On Depression

The universe says “expand”,

But I cannot fathom building a legacy so disproportionate to the cosmos,

That would take another mere hundred years to dissipate.

 

I want to occupy no space at all,

Tuck each tenuous limb inwards,

And slip into a vacuum

Before the reverberation of my heartbeat tunnels into consciousness –

“You

are still

here”.

 

Each thought, deafening,

Taunts me,

Sprouting outstretched appendages and eyes of obsidian craters,

Pantomiming sluggishly in reverse,

Like unhinged clowns underwater.

 

“Collapse, collapse, collapse”,

They command,

With urgency that puts the universe to shame.

 

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