The Drought

Carly Onnink The Drought

Depression waits. It waits for the phone to stop ringing and the deadlines to roll by like deadweight too heavy to pick up. Too much to deadlift the heft of lunch dates outings reunions exams errands trips to the grocery store. The mail outside the door.

Circles under your eyes as purple as deadnettle— the heart locked in a deadbolt, deadened round the edges the way a fruit that bloomed from flowers starts to rot from its skin to the core.

But Depression worms its way from the inside out, like a parasite nestled deep. Your peel is a fragile armor, ready to bleed when Depression decides to bite through the bruises. It consumes

you like a silent blight—and it takes its time. It carefully whittles you hollow. It rots you slowly and waits. It waits relentlessly and brutally, like the longest and driest of droughts, waiting for your heart to shrink and give out—

but Hope is more patient still. Like a seed burrowed deep under the dirt and debris, huddled in the dark and waiting for the rain.