
Fats here.
Featured on today’s blog is a poet who is new to me. I found her anthology, Depression & Other Magic Tricks, online while browsing poetry books on Amazon. Depression & Other Magic Tricks is a debut collection by Sabrina Benaim, a 26-year-old poet from Toronto, Canada. In addition to the excerpt of a poem I chose to share today, I’ve also included the last of a six-part interview with Benaim conducted by Button Poetry.
Depression & Other Magic Tricks
Written by Sabrina Benaim
Published by Button Poetry (2017)
ISBN-13: 978-1943735204
Buy Depression & Other Magic Tricks by Sabrina Benaim on Amazon | BookDepository
Poetry Friday round-up is happening over at Carol’s Corner!

explaining depression to my mother
a conversation
my happy is a high fever that will break.
my happy is as hollow as a pin-pricked egg.
mom says i am so good at making something out of nothing
and then flat out asks me if i am afraid of dying.
no,
i am afraid of living.
mom, i am lonely.
i think i learnt it when dad left;
how to turn anger into lonely,
that lonely into busy.
when i tell you i’ve been super busy lately,
i mean i’ve been falling asleep watching SportsCenter on the couch
to avoid confronting the empty side of my bed.
my depression always drags me back to my bed
until my bones are the forgotten fossils of a skeleton sunken city.
my mouth, a boneyard of teeth broken from biting
down on themselves.
the hollow auditorium of my chest swoons with echoes
of a heartbeat, but i am a careless tourist here,
i will never truly know everywhere i have been.
mom still doesn’t understand.
mom,
can’t you see?
neither do i.
– Sabrina Benaim, Depression & Other Magic Tricks
#WomenReadWomen2019 (Canada)
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