by Elijah Master
The following is a compilation of poems i wrote  that attempt to describe, through imagery,  depression and dissociation, and the grief and frustration that go along with it. Through the years,    I was told several things about depression.   I was exposed to the ideas about it by the people in my community and  i was given “definitions” of it by professionals in the field of psychology and psychiatry as well. I often found that their  explanations didn’t agree with me. I imagined that they were purely logical explanations  of a experience that is not so black and white. I’m beginning to  believe that in order to truly grasp the understanding of  many things  one must temporarily find distance from the (human, thinking, logical) mind and seek answers from a deeper domain of being. I attest that one way  this “domain” can be accessed is via creative forms of expression such as poetry. Perhaps through  the use of metaphors and imagery one  can  come to a deeper understand of such a potentially  elusive and confusing thing as depression. All that being said my intention is to get closer to a holistic truth, not to throw away or disregard any findings of this “condition” to date. If you attempt to “squeeze”  the meaning out of these poems by analyzing them, I can almost  guarantee you that you will disappointed. Instead I invite you to pay attention to  and lean into the physical/emotional sensations each word might inspire inside you. "The word 'depressed' is spoken phonetically as 'deep rest'... We can view depression not as a mental illness, but on a deeper level, as a profound (and very misunderstood) state of deep rest, entered into when we are completely exhausted by the weight of our own identity."                        - Jeff Foster