Dark thoughts

My feelings

(these are some of my feelings that I feel from the example of Sabrina Benaim poem)

my depression is a shapeshifter

One day it's as small as a firefly in 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"

But when I see a candle, I see the flesh of a church

The flicker of a flame

Sparks of a memory younger than noon

I am standing beside her open casket

It is the moment I learn every person I 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 that you can't get out of bed"

I can't, anxiety holds me a hostage inside of my house, inside of my head

Mom says, "Where did anxiety come from?"

Anxiety is the cousin visiting from out of town that depression felt obligated to invite 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; I know sometimes I would have wanted to go

It's just not that fun having fun when you don't want to have fun, Mom

You see, Mom, each night Insomnia sweeps me up in his arms, dips me in the kitchen in the small glow of the stove-light

Insomnia has this romantic way of making the moon feel like perfect company

Mom says, "Try counting sheep"

But my mind can only count reasons to stay awake

So I go for walks, but my stuttering kneecaps clank like silver spoons held in strong arms with loose wrists

They ring in my ears like clumsy church bells, reminding me I am sleepwalking on an ocean of happiness that I cannot baptize myself in

Mom says, "Happy is a decision"

But my happy is as hollow as a pin pricked egg

My happy is a high fever that will break

Mom says I am so good at making something out of nothing and then flat out asks me if I am afraid of dying

No Mom I am afraid of living

Mom I am lonely!

I think I learned that when Dad left how to turn the anger into lonely the lonely into busy

So when I say I've been super busy lately I mean I've been falling asleep watching SportsCenter on the couch

To avoid confronting the empty side of my bed

But my depression always drags me back to my bed

Until my bones are the forgotten fossils of a skeleton sunken city

My mouth a boneyard of teeth broken from biting down on themselves

The hollow auditorium of my chest swoons with echoes of a heartbeat

But I am just a careless tourist here

I will never truly know everywhere I have been

Mom still doesn't understand

Mom, can't you see

That neither can I