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Photo credit: as posted on https://www.toronto.com/events/8310343--toronto-poetry-slam-finals-featuring-sabrina-benaim/
"Sabrina Benaim is a writer, performance & teaching artist, whose home base is Toronto. She was a member of the Canadian championship-winning 2014 Toronto Poetry Slam team, & in 2015, she represented Toronto at the Women Of The World Poetry Slam."
Source: https://buttonpoetry.com/sabrina-benaim/
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Addendum
I once told you my depression is a firefly.
The truth is:I am the firefly.
If you pave a field of fireflies, the fireflies will not migrate, they will disappear.
My depression is concrete.
I am doing everything I can to survive.
from I Love You, Call Me Back (2021)
I once told you my depression is a firefly.
The truth is:I am the firefly.
If you pave a field of fireflies, the fireflies will not migrate, they will disappear.
My depression is concrete.
I am doing everything I can to survive.
from I Love You, Call Me Back (2021)
Explaining my depression to my mother: a conversation
mom, my depression is a shape shifter;one day it's as small as a firefly in the palm of a bear;the next it's the bear.those days i play dead until the bear leaves me alone.
i call the bad days the dark days.
mom says try lighting candles.
when I see a candle, i see the flesh of a churchthe flicker of life sparks of a memory younger than noon;i am standing beside her open casket,it is the moment i learn every person i ever come to know will someday die.besides, mom, i'm not afraid of the dark, perhaps that's part of the problem.
mom says i thought the problem wasthat you can't get out of bed?
i can't, anxiety holds me a hostage inside of my house, inside of my head.
mom says where did anxiety come from?
anxiety is the cousin visiting from out of town depression felt obligated to invite to the party.mom, i am the party, only i am a party i don't want to be at.
mom says why don't you try going to actual parties?see your friends.
sure i make plans.i make plans but i don't want to goi make plans because i know i should want to go,i know sometimes i would have wanted to go,it's just not that fun having fun when you don't want to have fun,
momeach night Insomnia sweeps me up in his arms, dips me in the kitchen in the small glow of the stove-lightinsomnia has this romantic way of making the moon feel like perfect company.
mom says try counting sheep.
my mind can only count reasons to stay awake.
so i go for walks, mom, but my stuttering kneecaps clank like silver spoons held in strong arms with loose wrists.they ring in my ears like clumsy church bells, reminding me i am sleepwalking on an ocean of happiness that i cannot baptize myself in.
mom says happy is a decision.
my happy is a high fever that will break.my happy is as hollow as a pin pricked egg.
mom says, I am so good at making something out of nothing,and then flat out asks me if i am afraid of dying.
no,i am afraid of living.
mom i am lonelyi think i learned that when dad left;how to turn the anger into lonely, the lonely into busy.so when i say i've been super busy lately, i mean i've been falling asleep watching sportscenter on the couchto avoid confronting the empty side of my bed
my depression always drags me back to my beduntil my bones are the forgotten fossils of a skeleton sunken city.my mouth a boneyard of teeth broken from biting down on themselves.
the hollow auditorium of my chest swoons with echoes of a heartbeat but i am just a careless tourist here,i will never truly know everywhere i have been
mom still doesn't understand
mom, can't you see?neither can i.-from Depression and Other Magic Tricks (2017)
mom, my depression is a shape shifter;one day it's as small as a firefly in the palm of a bear;the next it's the bear.those days i play dead until the bear leaves me alone.
i call the bad days the dark days.
mom says try lighting candles.
when I see a candle, i see the flesh of a churchthe flicker of life sparks of a memory younger than noon;i am standing beside her open casket,it is the moment i learn every person i ever come to know will someday die.besides, mom, i'm not afraid of the dark, perhaps that's part of the problem.
mom says i thought the problem wasthat you can't get out of bed?
i can't, anxiety holds me a hostage inside of my house, inside of my head.
mom says where did anxiety come from?
anxiety is the cousin visiting from out of town depression felt obligated to invite to the party.mom, i am the party, only i am a party i don't want to be at.
mom says why don't you try going to actual parties?see your friends.
sure i make plans.i make plans but i don't want to goi make plans because i know i should want to go,i know sometimes i would have wanted to go,it's just not that fun having fun when you don't want to have fun,
momeach night Insomnia sweeps me up in his arms, dips me in the kitchen in the small glow of the stove-lightinsomnia has this romantic way of making the moon feel like perfect company.
mom says try counting sheep.
my mind can only count reasons to stay awake.
so i go for walks, mom, but my stuttering kneecaps clank like silver spoons held in strong arms with loose wrists.they ring in my ears like clumsy church bells, reminding me i am sleepwalking on an ocean of happiness that i cannot baptize myself in.
mom says happy is a decision.
my happy is a high fever that will break.my happy is as hollow as a pin pricked egg.
mom says, I am so good at making something out of nothing,and then flat out asks me if i am afraid of dying.
no,i am afraid of living.
mom i am lonelyi think i learned that when dad left;how to turn the anger into lonely, the lonely into busy.so when i say i've been super busy lately, i mean i've been falling asleep watching sportscenter on the couchto avoid confronting the empty side of my bed
my depression always drags me back to my beduntil my bones are the forgotten fossils of a skeleton sunken city.my mouth a boneyard of teeth broken from biting down on themselves.
the hollow auditorium of my chest swoons with echoes of a heartbeat but i am just a careless tourist here,i will never truly know everywhere i have been
mom still doesn't understand
mom, can't you see?neither can i.-from Depression and Other Magic Tricks (2017)
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