Evaluation

I thought this poem would be about me,
typed up in a gloomy room where moonlight
has not visited.

These are my words, aren't they?

Trying to answer a questionnaire about myself
is denying others the truth,
because these options cannot detect
my thoughts....the incorrectly mixed images...
the purpose I wordlessly give for filling
in the bubbles: optimistic, patient, has
never thought about self-destruction,
has healthy lungs, an inability to ask
about impulses.

-

We sit back to back at the center for cardiology.
Do my cells understand this?
Or did my restless sleep drag me here?
Maybe I'm a diagnosis and you are a reason
so much of my shame goes silent...
without a name.

You look like a finch, the more my neck
feels support from the other side
and imagines the way mountains neared.
You must be from North America and your bill
must have traces of the unknown in its
large stance.

I don't register that "us" means "me"
until the nurse takes away the metal clipboard,
releasing the hand that had been
pinching me since....

(when?)

When does depression know heart failure,
for my own can never evaluate
the day heartbeats stop.

My heart should anticipate rest;
Shouldn't it feel me and find carved out
music within me that's......just questioning

painlessness?

-

But I turned the light on,
and my heart has yet to know
it's at rest.

written 1/1/13.