Day Twenty-six: Poetic Musings on Depression

Note: I have been inundated with life lately but wanted to post something related to depression to help move this series along. To that end, the following are three poems I have written at various points along this journey. They are meant to convey some of what depression feels like from the inside. They are quite dark, so if you are easily disturbed or triggered, please be cautious about reading. 

****

Into Black

The darkness steals over me again
And I feel quiet in its clutches
Despair washes through my brain
Traveling in waves to every part of me
This numb madness
Nameless sadness
Soul crushing badness
That would tear me into pieces.
You, thing, that dwarfs me
Into something so small that I vanish
Even to my own cognizance.
You bury my being so far beneath your weight,
That breathing seems something impossible,
Light, a foreign language
And felicity, a fanciful whim of imagination.
So sudden and cruel
Without warning, you pull me down
Into your murky depths
And render me more enervated
With each voyage below.
How much more until your blows
Vanquish my will to remain?
I would pray but my prayers are impotent.
Ceiling high and dissipate as fast as they leave my lips.
I cannot sojourn here forever
Without help from the One who put me here,
But He has no desire to remove the darkness
He doesn't care
And my care for Him is dying.
So, so, so long without light
Has made me blind
And the flames that once burned bright
Are all but gone.
Dying embers kept glowing
By obedience and habit.
And I, too weak to feel their heat,
Am slowly dying too. 

****

Anguished

Swathed in my now normal black
I am a shadow of my former self.
The darkness has added strands of silver
To my dark tresses
And a more worn look to my skin.
Gone is the vibrancy of days past
And naught is able to cover the changes I see.
The nightmares of each night
Pull me down again and again.
Flashbacks take me away.
The exhaustion of fifteen months
Makes it so hard to want to go on
Some days I am drowning in this inky black
Some days there is more light
But more often than not
I find that I just want it all to end.
I am destitute of poetry
There are no new words
To describe this ongoing horror.
It is dark, exhausting, and endless.
It is fraught with thoughts of suicide and self injurious behaviour
It teases me, makes me distrust myself and my thoughts
Makes me want to run and hide and isolate
Forget about everything and everyone
That matters to me
And let the darkness devour me.
Swallow me,
Reduce me to nothingness.
I don't think I can survive this.
It is pushing me over the edge.
My help in ages past
Has hidden His face from me.
My hope for years to come
Has left me bereft of all hope
That this will ever end.
I have lived in this wasteland so long
That I am emaciated
And blending into the landscape.
Even when green grass grows beneath my feet
It is quickly choked
By the weeds that spring forth
From the depths of my anguish.
Smoke and ashes cover everything
Arid, stale air depletes needed oxygen
And a bevy of dark alluring beasts prowl,

Waiting to entice me into their open jaws.
Or better still, they stalk me
Into exhaustion so my weakness
Makes me want to prepare myself
To be their supper.

****

Pi (inspired by the novel Life of Pi by Yann Martel)

There is a tiger in my boat
Snarling, vicious, savagely hungry
Waiting for asthenia
To steal strength from these bones.
I cannot sate it
With a hundred dorados.
The sea around me barely keeps it at bay
Rocking and unsettling it
With waves of light
And contented moments.
When wind is calm, quiet, and still
The growling predator stalks me
With cunning he attempts to sway me
Into silence and apathetic submission.
Opening his maw wide
He teases me closer and closer
I am blind to all else but this one thought
A kind of drunken tunnel vision
It is only me,
Moving nearer to my dark demise
And the tiger waiting to devour.
A rogue wave in the distance
Ripples close enough to knock me down
And break the spell again.
All around me the water shimmers
I step away from the edge
Of the tiger's jaws
Weary of this cycle of fighting
And rest for a while in the moonlight.
The sun rises on a new day
Calm, still waters all around
And no rescue in sight.
Perhaps today, the tiger wins his prize. 

****

If you've read this far, here's a bonus and a slightly happier poem to end on because I do actually write happier stuff too, although admittedly, not as often. Anyhow, thanks for reading and enjoy!

I wrote this one evening as I was leaving my weekly appointment with Pendragon and was mesmerized by the sound of the insects outside his office. 

Insect Song

The air around me is warm, but dry
A light breeze lifting
The stray hairs on my neck.
All at once, I am enveloped,
Submerged in a song of summer.
Crickets, cicadas, and other things
Hum, buzz, chirp, and twitter,
Their melodious night time chant,
Beckoning me to pause and listen,
To revel in this unique harmony
Made with wings, legs and bodies.
How fitting it is to emerge into this music,
Coming from the place where
I am allowed to sing all my songs.
It is peaceful and lovely in this moment.
I am loathe to leave it.
But leave, I must,
And journey forth to the familiar music of home.