A Poem Called 'Depression'

Depression begins with D to some, but with others, it begins with a story of pain. This is what a depression story looks like in a poem.

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Depression is the howling wind on an insufferable night of rain. It's the caveat for a time ahead that may exist indefinitely, unknown to the naked eye, though known to the breaking heart. Depression is the oozing blood like an endless waterfall that falls from a knee split in half. Depression doesn't come and go, only in waves if you're lucky, and only at times; mostly it lingers like a buzzing bee on a summer's day in a field of daisies. Depression never ends, and when you're in it, there's no end in sight, just the ongoing pain of something that feels so heavy it'll be as though you've never lifted anything, not like this, not this type of weight. This particular heaviness doesn't just crush but pierces with pressure right out the other side of your heart until everything is pulped to mush. The constant feeling that you're not enough will hurt you in a way nobody has ever hurt you before, because it's your own mind that's hurting you, beating you... betraying you. Ahhh, betraying... Betrayal is the action you become far too accustomed to. Depression’s betrayal is not just one of your own desperate heart but a betrayal of those around you as you become an unrecognisable figure to the one everybody used to love and know. You'll wonder if you're loved as you stare into the mirror, barely recognising yourself. You’ll say, ‘How can anyone love this person, the one so completely different from the one they knew long, long ago?' Depression eats at you but causes you to starve; your soul is transformed from one that was abundant to one that is desolate. It's the double-edged sword; a sword that can never be fought at battle because its tricks and schemes will always outweigh the opponent. Depression seeps into my life like honey oozing between two slabs of wood. It's sticky and a touch off-golden, reminding me of its impurity, false demeanour and messiness. I wish to be those slabs of wood, having it just touch me, but I am not those slabs of wood; I am inside the honey, entirely covered by its surface area, entirely immersed, and incapable of escape. Depression is the cuts on your wrist that never go away, even when the rain seems to have passed. They'll be there staring back at you, reminding you how dark it can get, and how dark you can be. Depression won't just go away; it marks your skin to remind you that it's stayed, staying. Depression is the sadness so blue that you'll never want to leave your sheets. You'll go to bed at 5 pm even if you're wide awake because beneath the warm blankets in your cold mind is the safest place you know, the one without the constant feeling that you're living alone in the world. Depression is the indecisiveness of a life you feel doesn't belong to you, one in which you opt for fear, and cower into what feels safe, even if you know deep down it is not safety you chase, but rather a life that doesn't challenge you. The rain of depression is the type of an obliterating storm; puncturing your heart with its sharpened twigs, bashing your scalp with the falling hail, and ruining your supple skin with the lacerations of swirling debris. This rain will never stop, only it may halt, for short moments, but the rest will encapsulate you, fail you, and drown you in nature's tears. Depression is not a vicious cycle; it is just a story that gets interrupted along the way.

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Depression falls upon you and lands like a perfect butterfly, at first fooling you with a sense of belonging or familiarity, but soon, becoming the most imperfect aspect of your life, infiltrating your feelings with ones of unworthiness, undeservingness, and unbelonginess. May anybody reading this understand that they are not alone, being diagnosed themselves, or being the loved one of someone diagnosed. My hand is in yours.

Kisses

COS x