Rolling Doubles

If you know anything about the game Monopoly

You know two things.

Everyone that isn’t you is a fucking cheater.

And

If you roll doubles you get to go again.

Other rules you can argue.

Should landing on Free Parking net you money?

If someone doesn’t make

What you consider to be a fair trade

Should you be allowed to write them out of your will?

Things like that.

Me personally,

I always pick the hat.

Because it’s classy.

But my opposition,

My depression.

Doesn’t really care what token represents him.

Because he’s always confident he’ll win in the end.

And there are days my depression

Is the luckiest piece on the board.

Rolls doubles like the die were double barrel loaded.

Keeps suggesting that happiness

Is to die loaded.

Gets out of jail like I built the bars too far apart.

Bars like self worth.

Bars like meaning.

Bars like hope in a future resembling anything but nothing at all.

There are months I wait for my depression to skip a turn.

Do not pass Go End It.

Do not collect 200 bodies

In this country

Every two days.

That the game isn’t a game anymore.

That it’s my Life.

His life.

Her life.

Their lives.

And I’m tired of playing Operation

When I feel like there are pieces of me missing.

You Risk everything,

Believing depression,

Or anxiety,

Or PTSD

Would Candy Land you on the finish line of your day

Without sending you back a few steps.

I’m tired of feeling like I’m getting checkmated

Just trying to pay my fucking taxes.

Or respond to a friend’s text.

Trying to not Jenga tower apart

Every time someone prods if I’m “ok.”

There are days

I can sympathize with the mouse

Felling caught in the trap of my mental health

Not being a “socially acceptable” conversation.

Like I’m colonel mustard

With a lead pipe

In the study.

Staring at my own existing.

Thinking the clues all fit

And I’m the one to blame.

And in this game

It’s just me

And my depression.

And he knows all the shortcuts.

Keeps knocking me off the board.

Keeps me from ever leaving home.

No Sorry,

Just an empty deck feeling.

Like maybe,

The game would be more fun without me.

Would be better without me.

My depression rolls doubles daily.

Makes me believe

It has a monopoly on my being here.

Alive.

Keeps telling me

It’s just me and him.

And one day he’ll win

Or we’ll just play again.

And I’ve found myself lately,

Trying to remember if I read the instructions correctly.

If the rules ever mentioned that sometimes

You have to remember why you play any game in the first place.

For the joy of doing something,

Anything.

For the feeling of possibility.

Like how today

Isn’t yesterday.

Won’t be tomorrow.

It is the starter money gift we’re given

Used to build a house,

A hotel,

Or a graveyard.

Something the game monopoly taught me.

That to build anything

You usually have to make some sort of proposition.

With yourself.

With those you play the game with.

That I’m in this for the long haul.

That this life,

Is gonna take all night.

That my next move,

My next breath,

That is me winning.