Statues in the dark

Where do depressed people go

When the entire world suddenly feels as they do?

Back to their room, where one voice says – take them up on their offer

make a phone call

but the other voice knows they will not because

when you feel that down the last thing you can do is talk.

Where do depressed people go

when the entire world suddenly feels as they do?

Outside to empty streets / not reminded of what they fail to achieve

the silence, a balm on fevered emotion

for everyone judges what they cannot see

as others watch Pandemic movies behind closed curtains

the sad roam in search of meaning.

Where do depressed people go

when the entire world suddenly feels as they do?

they’re told it’s a disease as much as a broken arm yet

judgement is always a cudgel just one step away

even lovers rebuke and ask; Why can’t you get out of your head?

Do something helpful for a change, instead of navel gazing?

or worse, say nothing, ignore, over it, worn out

few can handle a season with dysmorphia.

Where do depressed people go

when the entire world suddenly feels they do?

For a quarantined period, it can even feel like fun

nothing of the permanency, nothing of that locked in sensation

pervading senses, shutting down, until all the dreams you had

are dust and ash on floor, you can’t even get out of bed, to brush your hair

or walk the dog, this inertia isn’t laziness, it’s a switching off

of life’s impulse and so the bulb dims eternal.

Where do depressed people go

When the entire world suddenly feels as they do?

This is how it feels every day, you struggle to find a reason, to steady yourself

into faking it, and surely, the falsehood runs its course and you’re back

with naught and nothing comes from nothing we’ve been all taught

self loathing reflects back in the unwashed mirror, a hateful creature

your worst enemy is between your ears, you hear only

the rebuke and chastising of that part of you wishing to be free

break out, break out, crawl, stagger, run get away

from yourself you cannot.

Where do depressed people go

When the entire world suddenly feels as they do?

trapped in a brain that doesn’t sit up and beg when ordered

motivation a distant memory, as much as you want there are

no magic pills or electric impulses powerful enough

to restart what has lain dormant and half alive

we are quarantined by our own demons they

made prisoners of us long before Covid 19

even those who love us, wish we were different

self hate is a woman without rocks in her pocket

yet

she walks to the edge many times each day

her reflection cries even as she no longer does

for tears are wasted after a certain time

fixed in place by broken ways forward

she seeks to drown the madness with one jump

and they sit on their sofas talking about how it will be called

the great epidemic, where we all stayed in place

not realizing for some of us this is

our hell already created and nothing new

we have been here before, we shall again

it is the wordless, grieving place of those

locked down by their minds in situ

watching the world build around them

statues in the dark

to a pandemic long pre-existing

where screams are never heard.

The fight beneath

if the act is on, full wattage

everyone sees a together girl, straight backed by taut strings

oh the puppet master pulls

them tightly in compensation for internal sag

they see a girl who has checked all the boxes;

education, polish, spit and shine, big smile, combed hair, thighs together

they see what they want to see

just as we read the truth and speak a lie

who wants to know the inside? The fight beneath?

Maybe at 18. When we still have patience, and time, and youth and romance

thinking it lovely to talk of emotions and breakage and pain

the beauty of those things when safe from death

edging closer, every year, less tolerance

until even your therapist has a break-down and can’t listen anymore

Covid 19 keep your distance? Aren’t we already alienated and disregarded?

She wants someone to listen, she wants someone, she wants to stop

this hole within her from growing out of control and taking her over

she wants to speak her truth to someone who gives a damn

it’s almost like wishing to have perky tits again and a hymen

it’s almost like hoping at the dinner table for love instead of silence.

She used to fake it really well, used to know all the ways of getting clean and squeaky

People are kind to children and pretty youth

Unkind to those who are mentally ill and grow old in their despair

old before your time, before you stopped wanting to be wooed and still wanting to wear

tight clothes and push up bras, just because you can.

Now she understands why middle aged women read romance novels

or hate and never do

the combat of wanting to be desired and knowing it’s not going to

ever again, they only like those little girls in tiny clothes

whose bodies are barely formed

are you bitter? Are you scorned? The world belongs to men

because they stop loving at a certain age and women

hate each other especially the peachy ones, who remind them of

what they’ll never get back.

The fight beneath, the bitchy office manager who used to tut beneath her breath

every time she walked past in her best blue heals

she had a good heart then and it hurt to be treated so

now she knows the meaning of

the loss in their eyes

but she still wants to be desired

is she going to turn into one of those sad ole gals who keeps wearing too tight jeans

hanging out at less and less popular places in hope?

Or will her heart shrivel and dry like a match burning its sulfur

hardly holds its original form

just the dark wood left, stained by flame

never to be struck

again.

She would like to think someone would

love her at any time, for more than whether she has loosening skin or

sagging bits, she has heard this is something men point out unkindly in bed

she’d probably sock them if they did, and bite something off

who the fuck has the right?

It fills her with a fresh hell to imagine

how they think they’re entitled

but her young self will remind her; it’s we who let this happen

dear wolf

we lay ourselves down when they tell us we’re not worthy

and we either let ourselves vanish

or we stop believing we can be

desired for more than the price of our skin

imagine us hanging like pieces of meat

dear wolf

waiting for the flies to obviate our claim

to be equal or good enough

whilst they, rotund, graying, flacid

rule the world or pretend to

we give life, we carry the future

are we going to let this be or

become wild, something untamed and furious

with the thirst of a girl wanting to give her entire heart

and throw it into the furnace

watch it burn with all that you want

this love, this need, this impossible desire

even as your body dries and says; I am done

you’re never done, you bring life, you bring longing

within you is a timeless heart.

She wants you to know

she may seem withered to you or not

as once she was, but she needs as much as ever

that desire, so much so she may climb out of

of her falling skin and become

a butterfly in reverse, going underground

where in darkness nobody can tell

then it’s all about the beat of life

that eternal drum

and anyone can play

as long as they join

beating their need against stretched leather

in the ancient way before we invented

exclusion and condemnation

when those wisest and most sought

were not children

but their bright eyed elders

still with the pulse

of hunger inside them.

 

She is the only one

Dear World

these days you seem to have structured yourself around

those who hate anyone who is not heterosexual

and all the rest; the pansexual, extensions, reinvention

new words for the same brand of suffering

when I was younger there was only Bi and it was a dirty word among lesbians

(though behind our scowl we may have fancied the more Bi of the group)

it was, you see, just self-preservation

hard enough to compete with one gender, let alone two

can’t stand up and fist fight a man for you

though if it were a war of words … mmmm

I devoted myself to the shedding of labels

they don’t describe a beating heart

but when prejudice comes knocking, you realize how

there is safety in numbers

I joined my lesbian sisters

though they did not welcome me

I did not act the Femme

I did not look the Butch

I liked men too much, wasn’t adequate bra burning feminist enough

though i’d go to the ends of the earth to defend us

for there is a special hell reserved for women who do not defend women

or those who feel it’s a meat market and they’ve got the biggest cleaver

Type A Personality who leave the quieter woman to the side

learning their dismissive strategies from the history of men

oh how cruel we can be to each other in pursuit of

a tiny fraction of nothing important

…

the person I take to bed doesn’t possess a penis and that’s just how it is

love between women isn’t about sex it’s something

in the grey matter that turns to starlight

when it became known I was gay

the bisexuals came to town

in a little red wagon

by then I’d decided I couldn’t condemn them

for more the merrier isn’t a crime

though I was not of their ilk

I was born in a violet hour and

given second sight to see a woman’s heart

it was unnatural to me to imagine loving a man

such things are part of who we are

as a tree is a tree and a river a river

still they call and ask

would you like to play with me?

when my husband is at work

and I wonder, do some hard-luck girls say yes?

do they ask the lesbians, figuring her vulnerable to

their beauty?

it is true, I don’t see much I like, in our small lesbian community

too many masks, unhealthy stereotypes in place of reality

most of the time I am condemned for not being lesbian ‘enough’

ultimately, labels are ridiculous

we’re all just trying to meet the one (or the two, or the four, or …)

when I met her, I saw instantly

she was my mauve butterfly

waiting for me to land beside her all along

I would not share

I would not replace

she is the only one