Into the Eye of Depression
Free Verse — but not recommended for those who are depressed.
(Trigger warning)
Depression is hanging around
Hello, old dark nemesis
I hate you so much
You’re here again already
Messing with my thoughts
Making me think
Or maybe even realize
It is all loss from here
Nothing but loss
One thing after another
All the winning has been done
And now it’s just loss and losing
My winning days are over
I can’t do what I loved to do best
Which I did well enough to show off
Doing the stuff I did better than most
Ah, I was good at some things
I had a few gifts
And many blessings
But always I had this
This black, black, hideous thing
It sucks at me until all joy is lost
Forgotten
Now losing
Losing my quick mind
My ability to find just the right word
Losing my strong fit body
Being left with a saggy and strange one
Losing my grandchildren because
They’re almost all grown up
And their happiest place
Isn’t at my house anymore
They were so adorable
And outgrown me
Without me knowing or noticing
It was never their place
To make me happy
Though I drew happiness from them
Life is the same but never again the same
My daddy is gone some years now
My mother has gone crazy
And it’s making me crazy, too
I think she will outlive me
It makes me sad
I will never be free
Of responsibility for others
I worry about my husband
He is sick but they cannot diagnose
What it is that is wrong
But he’s failing before my eyes
And we’re still yet too young for that
But then again
I guess we’re not
My kids are alright
I raised them to be something
But there are no doctors or lawyers
Their lives are sometimes bitter and hard
Could I have made it come out differently
I did it all wrong, wrong, wrong
I’m wrong
I’m a caricature who once thought
I was someone important
I am nothing and no one
Why do I write
When I’m not particularly talented
What has happened to my stamina
A trip upstairs leaves me out of breath
Why do any of us do anything
We just struggle and die
And ten years later
Only a few will remember us
What happened to the kid I was
When I thought I’d be a great success
At something or other
A famous and wealthy person
I dreamed, I planned, I used the damn secret
But little or nothing much came true
Which isn’t completely true
Except when I’m here in the darkness
Of the illness that would like to end me
I’m incapable of rational thought just now
I’ve fallen in the damned black hole of it
Barely existing and trying to summon strength
To climb out again
I’ll take my medicine and I’ll be better
My mind in some place knows it
But in the eye it’s just a dream
Wishing I could get dressed
Get out of bed
Join the living
But in the clutches of this
I cannot
It is not that I won’t
Not today
Today
I can’t.
