This poem was inspired from Andrew Solomon’s The Noonday Demon: An Atlas of Depression. (Buy from B&N or Amazon) He talks about his struggles with depression, and since I was coming out of my own depressive episode, I thought this would be appropriate reading. & it absolutely was! The book is a behemoth, but excellent reading about the illness. I got the book as a gift for my birthday, and I’m still not done reading it almost a year later.
The Vine
I have been hiding my pain
for far too long.
My body, a tree;
this mental illness, the vine
that suffocates it,
suffocates me.
The vine is the tree
& the tree is the vine.
Sometimes I wonder
if this sadness will sweep me up and suicide me.
Sometimes I wonder
if I will see or feel the sun.
If I can feel happy and alive again.
I just want to know
my vulnerability will not
eviscerate me if I show it to you.
I just want to know that when I show you this pain
you will not run away.
Writing and Other Things 