I’m Trying to Understand
I’m trying to understand depression
but why do I feel like it’s a death sentence—
like a stage-four diagnosis:
“suicidal ideation,”
and why does my heart drop from my chest
into my lower intestine,
beating relentlessly in too small a space
every time I don’t know where she is
or when she’s home alone and
won’t answer my texts,
like what comes next is inevitable,
even when I know it isn’t—
that there are a lot of survivors
who never relapse
but every fresh line in her arm
makes me cry
Waiting Room
My head hurts.
The waiting room coffee
I added to the dregs of my three shots
is still too hot to do its job.
The Verve plays overhead.
I wonder if the woman in the blaze-green
Windbreaker and sensible sneakers,
or the septuagenarian with her cane
and phone call,
or the tracksuit with her eyes on her text,
even hear the music:
I can change I can change but I
think about my daughter
talking to the doctor about her life—
how sometimes it feels like too much weight
for such a small frame to bear.
I’m waiting for the nurse to call me in
so the doctor can ask how I think it’s going.
If I knew that, we wouldn’t be here.
Now conversation rises—
nurses calling names,
Huey Lewis playing softly—
but it’s not enough to keep me from looking up
every time the door opens.
God, my head hurts.
Randy Streu is a voice actor and writer. He lives in Wisconsin with a wife he cherishes, children he adores, and three cats he feeds. His work is published or upcoming in Belladonna’s Garden, Third Wednesday, Quasar, Pulsebeat, The Horror Zine, and elsewhere.