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.
hijacked amygdala 