Depression & Other Magic Tricks by Sabrina Benaim

This following poem made me think about how depression can make you unrecognizable both to yourself and to those you love. You might become a caricature of yourself, so at first, they notice nothing wrong. By the time they realize you aren't okay or fine or alright or any of the other pleasantries you've been claiming to be, they can't understand what happened or where the person who they know you as went. 


 the other side of a 
memory 
we could have told you 
she wasn't herself since the tenth 
grade 
sure, she still had a laugh like 
electricity 
still went to dance class 
put on mascara each morning for 
school 
but something was off 
something like how a light switch 
will still turn on 
a half burnt bulb 
it was hard to tell if she was a 
stubborn surge 
or a tired, dimming circuit 
then she started working 
weekends 
stopped making it for dinner on 
Sundays 
when she did she looked 
exhausted 
but she was always missing our 
calls 
telling us she had been asleep 
she had never been one to lie 
so we believed her 
we wanted to believe her when she said 
she was fine 
just fine / all right / okay / busy / 
good / okay / fine 
we thought she would have come 
to us 
if she was having any trouble we 
would have done anything 
to help 
all we've ever wanted was for her 
to be happy 

 for my nineteenth birthday, my 
brother gifted me 
the board game hungry hungry 
hippos, 
he said it was so i could play with 
my friends. 
he was referring to the hippos. 


 we did not understand why she 
would not stop crying 
even when we held her down 
to the couch begging her to 

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