“Does it ever feel terminal?”
I ask my other depressed friend.
“I think no,” he texts, “because that

would mean definitively it will
kill me.” I look up, and blink
my ponderings into the night.

“Right now it just feels probable,”
L continues. I affirm the feelings,
affirm him. I’m glad he is alive.

It is one thing to share sorrows
with someone. The young woman
at CVS has scars on her upper arm

that mirror mine. We are bonded
by these pink knolls of admission:
sometimes, this life isn’t enough.

To share joys with others
is the opposite of tragedy.
Like finding a decent meal

hidden within stacks
of steaming shit, we sometimes laugh
until it rumbles out along our bones,

up into the brain’s dormant pockets,
down into the anam. O, the joy, so great.
Sometimes, this life isn’t enough.

Ántonia Timothy is from Baltimore, MD. Her first collection, Self-Titled by Alien, has been published by Milk Carton Press. Individual poems have appeared in: Poet Lore, The Fiddlehead, Washington Square Review, and Los Angeles Review, among others. She received her MFA from Bowling Green State University.