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Lack of Sleep Depression
Sometimes I swat yellowjackets down,
and chase away the occasional spider.
This represents the sum total
of my "heroism."
My darling wife,
my life companion,
you are all I have left.
And I shudder at using such possessives;
"My," and "mine"
don't really convey the connection I feel with you,
they just tell a story,
and every one has a story to tell these days.
So I wake up with the wrong kind of depression,
the immovable kind that just sticks in my gut,
and I think about the wasps that needlessly die
because the angry little bastards get lost on our couch.
If I had the chance,
I'd ruminate on work,
on the rushing around
in a holiday week,
and how soul crushing it is
plowing through the grind
the grind
the grind,
making younger men rich.
At 41,
I've learned there's no point.
Is there in fact no point?
God seems so very quiet,
absent altogether, even,
for the first time in my life.
And for the first time in my life,
all the encouragement in the world
seems like empty talk.
The grocery stores,
those places where food seems like an unaffordable luxury
are filled with people with no time.
Behind shopping carts they scowl and wrinkle their brows
and push angrily through each other.
This is the season of thankfulness and giving?
This morning I ate some lamb,
my favorite meat;
And I remembered that the flesh of animals,
our food,
is precious,
and I remember what Fu Han said
about the mutton and the cabbage,
and the taste of poverty.
I'd say 'come away with me, my love,'
but I don't know where we're going.
On days like today I feel
like it's the end of the line for me.
Style / type:
Free verse
Review Request (Intensity):
I want the raw truth, feel free to knock me on my back
Review Request (Direction):
What did you think of my title?
How was my language use?
What did you think of the rhythm or pattern or pacing?
How does this theme appeal to you?
How was the beginning/ending of the poem?
Is the internal logic consistent?
Editing stage:
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Comments
swamp-witch
Sun, 2017-03-19 18:16
I know this feeling all too well
Not the married part, of course, but:
And for the first time in my life,
all the encouragement in the world
seems like empty talk
Empty is exactly how it feels, insincere. I know in my heart that people really do care about me and that they are being genuine, but that voice of depression and anxiety in the back of my head wants me to never believe them and wants me to never get out of bed again. I can't even bring myself to kill the bugs most of the time. I can't drive. Talking on the phone is a terrifying obstacle that I'm only just now starting to get over thanks to work. What good am I and what value do all my words have if I can't even get the gall to be a real adult and drive, make my own appointments, and stop depending on others??! I don't know.
To me, it's also no coincidence that this poem came around the holidays that just passed. Christmas 2015 I was a new graduate from my four-year degree. I had a nervous breakdown and had to leave my parents home for about a week. I wasn't home for Christmas for the first time in my life. I had to stay with my aunt who lives about 45 minutes away. She felt so terrible she went out of her way to get me gifts for Christmas that I certainly felt too terrible to deserve. I said some horrible things to my family that season and none of it was their fault. It was the worst I had been since I contemplated suicide in high school around 2009/2010. I've talked about that time before here, and how Neopoet gave me a reason to live when I was ready to give up in the most extreme way. The story may even still be floating around somewhere, maybe FB, as a "what Neopoet means to me" essay. Seasonal depression is all too powerful and real, but sometimes it just keeps going and numbs you and becomes chronic depression instead.
I really appreciate the part of the poem where you've written that "my" and "mine" don't feel quite right for your relationship. That means a lot to me because I think partnership in a relationship is the ideal, so sometimes those words do feel like "ownership" (some people certainly do use them that way, and it scares me because I know too many people who've suffered from abuse from someone who believed they owned them). With that in mind, maybe "they just tell a story" doesn't quite fit? Maybe they just show what we are expected to say, what is typical to say? You know, it's even looked at oddly if you say "this is my partner." A lot of Americans associate that with homosexuality, so even if you feel like that represents who you are and what you value with your partner, it can be difficult to use it, although I've been told that it is more normal on the west coast, where I've never been. In my experience in the south, you don't use it if you don't want to be thought of as gay, especially if your partner isn't there with you when you use the word.
Anyway, let me know what you think. That's such a small thing, if you don't want to return to this poem, that isn't making the poem any less important for you and for others who suffer like me, or those who want to know what it is like to suffer from depression.
Critique, don't comment.
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Esker
Sun, 2017-03-19 18:12
depression now is like the stick shaker on aircraft
fly by wire is a device that alerts pilots to a stall
about what depression is...the lift goes missing
like items in older age..missing poems...
television remote..eyeglasses
static fuzz on the set....sometimes the cable
goes out..cheques in the mail
i get days where its just a rattle the whole day
heard the kid come home from school say
'it was brutal' laughed good then...the re use
of the logic of simplicity brought forth by the
fresh new lives and minds....
now I shake my head...put er in a dive to get
momentum..Yell 'brutal' in place of Banzai
and just clear the treetops before levelling
out.....
living poor with my partner...
or as I know her as..one of my old ladies
mostly the main one
but its gets damned gnarly sometimes
no coin for food
and yes...I used to get pretty upset and
into scraps....looking like yer going to just
grab their shopping buggy and tip it over
helps...'there now u got something to whine
about!' but that is so kindergarten
now poor rich going in there watching em
all scurry like ants with my twenty dollars
of staple items....got a turkey this xmas
and the stove went on fritz..had to throw
it away....considering the major food chains
throw out tons while people starve didnt make
me feel sad at all...i paid for that bird..
and anyway...we need to lose weight...
but the football in the guts sometimes stays
so I ride it out....holding my lift enough to get
me through...
i visit a lot of people...talk to many folks downtown
and do errands for people who have anxiety
or are not healthy enough to hop on a pedal bike
and haul groceries in a packsack like I do
seven klick run..keeps me in shape...and nature
or a chance meeting with other people cheers
me up...or I force myself to go out with the dog
...dog dont get along with other dogs...dominate
female....and shes strong....intelligent...
an expensive breed....Im just not happy with
ordinary....sometimes that works...
lately I am just cleaning up...tidying..organzing
throwing things out...
I spent years wiped out waiting for change to
occur...i found for me..just jumping up over the
trench and running into no mans land was a
thrill to dispell the grind...
excellent poem on this dirge subject
though!
W