Fuck You, Depression

I.

I have stood where the wind

touches no one.

I have let her hollow cry

brush my ears.

And when she made me cry

from sheer bitterness

I went on pretending,

forced a plastered smile.

II.

I dress in black

and walk in snow,

rise tall like a shadow

or a ghost.

People say “Fuck

you, depression.”

I say nothing at all

and fall.

So tired and so awake

I recall whistling

to a dog in a sunny

park.

Was that my childhood

or just the one I wanted?

I lay with piles around

me—heaps and stacks I

never put away.

There’s just no room for it all.

I’m craving sunshine

big sky, curvy land,

vast ocean.

But I have snow, a grey sky,

city lights bounce off the

snow-covered streets.

Nothing much to anchor me

or help me feel.

III.

At home? Happy? Fulfilled? Who

ever really feels like that? I’m

hungry now, I always have

been. And this sucks, the

way I write now is always

looking for the good line, always

editing it down, even before I

write it to get the poem. I

can’t write the poem: it has

to write me. Oh I’ve forgotten

my tools. These are my tools.

Why am I filling my head with

fluff? Wasting my time with empty

entertainment? When I should be

carting my tools around

crafting stories and life from

the details I see.

I have always loved words.

Words are delicious.

Fucking depression. I will ninja

kick you back to hell.

Fuck you, depression. I will take a

Samurai sword and chop

your head off. Maybe even

borrow my dad’s machete. 

©2013 Samantha Kolber