Patient Health Questionnaire

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1. Little interest or pleasure in doing things?
Have you ever been caught in a sudden rainstorm where you’ve had to run from doorway to doorway to get home and you walk in the house with your shoulders soaked, feeling something close to joy? Am I supposed to answer these questions with a yes or no? There’s just never enough rain.

2. Feeling down, depressed, or hopeless?
I am more or less sad all the time.

3. Trouble falling or staying asleep, or sleeping too much?
Sometimes when I can’t sleep I think about what I’ve lost on airplanes. Once I left a book at the airport before we boarded but I don’t know if that counts. I still think about the main character, how her life was about to unravel, like when you pull on a loose thread and now there’s a hole in your sweater. Did you know a placebo can work even if the patient knows it’s a placebo? If I think about that too much, I have trouble getting out of bed in the morning.

4. Feeling tired or having little energy?
Remember standardized tests, when the proctor would say, Time’s up, please put down your pencil. I spend whole days waiting for somebody to take the pencil from my hand.

5. Poor appetite or overeating?
I drink coffee in the morning, a glass of wine in the evening. In between, I sometimes stand at the open refrigerator door and drink milk straight from the carton.

6. Feeling bad about yourself — or that you are a failure or have let yourself or your family down?
I remember being small and crouching at the top of the stairs listening to the grown-ups’ laughter long after I was supposed to be asleep. Sometimes I still forget to come downstairs.

7. Trouble concentrating on things, such as reading the newspaper or watching television?
Do you know the difference between a pebble and a rock? A pebble is just a smaller version of a rock. Nobody would say, A pebble rolled down the mountainside and crushed my house. If I throw a rock at your window, the window might break. If I throw a pebble at your window, you might look outside and see me under the grainy streetlight. Maybe you would invite me in, offer me a cup of tea, ask if I wanted to sit next to you on the couch and watch a television show.

8. Moving or speaking so slowly that other people could have noticed? Or so fidgety or restless that you have been moving a lot more than usual?
Last week at my book group while everybody was ping-ponging clever comments, I closed my eyes and counted to ten, but I don’t think anybody noticed.

9. Thoughts that you would be better off dead, or thoughts of hurting yourself in some way?
Are you still listening? Shouldn’t you be jotting down some notes? How will you remember what I’ve said? Have you ever taken a CPR class? We had one at work today. The EMT started by saying, Once you’re dead, you can’t be more dead. He meant to encourage: even if we forget to lock our elbows or tilt the head back or apply compressions at the proper rate, the worst has already happened. Mostly I think the opposite is true.

Michelle Matz’s poems have appeared in numerous publications, including The Berkeley Poetry Review, So To Speak, Natural Bridge, Cider Press Review, New Delta Review, and Atticus Review. She won the Mary Merritt Henry Prize for a group of poems, was a semifinalist in The Ledge Press Manuscript Contest, and was awarded an Individual Artist Grant through the San Francisco Arts Commission. Her chapbook Atilt was published by Finishing Line Press, and her collection Acoustic Shadow by Main Street Rag. This poem first appeared in Mud Season Review.