Depression II

Dig deep. The quiet
days are still there,
you can't even
whisper in your head
to yourself. You wake up
abandoning your introspection
on the bed behind you.
The breakfast is staring at you
with repugnance.

Depression is
a dice
that you've tossed a million
times, not knowing that
all of it's faces
were white.

Dig deeper. Find last Friday's
loneliness, a sunbeam
trespassing the untidy bedroom,
the game of the shadows
on the carpet.
You hope you are
anything else, the next time.
A keyhole, or a desk lamp.
A stain of wine on a blouse,
a car seat, a muddy
step in the building entrance,
anything
but who you are
right now.

Dig even deeper.
There are dreams of you
breaking open.
Your bones are crunching
as they sunder,
and they let out a final echo
of old fears, an insisting
reiteration of trauma.

Dig, there, where
you buried the wrath. Realize
you don't have patience,
you're but a paralyzed ribcage.

War is more than
phosgene and hunger.
It's the emptiness afterwards,
the long, hard breath
you take for years,
still feeling the choking past.

Death is an exhalation.