4 Poolecio Hand Me Downs By Sarah Kay | know you've taken to wearing around your father's hand-me-down anger. But | wish that you wouldn't, It's a few sizes too big and everyone can sec it doesn't fit you, makes you look silly, hangs loose at all the ‘wrong places, even if it does match your skin color. | now you think you'll grow into it, that your arms will beef up after all the fighting and it will sit on your shoulders if only you pin it on the right places with well-placed conviction, The bathroom mirror tells you you look good in it, that it makes your fists look a lot more justified, when you dig your hands deep into the pockets you'll find stories hidden he left there for you to hand out to the other boys like car bombs. And on days when everything else is slipping through your fingers, this you can wrap yourself inside of, this will Keep you warm at night, help you drift off to sleep with a certainty that no matter what, it will sil be there when you wake up. And the longer you wear it, the better it starts to fit, until some of the stories are your ‘own. Maybe the holes in the sleeve are from the bullets you dodged yourself, so when itrips, snags on a barbed wire fence or someone else's family, don't worry. ‘Cause your mother and your sister will help mend it-patch the holes, sew the tears, replace a button or two, help you back into it and tell you how proud they are of you, how good it looks on you the same way it looked on your dad, and your granddad too, and on his dad before him and on his father before him. But back then, back then there was only sand until someone drew a line, someone built a wall, someone threw a stone. And the crack in the skull that it hit fractured perfectly outward, like twigs on the branches on the limbs of a family tree, So someone threw a stone back, and each fracture, each tiny break wound itself together into thread and the thread pulled itself around him- your great-great-great-great somebody. ‘And on the other side of that wall they were knitting just as fast, and their's fit them just as well but only slightly different shade. So 'm asking, when the time comes, who's gonna be the first one to put down the needle and thread? Who's gonna be the first one to remember that their grandpa suffered just as many broken windows, broken hearts, broken bones, and the first time you come down to dinner and your son is sitting at the dining room table with your hatred on his shoulders, who's gonna be the first one to tell him it's finally time to take it off?Real lecauve +0 TA sounds ie Amore che ea Obhour how he on Rowe to Stick +o WOAHION. ony € Poem sans AN Ober just a (Ure oavice : 7 y Licht. — -t was, ese to unclerstorcl * move, ENOHOYY cougn+~ nu abrenthon “4 J Tweuis Tris poom + This poe explores how hola © We anink ave important. FA OWES aninas, 40 Weve its +oe Code, s, ooo oreaerno, Aradi-nen .nye Rovieclo Explaining my depression to my mother: A conversation ‘Sabrina Benaim prnespiphoy Mom, my depression is a shapeshifter 7 Sto Ue ‘One day it's as small as a firefly in the palm of a bear The next i's the bear —¢re-t @prov- On those days | play dead until the bear leaves me alone I call the bad days "the Dark Days” conten Mom says try lighting candles issu But when | 0 a candle | see thd fash ofa ehurch, the fickor ofa fame Sparks of a memory younger than noon lam standing beside her open casket Itis the moment that | learn everyone | will ever come to know will someday die Besides Mom, I'm not afraid of the dark, perhaps that's part of the problem Mom says | thought the problem was that you can't get out of bed I cant, anxiety holds me a hostage inside of my house, inside of my head Mom says where did anxiety come from ——-Pevson Fico & Anxiety is the cousin visiting from out of town that depression felt obligated to bring to the party Mom, Iam the party ~ Pevson (fr otien Only I'm a party | don’t want to be at Mom says why don't you try going to actual parties, see your friends Sure | make plans, | make plans but | dor't want to go to ‘ make plans because | know | should want to go | know sometimes I would have wanted to go {t's just not that fun having fun when you don't want to have fun, Mom You see Mom each night Insomnia sweeps me up in his arms Pergo ifrcidiad Dips me in the kitchen in the small glow of the stove-light Insomnia has this tomantc way of making the moon feel ke perfect company Mom says try counting sheep = Persumficed or But my mind can only count reasons to stay awake So | go for walks, but my stuttering kneecaps clank like silver spoons held in strong arms with loose wrists ‘They ring in my ears like clumsy church bells —~ dni jie Reminding me that | am sleepwalking on an ocean of happiness that | cannot Baptize myself in Mom says happy is a decision : But my happy is as hollow as a pin pricked egg sv \ © My happy is a high fever that will break * Shi | Mom says | am so good at making something out of nothing and then flat out asks me if | am afraid of dying No am afraid of fving Mom, | am lonely | think [leamed that when Dad left how to turn the anger into lonely the lonely into busy ‘0 when I say I've been super busy lately | mean I've been falling asleep watching Sportscenter on the couch To avoid confronting the empty side of my bed But my depression always drags me back to my bed — Pex Sew # Until my bones are forgotten fossils of a skeleton sunken city fc,J My mouth a boneyard of teeth broken from biting down on themselves ~ The hollow aucitorium of my chest swoons with the echoes of a heartbeat But | am a careless tourist here ype -foyprrow™ re CO Or meppre- | will never truly know everywhere | have been Mom still doesn't understand Mom, can't you see ‘That neither can 1 Reali ATAS poem reminds me Of pow hord it Worx Neve comtrel oO about basing args fe Ohe urolevStcrol pintening Ustening «0 “Ee POEM fs Dliftevent OL When YoU listen, uw reo AKe emoto S You con earls HONS one \ Feels wove oauue. the Meaning of the @ POEM bECOMeS move leur olrol te ele cs He Reta Ws poem Snows wow some-t Ore gong to 0e aang © WE cant Ths poem seems Wet a ciespreer'€ cry @r bore ucceysteuing of deparession. I+ bas sO muer etottion Seem WER & person just obont vow lose reg feel. we