Wordsforghosts paints depression as a body-horror nightmare. The speaker describes an emptiness that swells and shrinks, a "present absence" that is there even though nothing is. Thoughts turn toxic and sink into stagnant water where no light survives. Days fold away, and the speaker feels like a zombie, still alive but twitching on the floor of a locked room.
The images get more violent as the poem goes on. The speaker imagines tearing tapeworms out from under the skin until the arms are "wet ribbons of red." It reads less like a literal scene and more like a picture of self-loathing and desperate, painful attempts to get free. Torn between hating daylight and fearing night, the speaker has nowhere safe to rest.
The ending is quieter and more weary. Waking alone, the speaker expects the same cycle: new meds, new promises. Memories return and "break your fall," a small comfort, though they appear only as pale, glowing ghosts. The mood is bleak, claustrophobic and exhausted, with a faint, haunted tenderness at the close.