Weltschmerz by Emily Jo Scalzo

The depression left my apartment

a collection of trash and books

I pretended wasn’t there,

hid dirty cat litter under the bathroom sink,

wore blinders, not noticing the paper

I stepped on even when it stuck to my feet.

Hoarding is defined by the TV shows

as a compulsive need to acquire things;

it combined with lethargy and apathy.

The used bookstore was my downfall—

the thrill of finding a good book,

regardless of whether I got around to reading it.

Taking the garbage out later

translated to someday;

my bathroom needed a hazmat team;

my cat’s favorite toys were everything;

empty food containers collected flies;

junk mail engulfed a table.

Over a year after it started,

I found myself on the fourth floor

of an open air building looking down

at the concrete patio wondering about jumping,

trying to decide if the fall would be fatal,

and then the blinders came off.

Now I have the opposite problem,

perusing my rooms with a critical eye;

will I ever read that book again?

or is it a brick in a wall

I fear I might build

around myself again?

Emily Jo Scalzo holds an MFA in fiction from California State University-Fresno and is an assistant teaching professor at Ball State University in Muncie, Indiana. Her work has appeared in various magazines including Midwestern Gothic, Mobius: The Journal of Social Change, Blue Collar Review, New Verse News, and others. Her first chapbook, The Politics of Division, was published in 2017 and awarded honorable mention in the Eric Hoffer Book Awards in 2018.