A POEM ON DEPRESSION BY MY DAUGHTER

Snapshots of smiling friends shine through the windows of a dark room while scuffed black shoes move forward slowly on a steadily humming treadmill.

Perspiration drips down her face past cold, unseeing eyes mixing in with crystalline tears illuminated by the sharp beams penetrating the suffocating black.

Chapped lips mouth words from long forgotten conversations, rehearsed expressions at odds with the agony that fills her weary body with every step she takes.

Lungs inflate with air and deflate with a sigh littered with the hopelessness of a thousand unfortunate lifetimes, a frayed red string in the hands of fate praying {dreading} for the cool snip of a rusted knife.

The laughter that reaches her ears isn’t enough to drown out the sound of her heart splintering. Even so, she puts mask after mask over her tear stained face and forces the sound from her broken body.

A mosaic of bruises, burns, and scars meld beautifully with her fragility, carefully hidden behind false cheerfulness and child-like innocence.

A fresh face and a bright smile painted over the bloody threads keeping her lips sewn shut, even with her throat raw from her silent screams she repeats a mantra of “I’m okay” the first lie she ever told.

For the smiles from those faces and the precious light that keep the despair away for those invaluable seconds, it does not matter to her that she cries in the corner of that dark room as she struggles to put herself back together to face another day.

So with bloodied aching feet, she picks herself up. She steps on that treadmill and with the tears still streaming down her face, those trembling chapped lips curl up into the slightest of smiles.

Even the pain is a welcome reminder that she is still here.

Written by Sarat Yusuf.