Tonight, Depression is sitting in my nose.
She likes to tickle the inside and whisper
things like, “Don’t you see that your friends
don’t love you? You care too much about
yourself. What have you done this year
To make it worthwhile? You just stay in bed.”
I remember that the last time I made my bed
I sat on top and cried because no one knows
That I have tried dying three times this year
by disappearing into the wall. Always, whispers
follow me: “My daughter and I, we had a bout,
something about leaving with her friends
for good. I told her, ‘I don’t like your friends’
and she looked at me, then went to bed.
I don’t understand what she goes on about
when she complains about her nose;
she says that sadness comes and whispers
from there, and sometimes it leaves by ear.
I told her not to get that piercing last year.
You know, I hate how she listens to her friends
instead of me.” These little barbed whispers
fly swift from her mouth and put me abed,
unable to face the world that just knows
that my heart is bleeding from a little “bout.”
But then, I wonder, what is all this about?
I sit in the bathtub and get water in my ears
when I meant for it to end up in my nose.
I decide to go under for good when my friends
call me and share their plans from some hotel bed;
they tell me they know how to help in a whisper.
That’s the night I leave, my feet mere whispers
on the carpet. I take everything I care about,
regretting only the fact that I can’t take my bed
with me; if you’ve ever spent an entire year
alone in one place, you know why. My friends
assure me leaving my mother is easy, but who knows?
I watch her sleep and breathe through her nose one last time, and I hear Depression whisper.
She speaks in my mother’s voice, condemning my friends and demanding to know what I’m about
to do. I smile because I know that surviving will be hard this year, but this time I won’t stay in bed.
