I remember an old man, wheelchair bound
His body crudely sewn together
with bolts and screws.

You see,
his bones wouldn't stop growing
and breaking within his tiny, feeble frame.

He offered me a metal plate from his shoulder
after his next surgery; I pictured ****** flesh in Ziploc
But alas, I never saw him again.

On the visiting ward of the hospital
I ask my mother one day how someone so blithe, despite their condition
could end up in a place such as this.

She said depression doesn't discriminate;
The constant nagging, piercing pain he lived with daily
was enough reason to search for an end to it all.

My mother was right: depression stealthily maneuvers
its great tentacles, its black, feathered extremities
across the minds of the unknowing, the unsuspecting, and the undeserving.  

It is a black sludge sickness, spreading from generation to generation
And somewhere along that genetic timeline, her and I,
cursed.

Sitting across from her at scheduled visiting hour
I am reminded how our roles were reversed here
just years earlier.

They say time stops for nobody,
neither does this beast.