Between Bruises & Blooms

Sometimes
depression looks like
laundry left
in the basket
for three days.

A shower
I keep promising myself
I'll take tomorrow.

A message
I read
and cannot find
the strength
to answer.

Sometimes
it is not sadness.

Sometimes
it is nothing.

No hunger.

No music.

No anger.

No wanting.

Just hours
passing through me
without touching anything.

I still laugh.

I still make coffee.

I still kiss little foreheads
and find missing socks
and remember
which cup belongs
to which child.

I still exist
so convincingly

that sometimes
even I forget

how much of me
is lying quietly
at the bottom
of myself,

too tired
to climb back up.