the test.

My body always hurts now.
I remember the bruises
and the broken and the blisters
and the lack of validation
in ruddy blues and greys:
how cold feels and eyes water.

Nourishment is like the sunshine.
Sunshine feeds also, and so does air,
and soft things and blankets
on the grass to stretch out on,
bright greens in sweet contrast
to the pinks of inside mouths.

I am overcome with fear, remembering.
Fear created from fear forced upon me,
that bubbles over cold chrome sides
turning once soft to raw, becoming anger
becoming tears, becoming stuffing
bursting from my broken seams.

A diagnosis of depression is ill-fitting.
Depression is a plain, a plateau, a stretch
of land, hard and rocky, dusty, dry.
I feel concave, deep, and echoing:
able to hold so much, yet empty.