Winterreise

The cold evicts me
from my own breath, which is
seized inside my core.

To be sure, my life is not as hard.
Bread is easy now, and
it tastes better,
but that doesn't stop the cold.

You talk to me because
you want an audience.
I am a receptacle for the trash
that comes out
of your cold, dry mouth.

The bread rises, its insides soft and hot,
its outside hard and cracked.
I crack a smile, break bread
with you, a darling, cold and frail.

I am ungrateful. That's what depression means.
It means that my throat always needs to be cleared.
It means that my voice
is a crack in the shell of ice
that separates the present from the past,
the winter from the spring.
I am always a child, cold and hungry.