Depression Is Poem by Joseph Solomon

depression is a strange friend can

sometimes feel like your only companion

it's the dog you try to put in the

backyard and company comes over

depression is LeBron James hairline it

leaves and it comes back and it leaves

and somehow comes back depression is a

police officer's gun

it doesn't always need a good reason to

trigger sometimes it just triggers even

in your own home depression is a Beyonce

album we don't know when it's gonna come

but we anticipate all the pandemonium it

streams depression is Beyonce concert

all the voices around you can be

deafening it is being around all your

favorite people doing all your favorite

things and still finding life to be

despairing it is great paint on rainbows

depression is waking up stuck in your

bed that feels a lot more like casket

hoping to find God in the ceilings

depression is the creepy man cat calling

at her in the alley it shouldn't be

normal but it is pasta do not be

offended if I go see a professional it

doesn't mean I don't think you can do

your job it just means I think she can

do her job too like we think

professional help is cool for diabetes

and pills for high blood pressure but

mental illness can only be treated with

exorcism depression is repeating to

yourself I want to live I want to live I

want to live and hoping you'll believe

yourself on the twelfth time on Thursday

I drag me and all my voices into my

therapists office

I told her I don't think I'm suicidal I

just don't want to live anymore

breathing can become so redundant after

a while my 21st birthday fell on a

Sunday i sat on the voices of a choir

floating over me like stars I was a vast

emptiness surprised I was still living I

always knew I would die young I heard of

suicides in the news and I wanted to be

sad for them but I was jealous maybe

they wanted it more than I did the day

Kate Spade hung herself for a moment I

thought she was a hero a damsel and

depressed that came to her own rescue

people thought she gave up on life but

on Thursday on Thursday I thought she

was a renegade a rogue soldier that

finally protested all the ghosts

screaming at her at night I saw a

magician the way she made the black

disappear transformed her thoughts into

doves I saw a designer the way she made

her mind all pretty and calm again

interior decorated the room with her

swinging body as the centerpiece maybe

in that moment she never felt more in

control of her life in her life

depression is to be space to be so grand

but still so empty and dark to be Island

surrounded all of ocean and still thirst

to be privileged affording the luxury to

think about your depression to be

distant to feel like God's afterthought

to feel broken and Pierce suspended

above a hill along depression sounds a

lot like Jesus

no sounds negligent to speak of him this

way so always sounded blasphemous to

those who wanted him to be so God but

not so human depression is being

betrayed by friends questioned by family

mocked and beaten by enemies it is

showing up last to Lazarus deathbed

seeing his sister's mourn is being so

aware of how grim life really is that

you sweat blood it is being in your

father's counseling office in Gethsemane

'he's God and only to be left naked and

forsaken on wooden sticks the true vine

crushed and destined out to dry on the

cross and ferment in a grade you think

you didn't know what it was like to be

depressed to be stricken with grief a

man quite fond of sorrows learned his

obedience through suffering became a

curse like depression on a cross for us

sometimes telling us just to be happy is

a mocking dismissal but I save your

friend he listens he weeps he says I

know

I know what it is like to be sorrowed

unto death and still fight for joy we do

not have a redeemer unable to sympathize

with our temptations but one who was

tempted in every way yet without falling

yet without losing grip of you you are

not alone in the spaces of your darkness

when your bed feels a lot more like

casket there is still hope to resurrect

to new mercies at morning for all the

confused God is certain for all the

unstable and mind Christ is steadfast

and one day one day we will laugh about

sorrow and death like it was an old

inside joke among friends because

depression may have my mind sometimes

but it is too weak to carry my soul

despondency will never know eternity

death will never know my spirit

depression is now y'all it is now

forever