Depression & Obsessions
The past two days have pressed heavy on my mind,
their weight curling around me like a fist,
tight and merciless,
leaving shadows on the walls of my skull.
​
I’ve tried to smooth the bruises,
to iron them flat into my skin.
But soft tissue remembers what hands forget—
the stains of touch,
the way memory clings like wet silk
to the bones of a ghost.
Still, they bloom—
insufferable, feral, furious—
like ivy clawing its way through brick,
like an army of shadows
rising from the abyss to rally
in service of my enemy.
And my enemy,
that cunning beast,
wears my face.
​
Obsession sharpens itself like a blade—
thin, precise and gleaming—
and depression, its twin,
lies in wait beneath,
a dark pool that smells of rust and rot.
They take turns carving their names into me,
etching their signatures onto the inside of my ribs.
​
Some days, I pace the room,
measuring the distance between my fears
and the edge of the world.
Other days, I count the cracks in my mind,
run my fingers over their jagged edges,
testing how deep they go.
It’s all numbers and rituals,
a spiral of pointless mathematics:
counting stars, breaths,
empty calories of thought.
​
And then the urge comes—
the craving to burn to nothing,
to strip myself down to blackened bones
and be consumed.
Or better still,
to dissolve into thick black smoke,
curling skywards,
an offering to a deity
that feeds on the bitter scent
of depression and obsessions.
Would that deity be proud of me?
Would it open its gaping maw
and swallow me whole?
Would it whisper my name as a hymn,
or chew me down to silence?
​
But no—
I remain,
trapped in the perpetual ritual of myself.
Not a flame,
not smoke,
but a threadbare shadow,
dragging its weight across the floor,
feeding the ever-hungry beast
of depression and obsessions.