Melancholia is a graceful word,
a wisteria-scented sadness,
sunlight filtered by green net of
budding trees. A voiceless poem
without need for adjectives.
Melancholia leaves her children
cookies and milk. Depression
kills herself. Is a closed fist,
fingers digging new moons
into a palm that bleeds.
She nags constantly--
white noise--
hears nothing beyond herself.
Sees neither spring
pushing up through loamy earth
nor even frozen winter. Depression
goes upstairs for breakfast but soon
returns hungry for it's too hard to join
the bowl in the cabinet
with cereal from the jar, milk,
too-early blackberries in their plastic box.
Melancholia floats
like birch tree's seeds onto
the kitchen floor, a cold I catch
then give back again.
Depression waits, parasitic fingers
tapping against my breastbone.
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