Depression Remembers

I try and tell my mind it's not rational; 

That the grey clouds pushing down  

On her land, a laden squall of grief  

Willing everything drowned, will pass.  

But she’s not listening.  

She's too busy looking at her ashen dress, 

Sullen with floor dust and dried blood.

Once summer sky blue,  

Now expands over the bare minimum of her morality,  

Exposing a dehiscent gash on her leg,

And an angry cut above her collarbone,

Which her fingertips detect is infected. 

She picks maggots off her thigh,

Tries to conjure lavenders scent;

Lays on the floor deflated.  

She can't think her way out of the suffocating mix of hearsay 

And betrayal coming from the rusted bucket in the corner.

So stolidly, she watches the sliver of light coming through the bars,  

Beyond her reach, yet hoof height above.  

Light moves slowly across the stone, 

A reverse hand on a clock, 

Turning back time, 

Highlighting smudges of blood and smatterings of slop,  

Punctuating the violent stench the room gestates.  

Gauges trap shadows in the wall,  

A carved letter here, a scratched symbol there, 

Pleas from the forsaken,  

Not to be forgotten.