anxiety holds me hostage inside my house, inside my head
Mom says, "where did anxiety come from?"
Anxiety is the cousin visiting from out of town depression felt obligated to bring to the party
Mom I am the party
Only I am a party I don't want to be at
Mom says, "why don't you try going to actual parties, see your friends?"
Sure, I make plans
I make plans but I don't want to go
I make plans because I know I should want to go, sometimes I would have wanted to go
It's just not that much fun having fun when you don't want to have fun, mom
You see, each night insomnia takes me in his arms and dips me in the small glow of the stove light
Insomnia has this romantic way of making the moon seem like the perfect company
Mom says, "try counting sheep"
But my mind can only count reasons to stay awake
So I go for walks
But my knees clank like silver spoons held by strong arms with loose wrists
They ring like clumsy church bells reminding myself that I am walking on an ocean of happiness I cannot baptise myself in
Mom says, "happiness is a decision"
But my happy is as holloway a pin pricked egg
My happy is a high fever that will break
Mom says I am really good at making something out of nothing and then flat out asks me if I am afraid of dying
No! I am afraid of living!
I think I learned when dad died how to turn the lonely into angry and the angry into busy so when I tell you I've been super busy lately, I really mean I've been falling asleep watching Sports Centre on the couch to avoid co fronting the empty side of my bed
But my depression always brings me back to my bed
Until my bones are the forgotten fossils of a skeletal sunken city
My teeth are broken from biting down in themselves
But I am a careless tourist here
I will never truly know where I have been
Mom still doesn't understand
Mom, can't you see?
Neither can i!