Depression

- The Seasons Of Grief: Chapter IV - Poem XII -

Beneath the hollow moon, I float in a void,

I whisper to myself, flailing truths to comfort my darkened eyes

This was once a winter wonderland where my childlike self enjoyed,

It’s all over, my sanity’s unraveled like my verses from past lives

I self-medicated for years, but nothing can cure what’s been cursed,

A language I’ve spoken, now diminished by silence, heavy with its squalor

The cold white snow is a grave for my tired frame, it’s right where they parked the hearse,

I shut my eyes and reminisce on brighter pages of parchments’ pallor

I sobbed for days, even until I lost my already croaking voice,

My unwritten letters melted into frozen slush rain

I screamed to the clouded sky that I never had a choice,

I’d wake up at six am on cold mornings just to wane

The elegies I wrote for the funeral, I let rot and fade,

An ode I half-formed for my future death, I tucked away into a hidden place

My hopeful longings now corroded where they lay,

I don’t know when it’ll happen again, or if it was just a teenage phase

I hung the Christmas lights with faint joy,

I made a makeshift village where all was peaceful and bright

Playing pretend, I made sugar cookies and donated small toys,

I held onto a lamppost to comfort those lost in the darkened night 

I attended an evening service and held a candle up in the air as a sign of my losses,

Silent Night was playing, and it was quiet

The moonlight shone through stained-glass windows with crosses,

I felt like an intruder, a criminal that wasn’t welcome, I dared to try it

I’m supposed to be ready to let go,

But how can I cross a bridge where ashes line the way?

I can’t pass this threshold, it’s where my unfinished stories grow,

How do I revise this pure life, where ink has turned to gray?

I close this chapter with the end of winter and the stage of depression