{"id":17540,"date":"2023-08-15T12:42:54","date_gmt":"2023-08-15T17:42:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.msabrookhaven.org\/literary\/?p=17540"},"modified":"2023-08-16T13:07:06","modified_gmt":"2023-08-16T18:07:06","slug":"contact","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.msabrookhaven.org\/literary\/2023\/08\/15\/contact\/","title":{"rendered":"Contact"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

This is a poem about healing, reaching out, and the path to recovery. This poem contains depictions of depression via the speaker’s environment.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. The floor is invisible beneath the piles and piles of clothes forming a moat around your bed, on which you haven\u2019t moved. Your arms, your legs, your body is a thousand tons, the weight of a herd of elephants, you won\u2019t be getting up any time soon. The used-to-be-purple-now-gray t-shirt clings to you, it\u2019s gross, terrible, you haven\u2019t changed for a new one, but you know it\u2019s nothing compared to the rats living in your fridge that hasn\u2019t been cleaned out since September. (You\u2019ll just let them have the food.) Your phone buzzes. You don\u2019t look. No one needs to worry about you right now or hear from you. You\u2019re fine. The room is fine. You\u2019ll deal with it tomorrow.

    <\/li>\n
  2. Today, you left your room. Not a lot. It was just the fridge. It hasn\u2019t started to smell (yet) but you don\u2019t remove the food inside. In the back of your head, you know it will spoil, but the hand stays right where you left it. As you mull over this, a bug crawls under the space between the floors. (You close the fridge.)

    <\/li>\n
  3. The TV hums in the back of your ears, on it there\u2019s a man named Jim and his girlfriend \u201cPam,\u201d and a Schroot or whatever. You just needed something quiet. Tonight, you\u2019ll have a TV dinner because there\u2019s else to eat. Tomorrow you\u2019ll Doordash. (Or not.) It\u2019s going to be the most depressing thing you\u2019ve eaten in months.

    <\/li>\n
  4. Someone knocked on your door today. Whoever they were didn\u2019t stay; but they left a care package. Inside, there\u2019s a bag of fruit, a blanket, a bottle of bubble bath, and a green shirt with the tag still on.
    \u201cI hope you\u2019re doing okay.\u201d

    <\/li>\n
  5. You took a bubble bath that night.

    <\/li>\n
  6. There\u2019s still not enough energy in you to go outside, but Doordashing is too expensive. You take a fruit from the basket. Tomorrow you\u2019ll clean out the fridge.

    <\/li>\n
  7. It\u2019s a disgusting and tedious process, exactly how you expected. You don\u2019t do it in one go: not everything\u2019s gone. But it\u2019s a start. You\u2019ll watch The Office that afternoon. (His name is Schrute.)

    <\/li>\n
  8. Your phone buzzes.
    \u201cHope you\u2019re doing better.\u201d
    It buzzes again.
    \u201cWe miss you.\u201d
    <\/span>You mark it as important.

    <\/li>\n
  9. The green shirt you\u2019re wearing feels better than the used-to-be-purple shirt. You feel clean. It\u2019s nice.

    <\/li>\n
  10. You load your laundry into baskets. You\u2019ll take it to the laundromat in time. Right now, you\u2019ll sweep the floor. Put trash in bags. Mop.
    Have you seen your floor since August?

    <\/li>\n
  11. You take a bubble bath that night with the leftover solution.
    Tomorrow, you\u2019ll go grocery shopping.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n