Depression is Insatiable

 Depression is Insatiable

 

(“[The Lord] is patient toward you, not wanting anyone to perish but all to change their hearts and lives.” 2 Peter 3:9b)

 

Depression is an insatiable beast.
Remove a single joy among thousands and I am
weeping on the couch,
praying on the toilet,
gnashing at my sleep,
and looking for just one more piece to
make my puzzle complete.

 

I have done it nearly all my life.

 

Where is the person who lets me get away with the worst?
Where is the room where I can simply boil over?
I should bottle my emotions and send them into the sea
for someone anonymous to find. I should send it unsigned.

 

But then who will speak back to my spit and tears?
Who will find my rebel heart and not give up after 1000 nights?
Who will enter with their own, bruised and guilty as mine?

 

In one day I can wipe away the joy of hours,
a single text can send a whole friendship creeping away.
They were my words, always mine.
They were my expectations; palaces, dreams, unicorns
and rainbows--a child’s watercolor illustration of belief
that should have brought every star near and complete
In every night sky.
In one major flaw the crack breaks open the useless stone
where I hide. And I never find the whole to fill the hollow.

 

I would have acted if I could, rearranged time like a sideways alphabet.
I would have stilled waters, but my own swelled on the calmest days.
I would have spoken better, but my days sometimes spin like haunted pinwheels.
I would have loved like I should. I have no answer, no defense, no lies
to help you or me or ancestors or silence understand.

 

They tell me God is patient, that he will not let me be destroyed,
but I have wrecked my own heart where it lies like a skeleton of driftwood
abandoned on the shore.

 

They tell me God is patient, that he wants me whole and redesigned,
but I’ve reformed more often than snowfall one winter to the next. I’ve
reformed, and still, more than less, my heart feels cold.