Depression is
Depression is a naked woman in public, three duvets over a lifeless body, a drawer full of odd socks, a head on collision, the purpose of a car with no petrol.
Depression scratches, bites, screams, kicks, yells, but no one is close enough to me to hear it.
Depression; I wear it like a dress, I walk it like a dog, we eat lunch, watch Dr Phil in our pyjamas and complain of boredom. I sleep with it, I bathe with it, I write with it.
The Haunting
It’s about the locked door
It’s about the sound of a slipped belt
Trauma like brain damage
It’s about shrunken corners that don’t shelter
It’s about hearing pants drop to the floor
Wishing ears to deafen
It’s about this being a game to him
It’s about his hands locked on her arms
Repetition she knows what’s coming, coming
It’s about the floor pressing into her spine
It’s about blocking out the pain
The bleeding, the hot wet tongue
It’s about the shame, the promises, the secrecy
It’s about focusing on the same spot on the ceiling
And wishing to die
It’s about no one seeing, hearing
It’s about belief and no one believing
Don’t keep your eyes closed around children.
Ghazal of diagnosis
I want the lies to stop boiling over
And the angry voices to simmer
I want the lull of a quiet mind
And my heart to be super-glued piece by piece
I’m neither the sane nor the insane
You were just a diagnosis
I was vacant.
