A Depressive State of Mind
I was depressed but never knew it.
I knew I hated myself and my life but to give myself that label…
No way.
Nobody had ever talked to me about depression before. I knew what it was but I never associated it with what I was going through.
There were thoughts of moving on from this life but somewhere deep inside I knew I had to stick around. Despite all the hard, shitty stuff.
I used to go into my “hole”. That’s what I called it. A place where I sunk deep into myself. So, deep it was nearly impossible to pull myself out of it.
I did, though. Many times. Many, many, many times.
This poem gives you an insight into what that what like for me and how the hope of better days showed itself to me.
Have you ever felt this way? Tell me. What was it like for you? X
Listen. Learn. Love.
My insides feel tight, a squeezing sensation
No relief for me now, the wheels are in motion
I don’t know how long I will feel such agony
No controlling the limit of a state-wide mentality
It always lurks just beneath the surface
A constant reminder of its intended purpose
There is no escape when it decides to pounce
Its decision to stay is never announced
When it takes hold, my life transforms to another dimension
Where everyday the struggle feels beyond prevention
The hours become days, the days fall into weeks
Its all I can do to stay out of the deeps
Yet, the hole lies before me threatening to swallow me up
The depths of its tomb reaching up to the cusp
I wobble on the edge begging not to fall in
I hate it down there exposed to imperfection and sin
The remoteness I see all the way to the bottom
Reminds me of each last episode not yet forgotten
With nothing to hold onto, I plummet and fall
My hands grasping frantically to the sides of the wall
I tumble down quickly into the darkness of myself
Wondering why this is me and not somebody else
If only I could be another someone entirely
I hate this one I am, she lives her life too quietly
As I hit the bottom of my intentional tomb
This mind and this body laden with unhappiness and gloom
How long I remain there will not be revealed
For the truth of my Self is guarded under a shield
It is only my truth that will save me right now
But I can’t escape out, I wouldn’t even know how
How do I get back to the one that I am?
The ones that knows best, the one that sure can
For this me in the tomb who lays there in her grief
Is afraid to get up and fathom the belief
Its the safety of feeling this comfortable despair
That prevents me from rousing a notion aware
So I continue to lie in the hole I created
Built on a foundation of nothing but self-loathing and hatred
As I look all around me, the seclusion approaching
I notice a glimmer, not previously showing
There’s a small ray of light shining down to me now
I raise to my feet, feel its warmth on my brow
A whisper rings true bouncing off my enclosure
I feel naked and bare, self-conscious of my exposure
The whisper holds truth I have tried to ignore
A sense of someone I have been long before
It feels different this time, I don’t want to reject
All the parts of me that I refused to accept
There is something magical within the ray of light
A notion that everything will finally be alright
This book came to be from every part of my life experience. Every heartache. Every hateful thought. Every self-loathing feeling. And, every bit of love that I denied to myself. In reading the words on these pages, my hope is you, too, recognise some parts of yourself and realise there is so much more to who you are than what you believe. Be open to what may come to you whilst you are absorbed in the heartache, the loneliness, the sadness, the misery, the hope, the reflection, the spirit and the love in this collection of poems and short stories.
Buy the Book Here
Use the button below to read and watch more poems about the love/hate/hate relationship I have had with myself and my body over the last few decades of my life.
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