Paradise Sirkus

Explaining my depression to my mother: A conversation Mom, my depression is a shapeshifter. One day it’s as small as a firefly in the palm of a bear, The next it’s the bear. On those days I play dead until the bear leaves me alone. I call the bad days “the Dark Days”. Mom says “try lighting candles”. But when I see a candle I see the flicker of a flame, Sparks of a memory younger than noon; I am standing beside her open casket, It is the moment that I learn everyone I will ever come to know will someday die. Besides Mom, I’m not afraid of the dark, perhaps that’s part of the problem. Mom says I thought the problem was that you can’t get out of bed. I can’t, anxiety holds me a hostage inside of my house inside of my head. Mom says where did anxiety come from? Anxiety is the cousin visiting from out of town that depression felt obligated to invite to the party, mom I am the party, only I’m a party I don’t want to be at. Mom says why don’t you try going to actual parties, see your friends. Sure I make plans, I make plans I don’t want to go to. I make plans because I know I should want to go I know sometimes I would have wanted to go, It’s just not that fun having fun when you don’t want to have fun Mom. You see Mom each night Insomnia sweeps me up in his arms dips me in the kitchen in the small glow of the stove-light; Insomnia has this romantic way of making the moon feel like perfect company. Mom says try counting sheep, But my mind can only count reasons to stay awake So I go for walks, but my stuttering kneecaps clank like silver spoons held in strong arms with loose wrists; They ring in my ears like clumsy church bells reminding me that I am sleepwalking on an ocean of happiness that I cannot Baptize myself in. Mom says happy is a decision But my happy is as hollow as a pin pricked egg, My happy is a high fever that will break. Mom says I am so good at making something out of nothing and then flat out asks me if I am afraid of dying. No Mom I am afraid of living. Mom I am lonely. I think I learned that when Dad left how to turn the anger into lonely the lonely into busy; So when I say I’ve been super busy lately I mean I’ve been falling asleep on the couch watching SportsCenter To avoid confronting the empty side of my bed; But my depression always drags me back to my bed Until my bones are forgotten fossils of a skeleton sunken city. My mouth a bone yard of teeth broken from biting down on themselves. The hollow auditorium of my chest swoons with the echoes of a heartbeat But I am just a careless tourist here. I will never truly know where I have been. Mom still doesn’t understand Mom, can’t you see That neither can I?

me: has a breakdown

someone: *shows me the slightest sign of affection*