Marie Nazari
THEY CAST ME AS A WITCH
I want to punch the minutes rioting
on my skin
and I want to rip out the metronome
idiosyncratically ticking in my hypothalamus
I am tense, I am on edge
the rhythms of my life are jagged
anger is a quiet gray, I rage against
friends coworkers strangers
condemning my mercurial moods,
confused and slow thinking,
obsessive self-deprecation
as deranged insane sinful
and I want crave need to tear into
my skin muscles bone
remove the madness buried beneath
I yearn to rebuild
but you say my sickness is a sin,
lazy indolence, must have let the devil in
prisoner in my mind, institutionalize me
like a criminal for the fire eating me alive
burn me at the stake
you said the choice was mine, I commit a crime
against humanity just by existing.
* * *
THE GREAT DEPRESSION
Depression isn’t a series of metaphors
Like blinding whiteness and utter darkness
A study in contradictions
It is shadows beckoning me into the light
Like blinding whiteness and utter darkness
That tell me everything I do is wrong
It is shadows beckoning me into the light
Now a roller coaster forever headed down
Tell me that everything I do is wrong
It is already a loud room
And a screeching roller coaster headed down.
My legs and chest are made of lead
It is already a loud room,
A dark deserted desert
My legs and chest are made of lead
I’m trying to walk through molasses
It is a dark deserted desert
I run a losing race against myself;
I’m trying to run through molasses
But I’m just a modern metaphorical Sisyphus
I run a losing race against myself
Forever trying to find the exit door
I’m a modern metaphorical Sisyphus
Perpetually burying myself deeper in the quicksand
I try forever to find the door out of the darkness
A study in contradictions, the more I try
The deeper in the quicksand I am buried
Depression is never just a series of metaphors.
Marie Nazari currently lives and writes in
Lexington, Kentucky. They have graduated from the University of
Kentucky with a BA in English and a BA in Spanish. Most of their
writing involves how they engage with the world as a disabled,
mentally ill, and queer person.
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