I’ve been navigating my relationship with anxiety and depression for a long time and I use art to process and manage these odd friends of mine. This particular poem was inspired by a book I’m reading called Unbound by Kasia Urbaniak and a recent conversation with a friend about self care, overwhelming emotions and suicide.
Transcript:
Do me a service
Undertake my decision
Ask me intimate questions
Bury it in your grave
Shine the light on me
Shroud my attention
Eulogize my porcelain skin
Attend to my silence
Memorialize me in your gaze
Trapped in your headlights
Keep vigil as you do me the last Honors
Even when I’m six feet under I still answer
Your invisible labor of love
It’s exactly what you need to hear
Preserved princess
Wasn’t I sweet?
Compose me
Narrate my meaning
Nouns don’t do, that’s only for verbs
Cast your attention on me
I couldn’t have scripted this
Depression spins fictions
I must have been hostage to the feelings
Just wright: Hysterical
Objectivity wouldn’t have let me commit—
I was perfect
Without being too much
Or too little
Rewrite me so I didn’t implode
Erase the virgule from my wrists
Punctuate my virtue
Be the protagonist who saves me
Edit what I must not have meant
Author this so I’ll never have to.
Savior
Savior
Savior!
Protect me from my doing
Forgive me of my sins
Shoulder authority over my own death
Pallbearer
Glory for what You do
My hymnal hero
Round and round we go
I’ll never leas
Or follow either
I keep stepping on your toes
Absolve me
Let my weight consume you
Bestow me with praise for my modesty
But strip out my trumpets
This is Your reception
I must have looked possessed
Cleanse my anxiety
If only I had believed in your salvation
Prevail over me
A testament to my anatomy
I mean, autonomy
Give me eternal life