I begin the day thinking
—after Freda Epum
the day could do without
me. The ice outside glitters around
my car’s tires like a pageant
dress. Only digital utterances between
myself and the world for at least
a week. The last time he visited, my friend
noted the lack of natural light
in my downstairs apartment,
the posthumous-grey bleeding into
the mood. Aught of light
in the bedroom due to the blackout
curtains. But sometimes,
the day heckles, with its high-
bitch sun and melting snow. Some
days, I lay in the morgue
of darkness, hyper-alone,
and the sunlight, so audacious, paints
the color back onto my cheeks.
Copyright © 2025 by Taylor Byas. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on August 1, 2025, by the Academy of American Poets.
“This poem is one of many attempts to write about depression and the small things that can sometimes pull us out of its depths. My apartment doesn’t get much sun, and around the time I wrote this poem, there had been weeks when I didn’t venture outside and lived in mostly darkness. And then, some mornings, the sun would get through a slit in my blackout curtains and I would remember what it was like to be outside. And everything was okay, if only for the moment.”
—Taylor Byas
Taylor Byas
Taylor Byas is a Black woman poet and the author of I Done Clicked My Heels Three Times (Soft Skull Press, 2023).