In Which I Become The Babadook
I too hid in a closet for years,
wear hats everyday,
make scrapbooks to be melodramatic,
and currently live in a basement.

When I am around,
mothers grab their children in fear
and ask, "What are you?"

I am a walking metaphor for mental illness.
I am all my anxiety dipped in oil
and set ablaze.
If you cloak my depression in a trench coat,
it is still there,
still depression.

When I look at food,
sometimes,
my mouth fills itself with glass,
a broken window
to let out the flies.
I peel back my skin
and cockroaches flood the kitchen.

My body is all the vermin
​people want to exterminate.

Yesterday, I pretended I didn't exist.
And today, I wrote a book,
to remind the world I do.