This particular combination of delight in the universe and the speaker’s desire for death will remind many of Sexton. Yet Certa has made the subject of depression, and the way it may present death as a constant choice, into wholly her own investigation of the way “[her] bones are laced too tight.” The failing relationship at the center of the manuscript is interesting, yet the relationship of the speaker to her own body and the concept of remaining within it takes on precedence. She repeatedly asserts “this is me” while, without acknowledgement, therapists offer their opinions: “They keep telling me I’m too high-functioning/ for a full-blown diagnosis.” This is the contradiction that takes on the most pain—one for which there is no explanation or release, in which the state of humanity may simply be to pain from awareness of mortality.