Portrait of Depression Addressing the Girl Child
if you can’t control the drag of your lungs snatching breath like a drowned thing clutched at waters that baptized devoured left dead, you who are only snot strangled sobs and long hours dreading the long hours between your mother’s thighs her lithe fingers making order of nappiness, you big headed girl child you belly roiling fear of everything: balloons, firecrackers, demons, dwarf hamsters, you love starved little shit halving worms beneath sunshine, you wonderer, you cruelty, what they could've been without you—loved, far from here, whole— you back rending yoke, you broken record track 1 momma’s whyyyy howling on repeat Daddy’s whisper weaving in and out of focus I’m so sorry repeat so sorry Brionne. you daddy’s sorrow you tiny squirming thing, oh doomed believer if you can't control the pant your body makes courting breath, your heart’s desperate merengue your lungs whistled blues—you fissured cask how can you hold anything here, even your body is trying to kill you girl— let it—let them go. you have no power here. hush child rest a while, it’s almost as easy as sleep.