Having Depression is like finding out that mermaids are real
It doesn’t make sense to you until you’re getting dragged to the bottom of the ocean
And then you think
Oh
That’s what this is
And I’m drowning now,
That’s just……… great
And eventually, with your last vestiges of breath left
You float back to the surface
And you’re fine.
And that’s it.
Mermaids stop existing again.
Because you never actually saw what grabbed you
You only felt the claws around your leg
The cold, clammy hands tugging
With a force that you could never fight against
But you never saw her
So it was all a dream
Right?
And it happens again and again
You are drowning again and again
Until the water begins to feel like home
And the only thing reminding you that you are alive
Is the burning in your lungs
And when everything you had balanced so very carefully starts falling
Off the shelves of your life
When your “mild” depression starts deciding it wants to be more
When being alone makes you feel dead inside
And when losing your cool for one ******* second makes you contemplate your own demise
When do you admit to yourself that you are slipping
You are sinking and just because you can slow your descent
Does not mean that you’re not still drowning
And at the end of the day just because it took you longer to get there this time
Doesn’t mean you aren’t still lying on the ocean floor
Devoid of light and sound
And if you had just climbed onto that now distant boat and sailed away
You’d be fine.
But climbing was too hard
And sinking is so much easier
And you’re scared that if you reach out
Your hands will feel clammy and cold
As they wrap around your friends throats
And drag them down with you
And you would rather rot at the bottom of an endless sea
Than let that happen
So you lie in darkness and wait
For a sound
The singular resounding sound
Of failure
And you slowly float back to the surface
Take a deep breath
And you’re fine.
Because mermaids aren’t real
It’s all in your head

I broke up with God
at our favorite eatery
in our favorite booth.

We settled into familiar creases
and asked for the usual.

My eyes lazily staring at fingers
stirring the straw around the ice cubes,
God cautiously spoke up:

“Is something wrong?”

“Nothing.” (Thinking about the dormant phone
concealing behind the lock screen
the open Facebook tab
lingering over the relationship status section.)

They silently mused over the laconic reply,
til the waitress showed up with the food.

“Thank you!” God blurted with agonizing alacrity.

I received the sustenance lifelessly
and aimlessly poked at the burgers and fries.

The waitress eyed me with vague inquisition,
popping a bubble in the gum between
big teeth, refilled my water
and pirouetted hastily.

We ate in ostensible harmony,
the silence gripping like a chokehold,
the visible anxiety and subdued resolve
settling like a stifling blanket
over the child waking
from a nightmare—

Til we couldn’t breathe,
and I ripped back the covers
and looked into the eyes
of my tormentor.

“It’s not you, it’s me.”

God, taken aback by the curt statement,
dropped their burger with shaking hands,
silently begging with wetting eyes
a greater explanation.

So I elaborated:

“It’s not you, it’s me.

For your immaculate conception
was created by human hands,

your adages rendered obsolete
by human words,

your purpose and plan for us
distorted by human nature—

I cannot hate myself any longer.

I cannot pretend to know you at all.

Who my mother and father say you are
is not who my friends think you are,
nor my teachers, my pastor,
the president, Stephen Hawking,
Muhammed, the KKK, Buddha,
the Westboro Baptist Church,
Walt Whitman, Derek Zanetti,
******,
and Billy Graham.

I am told you care who I bring into bed (and when),
and what movies I watch,
and what music I listen to—

I have not heard what you say about
child soldiers, the use of mosquitos,
or the increased destruction of the earth
which you proudly proclaimed your creation,
or the poverty and disease and famine
which has ridden so many of your children—”

God interjected,
“But you’re chosen!”

I snorted,

“You say I’m chosen
to spend eternity with you—
why me?

Why’d you pick me among
thousands, millions, billions?

I’ve been told I’m ‘chosen’
since birth
by others like me—

those with fair complexion,
blue eyes,
blonde hair,
a firm overt ****** attraction towards women,
and a great big house
with immaculate white fences
delineating their Jericho.

I’ve already fabricated eternity
here among the other ‘chosen’
and there is a world of suffering
right outside the fence
and I see them
through the window of my bedroom
every day.

Am I chosen,
if I don’t vote Republican

Am I chosen
if I am Pro-Choice

Am I chosen
if I cohabitate with my girlfriend

Am I chosen
if I never have kids

Am I chosen
if I say ‘Happy Holidays’

Am I chosen
if I don’t want public prayer in schools

Am I chosen
if I don’t want a Christian nation

Am I chosen
if I don’t repost you on my wall
or retweet your adages?

I’m tired
being the ubermensch,
for it has not brought me
happiness
and I blame you.

I will not ignore
the cries of the suffering
believing it is I
who is destined to live
in bliss.

I will not buy
Joel Osteen’s autobiography(ies).

I will not tithe
you my money
for a megachurch
when another homeless shelter
closes down.

I will not tell a woman
what to do with her body,
or a man
that he is a man
if they say they are not.

I am neither Jew nor Gentile,
and I will stand with
my brothers and sisters
of Faith and Faithlessness,

Gay and Straight,
Black and White,

and apart from these extremes
free from absolutes
the ambiguous, amorphous
nature of Humankind
which I praise.

There is much pain and suffering
in this world,
potentially preventable,
but hardly can I believe
it’s part of your plan
to save
me.

I will not be saved
if we are not
all saved—

not one will burn
for my divinity.

The gates will be open to all—
and perhaps you believe that too,
but I’ve gotten you all wrong
and that cannot change,
as long as there is
mortality, and
corruption, and
power, and
lust, and
greed.”

God whined, growing bellicose,

“It is through me that you will find eternity,
I am the one true god!
I am the God of your fallen ancestors,
it is because you have fallen short
that you need me!”

I replied, growing in confidence,

“We have all fallen short,
yes,
but we are also magnificent.

We have evolved,
we have created,
we have adapted,
we have survived.

We have built empires,
and we have destroyed them.

We have cured diseases,
and we have created them.

We have done much in your name.
We’ve done good,
and we’ve done evil—

And unfortunately it’s all about
who you ask.

Your name is a burden on the oppressed
and a weapon of the oppressor.

You are abusive, God.

You tell me you are jealous.

You tell me apart from you I will suffer for an eternity.

I’m scared to die, yet want to die,
because of you.

You have made life a waiting room
that is now my purgatory. It is

Hell On Earth.

So you see,
it’s not you,
it’s me—
a mere mortal
who has tried to put a face
to eternity
and it has left me
empty.

And also,
it’s me,
for I have learned to love me,
as I have expelled your self-loathing imbibition,
and the deleterious zeal
I have proclaimed
through ceaseless
trepidation
and self-flagellation—

I have learned to love me
by realizing I am not inherently evil,
that my body is not evil,
that my mind is not evil,
and, ultimately, that
there is no good
and there is no evil.

My body is beautiful,
my mind is beautiful,
this world is beautiful,
and we are destroying it
waiting for you to claim
us.

I leave you
in hopes to see you
again one day,

and perhaps you will look
different than I have
perceived or imagined,

and in fact
I certainly hope so.”

Just then the waitress strolled back up
with a servile smile:
“Dessert?”

“No, thank you,”
I smiled politely.

And with that,
I paid the check,
and took a to-go box—

walked out into the evening rain
to my car,
put on a secular song
that meant something real to me
and drove off
into the night—

feeling for the first time
free
and alive.

Eudora, Eudora…
The soft Words you speak…
The gentle rhythm of your tongue,
Put my mind and heart into sleep.

Eudora, Eudora…
Your words speak with flare…
Ravelling off your talented tongue,
Into the Mid-Air.

Each Stanza Poetic…
Ascending from your *******…
Slipping between your bright teeth,
Upon the breath like a musical note.

They billow from depth…
Unto the shallow – and then a retreat…
Out of a heart that is deeper still,
Then the deepest of seas.

Your words have been read…
By many – including me…
Entitled… Gifted,
On… Hello Poetry.


Though I absolutely know not Eudora… except the reading of her poem… It still inspired me to write a response to a humorous self-indulged thought… that yes, I am talented. And that she not implying… I took anyways… (While chuckling) the position to appoint myself as the narrative inspiration of her poem. P.S. (But only in my own mind.)

Please Note: Her Poem is absolutely Beautiful and Beautifully written... called... "Gifted"

Touch the roughness of my natures bark,
Through the needle ****** of my out-stretched (branched) legacy,
How I once spired toward the heavens,
But now am filled with rot and moldy decay,


All ways had my arms stretched out,
Green with envy,
Of having you not by my side,
But seen in the company of theirs,


Yet now my ****** have softened,
As I have altered from a rugged envious green,
To a mellow yellowed,
And the last of me is drying up inside,


I still stand alone,
My rise upward has all but continued onward,
My branched out legacy as you now see,
Is now wasting away,


I am a near naked skeleton,
Soon to become no more,
Oh, how at my life’s end shall I do what I refused to do in my pride,
For life shall surely break my back… and I left to lean on others,


Their arms shall hold me up with all their strength,
But their help is now futile,
For the weight of my life’s gluttony,
Will break their resolve and push me down ward,


That is now the legacy of my life’s route,
But before I collapse,
With a rage of hot red… I shall become,
My needles will one last time harden,


As I frantically poke my anger into all who dare reach into me,
The rugged skin of my stature may have partly flaked off,
But I want not that my soul core be reached,
By any who wish to reach in and dissect it,


My strength or weakness need not their assistance,
Nor their explanation of matters concerning it,
I was once a great tree in an endless forest of trees,
But it was you alone… that had made me special.

(c) Joseph D R-H Palmateer

.


I write the words - across in lines,
Describing... how I feel, what I hear and what I see,
All that to... my heart does bind,
Of the sights, the colours - then sounds... and especially of thee.

The words - I scribe... in my hand...
They are... sometimes many and sometimes few,
But there is not enough - perfect words - to be written...
That can ever - truly scribe - the uniqueness of you.

When I write - I have no doubt... the ink will surely fade,
For the words - I have wrote… are sure to never stay,
Yet as I said - of all the words... that I could ever write,
The most beautiful ones - of them all… are left blank in white.

For the best words - that I share... which you my love can’t see,
Are all the words - that are found... in the space between,
Though that space - between each word... is so white and small,
It is in that space - my dear love… the words speak most of all.


----------------------------------------------------------­-------------------------------------


I regret That I still think about you Libby Marinilli, your too beautiful and captivating to forget.

.


Oh how it is… that when I dream,
You’re captured there within,
For it is the same… of every dream,
Your looming shadow has always been.

The echo of the sweetest voice,
Rises up each time… in the dreams I knew,
Uttered out from an angelic voice… a song,
A song that comes from you.

I search each night within those dreams,
To find and capture you… and not to let you go,
Yet you slip through my fingers like lucent mist,
To be seen… but not to hold.

How dear Libby… you haunt my dreams,
And my heart you also stole,
That it would not in the slightest… be shocking to me,
If you also harboured my very soul.

How it is that you own me…. Libby my love,
That reality I wish weren’t even true,
For it is in my dreams that I am free to hold on to thee,
And have a dance with you.

And when I see you now my love,
Though as beautiful as you seem,
Reality pulls me back into life,
With only the memories of a dream.

Yet I know deep… deep down,
And right from the very start,
That reality is not so bad,
Because in reality… I own your heart.