I am experimenting here with a very simple idea–include overt stage directions in my poetry. In the poem below I ask you to *inhale* first, read the poem, then *exhale*. I am trying to capture the physical constraints I feel when I am living in my mildly dark depression. For me, being depressed feels like I forget to breathe. Of course, breathing is how I oftentimes wend my way out of the dark maze, hand on the sides, always turning left.
So follow the stage directions: inhale, read the poem silently, and then exhale. You are one small, embodied breath toward giving voice to your own astonishments.
*inhale*
Observing depression:
blackraspberry darkchocolate ice cream melting & I don’t care.
Anthems to be sung?
don’t care,
fresh book smell?
don’t care,
rocks to be turned over?
don’t care,
closure to be had?
don’t care.
rights to be uprighted, wrongs to be unwronged, wild ginger & blood root & ginseng & goldenseal & trillium & phlox to be seen & touchd?
I don’t care.
Can’t even b botherd 2 b irritatd,outragd or even
2 finish this..thing.
what I c when I b this..thing.
*exhale*
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I get that fucking head going to explode thang.
Been there too recently.
Too vulnerable.
Fortunately.
Doesn’t always feel like
Am alive.
To know…
You.
Take care.
Speak soon.
I hope.
S
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Resonance. Sympathetic vibrations. Empathos. Gratefu.
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Dark
Damp
Dull
Interminable
A page turns
Light – a glimmer
I reach
I cling on by my fingernails
Finally, I find the sun
Been in shite place for a long time. I think it might be over.
Here’s hoping something helps you to find some solace.
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I hope your shite and my shite can make good compost. My solace will be embodied in the heat that whisps up from the stinking pile. I will flip it a couple of times, then it will be over. Actually…turned over, carbon being sequestered in bacterial and rhizomal splendor. Out of my hands and into the dirt.
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Breathing in.
Breathing out.
Hoping the light finds its way to the corners of the house that is your heart.
Kevin
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I held my breath
my eyes skimmed the words
blurring logic
care returns
when it’s needed
by another
don’t cares recede
crushed daisies
trounced under foot.