DEPRESSIVES
DEPRESSIVES
by Howie Good
1
I had just turned six. The universal symbol for handicapped hadn’t been invented yet. Birds dragging broken wings left their black footprints on the stairs.
2
My parents made me take piano lessons. The piano hated me. I spent Hanukkah watching Christmas lights blink on and off on the house across the street.
3
My shadow walked ahead. It seemed odd that the stairs that went up were the same stairs that went down.
4
A man stood washing an apple at the sink. All the windows facing the other side of the world were open. Veiled women beckoned him into the Kasbah. The X on the sidewalk marks the spot where he landed.
Effective itemization. It sets everything apart yet groups them under the same theme. I identify with “the piano hated me.” “The stairs that went up were the same stairs that went down” is a fine perception–a phenomenon we may experience every day but not see in this personal, depressing way. The scope widens in the fourth item, to the point “all the windows facing the other side of the world were open,” and then the tragedy. That phrase describes so well the antipathetic nature of depression.
i like long time. reminds me of childhood in all its well-buttered observation of dysfunction through unrealized innocense. i still can’t ride a bike dammit.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xbGv2TuT29E&list=AL94UKMTqg-9DzZgmPTsysSumsrvBSaDGA