The Best Marriage Vow for Depressives

Sad people need love too.

This Poem Entitles You to One Sunday in Bed

This poem entitles you to one Sunday in bed
Every month for the rest of your life

Hide under the covers or let the air in
Open the window or seal it shut
I’ll leave you a glass of water on the nightstand when I can
But not always
This poem does not entitle you to room service
It’s a ticket for nothingness
It’s a voucher for depression
That deep kind you leave in down comforters when you’d laid still long enough
Pressing down
With every breath
Pressing further

This poem is an insurance policy for a mental breakdown
It entitles you to lose your mind once a month
Go ahead
Just please keep it to Sundays
And please, in return, allow me a Sunday too

I won’t take my Sunday on yours,
That’s stipulated in the fine print
Your divot in the bedsheets needs space
Your Sunday is guaranteed to be as lonesome as you need
Plus I’ll be busy when you’re practicing death
After all 
The trash has to go out and the food keeps needing to be cooked

And the children
The children we made who look like us and cry like us and dream like us
They are hungry every day
Even Sundays

So we’ll have to take turns
But when your heart is sunk
Like a boot filled with concrete someone dropped in a lake
Just for fun
When you need to crash down down all the way to the silty bottom to crack
Just mention this poem and the attendant will give you a pass
I’ll be the attendant
I’ll give you a pass
And when night falls and the time that doesn’t exist but which we call days turns over 
Stand up
Come back to me