William DeGenaro
What Depression is Like
You're at the dining room table and forget
how to sit on a wooded chair, forget
how to crack the spine of the book
you were reading, forget how to turn a
Kroger receipt into a bookmark, forget how to
let your eyes dance left to right top
to bottom do it again. You're in the
kitchen but you can't wash the morning's sulfering
remains from your plate. The yellow tells you
this thing is unclean. You grimace. The purple
dish soap is unattainable. You walk away, look down
at your phone but you've forgotten how to
place calls. There is only soft suffocating blankets
and sheets. Warm, trusted, they make sense. You
forget how to uncover your face. You succumb.
Bio
William DeGenaro is a teacher and writer based in Michigan. This year he's living in Amman, Jordan, on a Fulbright Fellowship.