Explaining my Depression to my Mother

Explaining My Depression To My Mother A Conversation

Mom my depression is a shape shifter one day its 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, a spark of a memory younger than noon i am standing beside her open casket it is this moment i learn every person i have ever come to know will someday die. Besides mom im 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 of me house, inside of 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 i don't want to be at. MOM I AM THE PARTY. Mom says "Why don't you try going to actual parties, see your friends?" Sure 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 its just not that fun having fun when you dont want to have fun mom. You see mom each night insomnia sweeps me up in his arms, and 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 the reasons to stay awake, so i go for walks but my stuttering knee caps clank like sliver spoons being held in strong arms with loose wrists. They ring in my ears like clumsy church bells reminding me i am sleep walking 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 pinned pricked egg, my happy is a high fever that will BREAK. Mom says that i am so good at making something out of nothing and then flat out asks me if im afraid of dying. NO i am afraid of living. Mom i am lonely. I think when dad left how to turn the anger into lonely, the lonely into busy, so when i say i've been super busy lately it means i've been falling asleep watching sport center 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 down by them selves. This 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 cant you see that neither can i.