Depressed Like A March Sister

My depression is not poetic
I don't smash pearl-inlay vases given to me by distant mothers-in-law
I don't clean shards up on my hands and knees in housedresses while I hurry to put the chicken in and drink before Harry gets home
I throw childhood sippy cups full of molding tea at linoleum countertops and scream when they don't break
My pills do not come in perfect little white bottles and they do not belong on the top shelf of my medicine cabinet
I don't have the luxury of keeping my meds a dirty little secret
Every Tuesday of the month I sit in the passenger seat of our neon green kia soul and drive to Shaws and stand in the neon red wait line until I see a neon green go signal, and I pick up a little bottle of neon orange pills that shine brightly
Even inside a medicine cabinet
I have never tried to drown myself in the ocean on a cloudy afternoon
I don't like the ocean or afternoons, and I'm afraid of crabs
I tried to waste away by a window once, to sit in a rocking chair with my hair in a loose braid, looking out a window down to a sunset
I tried to make cracking that window, savoring the sweet breeze the most interesting part of my day
I got maybe half an hour in that rocking chair before we had to pull out the binder of coping mechanisms and little house on the prairie to calm my nerves
If you leave your hair in a braid for two weeks, it starts to grow that way
My depression is not tragically beautiful
You will not be shocked when I erupt in a volcano of tears and wispy scarves and bedrest
I am not soberly soft-spoken or drunkenly enraged
I'm not the sexy kind of crazy
Everybody in my period 3 math class knows what I am feeling because I just don't shut up about it
My teachers know about my relationship with my mother
I come home and share every detail of my day with my father
My parents will never wonder if, where they went wrong, because I tell them about it constantly
My depression is not a translucent hand on my shoulder or a slight boulder on my shoulders
I am walking around impaled with the fears of a thousand armies
I don't have people writing songs about the dust behind my eyes or the age in my voice
My depression is not poetic

ZoeBee

VT

18 years old

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