Depression is a cage.

In the brilliant turning of foliage, a ripe green to a fervid red, a weighty dread follows close as a shadow
and grows longer,
tenacious.
I'll be cajoled into six sides of jointed aluminum
shrinking on the daily
until my lungs are flat and stiff as a starched collar.
My chest is concaved, a ******* wound.
I am prisoner to my elements.
Stockholm syndrome
And I can only succumb
to the unsettling security in immobility.
This cage provides my structure,
and I grow accustomed to it
Giving in to its indifference

A dismal awakening in
six moons
and the hatch door springs open.
I'm anxious and cursing the piercing golden beams for
my muscles have atrophied
and a faint memory of bipedal motion comes rolling in.
The cage disappears
But I'm weak, immobile still and
resentful of this freedom
and the work it requires.
Slowly I wiggle my toes, I turn side to side
and listen for the cracks and pops of my fragile frame, harnessing a solar energy.
Feeling returns, filling the concavity in my chest.
Im flooded.
Free now
but timid
My skeleton is dusty from disuse
I stretch and cry out.
Tendons, ligaments regaining their power
Breath returns and
I turn towards the Sun and exhale fully, sending sparks flying.
In respiration, though, I note that static fear, warning me that my liberation comes with a debt.
I am eternal animate obligation.