Tag Archives: Depression

A Haunting

It’s not my house,
not my place,
yet still I insist.

Here,
beyond threshold,
like a curse uttered under breath,
breaching pursed lips,
that would condemn if pressed,
I dissipate into the darkness,
ears strained – eyes starving.

I hear the nothing,
pull back, stretch taut,
and snap with the sound of a house aging,
then reset – repeat, snap again.
My heart follows the rhythm,
and still plummets a counter melody.

From room to room,
with echoed steps of borrowed time,
I agonize like winter wounds bleeding,
chasing ends that defy coagulation,
surpassing cold with warm history,
but in the end settling
for a conclusion in between.

Every corner hides nothing,
but I feel something –
and comprehend neither.

Petitio Principii

Round and round and round again,
the end looks like the beginning,
the middle resembles the end,
a chance – but a chance to begin.

Drink deep then, and settle in,
all roads roam in culdesacs,
each turn is into the next,
the last,
round and round and round again.

Tireless pursuit resigns in capture,
resent the bonds, the offense of process,
plead with words wrapped in ribbons
and animosity
the yoke broken, betrayal.

Round and round and round again,
to loosen the hand – would send us
endless;
out into the absolute black,
where
I’m
losing/have lost
it.

Building Character

The boy dissolves
wrapped in wire,
natural colors fading –
to set the stage for new ones,
bright reds – sober blues.

His whole right side – slips,
a landslide of flesh,
falling out of place,
roughly hewn.

Broken, broken.

The boy dissolves,
replaced by insults.
Humbling offenses,
that drag the gaze down,
as if from a collar – a chain.

What can be found there
between locked eyes –
is only shame.
Mind, grab a shovel,

bury it, bury it.

Out of Mind, Out of Sight

Could you stash your memories in a secret box,
wrap them in chains and bind them with locks,
if it meant more memories could be made to fit,
in the space you’ve spent your life making for it?

Some thoughts grow and grow and grow
until those thoughts and those memories are all we know,
taking the place of the thoughts we should think now,
unless we can find a way to quiet them somehow.

“Perhaps if we feed them they will just go away,”
I hear a voice inside me meekly say,
but thoughts are like hungry cats pawing at your door,
no matter what you give, they still want more.

A friend told me not to think of them at all,
treat them no better than a fly on the wall,
but thoughts are bigger than flies, louder too,
and if you let them, they’ll hide, jump out and surprise you.

When I asked grown ups what to do, they said,
to find other thoughts or memories to make instead,
but some thoughts don’t like being alone,
and will steal the new ones to make them their own.

In the end I had to find for myself what to do,
because of all those I asked, no one ever really knew.
I held those memories close, whispered softly in their ear,
“I love you, but I need to move on. Don’t worry though, I’ll be near.”

And I gently tucked the thoughts away,
in a big cedar chest labeled, “for another day,”
so I could make new memories, keep the old ones at bay,
but go back to feed them or keep them company should my thoughts stray.

Desolate Dialogue

No window.
Just walls.
A wall of walls, none
of them matching,
even wanting to,
uneasy comfort among chaos –
chaos.

Breath takes, gives nothing.
Nothing is –
is

all that is left.
No window
or escape
for the false absence –
absence.

Deception
precedes the sunset
though
with no window,
who would know?
Know.

Lies as good as truth,
filling the void from wall to wall,
when all is unknown,
unknowable and alone –
alone.

Speak not to the walls,
when comfort is needed
they will sell you only
hollowed out mandates,
empty tidings,
sad husks of empathy,
your own absurd words –
words.

Transcendence

Beautiful you,
    I love you, for

    all your finality, for
    your outrageous irony to the banal, for
    your desperate questions, for
    your sober answers, for
    not caring that we don’t hear them.

Beautiful you,
    the compass of those abandoned
    the comfort for all great burdens
    the compromise to every cost
    the combative reply to injustice
    the end of all roads and the igniter of passions.

Beautiful you,
    oft I yearn for you to ease yourself upon me
    take me in your arms and squeeze,
    like laughs upon a deep breath
    as eager for the contents as their release;
    but I will not plead, not again.

Beautiful you,
    be always out of reach
    the distant sun that has set
    the word bound in paradox
    heard but maligned and unspoken, until
    at last,
    I have earned you.

Demolition

I wasn’t able today,
not for a few days.

They are so short,
while my troubles-
      long tired things,
heavy, hot breaths heaving
overcome the days with ever larger strides,
stretching shadows;
then fall-

like twelve stories condemned,
not pouncing, but plummeting on them,
the rest of the world obscured in billowing detritus.

The days buckle under the weight,
but they do not protest;
accepting the burden like responsibility. 

The troubles, wheezing, subsist through the nights,
just to wake me again.

Neither of us sleep well.

Lawn Care

It grows.
I can’t hear it,
I can’t see it,
but it grows nonetheless,
and thus I must maintain it.

My bitter responsibility,
to give my community something nice to see;
make it clear,
I have things under control.
There is nothing to hide inside this home.

Ceaselessly it grows,
and to keep it healthy;
not just well kept but vibrant,
I must feed it.
Strengthen and hasten its progress.

It grows-
and I must do more.
I must give more,
to keep it level and clean.
Not let it overtake the stake I’ve claimed,

let this plot of land
become gnarled wild tufts,
unruly- lacking discipline.
A space that
reflects aspects of the occupants it protects,

else it will grow
an uneasy sense of threat.
The not quite right
of an unkempt lawn- empty flower bed.
It grows, and so I must mow, and mow, and mow, and mow, and mow.

The Fall

Gone

   

         gone



thin clouds

                the song of sunlight
            muted without the praise of a place to settle,

      kneading itself into the billowing cotton-

   like panic trapped in a parachute

hurtling towards the ground






                           wondering

                     where it all went wrong.