Drowning Pool | Poetry

Chronic depression is cyclic

Photo by Jong Marshes on Unsplash

If I sit here,
careful,
cautious,
b-r-e-a-t-h-l-e-s-s,
my hands
twin statuary
atop my lap,
will the chaos around me
fade into nothingness?

I cannot go on,
wondering,
afraid,
unwilling,
letting the taint
others have draped
over my shoulders
hold me down,
away from a life worth living.

Strong words I say,
hiding,
buried,
incapacitated
by darkness unfurling,
whipping tendrils of doubt,
leather thongs biting
into flesh long bled dry
as I kneel before loss, regret, agony.

Fingers stroke my drowning pool,
ripples spread,
waves break,
floodgates open
in an offering of hope,
hands raised upward, forward,
within my reach,
and I realize I am not alone.
The rest of my life is waiting for me.

©cl huth

Originally posted 2 years ago