Depression is like breaking your arm.
Once you know it’s happened,
So many skills are set back to zero
Reaching into the sky and wanting
Are both hindered skills once maintained

You know what it is like you’ve done it before
But now you can’t make the mussels remember
Because you forgot how to want
Your limbs don’t remember how to stretch
And neither does your mind

One step up
Reach to the left
One hand after the other
Grip. Slip. Crunch.
On the ground,

Stretch and pull
Out of a right angle
Heat and ice
Hang in distortion
Pressing into a straight line

Bones rearranged
Cracked and torn
Bent out of form
Numbing pain zings
Restriction in movement

Melt into blank stares
Therapy, therapy, repeat!
Doctor calls and late-night sprawls
Shape a new reality.
Bending into strength

A racing heart beating into wine
But not of her usual consumption
Though eyes, nose, and mouth do collide
If you could picture the sky melting
From a polluted pumpkin patch
To the ocher yellow drawl of a sunny day
You would meet me in the autumn rhythm,
Sinking into the scent of raspberry-poisoned honey.
Eat me in the form of pomegranate-shaped pearls
The tool of Winter’s maker seeks contrast
Of a thorn’s peck on fragile snow.
Marmalade, you are my mauve-colored sheep
Sing your song through the fangs of a monster's breath
I sink into your embrace wild and vivid with jeweled-toned eyes

you drive a black truck
with silver accents
and now
every time I see one similar
my heart freezes
and anxiety builds
you always parked it
in the same spot
and you watched me
I know you did
I tried to erase it
but the image remains
of your stupid
stupid black truck
with the silver accents