On suddenly wanting to lie down in aisle 7 of the grocery store
OctPoWriMo 2024, Day 25
“a world so unfit for human life that early generations had to sleep more than half the day and felt more comfortable crawling on all fours than walking erect. The gravity was that intense.”
- "Superman: Last Son of Krypton” by Elliot S. Maggin.
What does it matter that there are six types of depression, and five attachment styles, and four paradigms of shame? All I know is that my apple is dented at several points. My knowledge is not powerful when the urge grips me to drop to my knees, rend my garments and howl. I’m vaguely aware of the shoppers drugged into a matte hum above the muzak. I know I would’ve been too powerful, had I not been made morally fragile, injury-prone within the enteral tube I’m the balloon animal of. I am unrelieved of tears, those daggers falling backward from their rim. My chest is heavy with their spearheads. My body is heavy with their weight of melting water. I bulge before my crumple when dysphoria hits me from the rafters with its large ray gun, and I begin to leak.
© Tolu Oloruntoba
Oh those black dogs of depression. Chasing you down. Pinning you to the floor. Tearing flesh. Biting bone. Relentless.