you dress up your depression with
the loudest laughter.
camouflage it with grace and trifle.
stuff all you can in your mouth.
hide all that can cause a scene.
ask for more beetroot.
have your bleeding unseen when you bite your tongue
trying not to say this year too almost took you.
your silence is table etiquette.
the aunt calls you clumsy
when you shiver and spill.
again.
you do not say,
that the knife does not know how to be steady
when you are not the meal.
how be still
when it is not your weapon.
you laugh the loudest here too instead.
you ask for the salad to be passed
so you do not stretch too much that your shirt
exposes the orbits on your sleeves.
you do not want to tell anyone about how
your palms are a blackole.
about how the gravity of your fingers crashes
everything they touch.
or hold.
so when the drunk uncle tells you,
again this year,
that your life is in those hands,
you count the number of times
you almost died this year.
and you say, yes.
uncle, yes.