In my body, depression feigns piety as a muse

And drags my fingers through the lines of manuscripts

Every breath is an incision on my corpse

With a six-inch skewer.

I do not fear death, but each time night crawls towards me

I begin to wonder how many times I will repeat death before sunrise.

I part my body into doors

Unfold my palms into knobs

Shape my legs into hinges

I wish to show myself a way of walking into a new thing

Anytime I’m done dying for a particular purpose.

I say my prayers; asking God for an ecdysis

That’s how I beg Him for mercies.

Father says we become men by growing out of needing pity

And I’m silently learning how to tuck my shadows into the breast pocket of gloom

Without inviting the eavesdropping ears.

Depression is how you summarize the portfolios of death with a word,

It’s a way of atoning death with too many abbreviated lives.

What this implies is that depression is death with an ellipsis.

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Nwuguru Chidiebere Sullivan is an emerging writer from Ebonyi state, Nigeria. He’s a penultimate medical laboratory science student who explores medicine in the day and worships literature at night. His works have appeared or are forthcoming in several literary journals; both online and printed. He was the winner of 2018, FUNAI CREW Literary Contest.

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