the library

Depression sets in right away:

Rooms full of books. Anthologies, theses, too many of everything. I can learn anything I can dream of; visit any world I want to. I hate that. How exhausting. What pressure.

Think about all those hours alone, writers writing. It's enough to drive a person to the medicine cabinet.

I can get lost here. Suffocate. No one would know where to look. Greek mythology? Large print? Self help? Sci Fi? The mind bends.

I bob up on the crest of a wave - magical realism, young adult fiction - then go down again. They say a person surfaces three times before going under for good, but I'm not sure I have that long. The shelf of "Best American Poetry" 1998-2007 is lined up in front of me, a firing squad.