Taylor Mali has an awesome poem,
I’m sure you’ve heard it,
“Depression, too, is a kind of fire”
The trick from getting there,
From those cartoon blobs and shades of gray,
Those sad sacks shilling Zoloft and Wellbutrin,
Is a long chain of good-days.
Those days when you’re out with friends,
Having one too many,
one too many times, again,
When you pick up smoking,
Not for flavor, but for the burn,
Where you let people drive you drunk,
Without asking where you’re going.
These are nights filled with women flirting with you,
Friends who offer ecstasy and acid,
Drug dealers you invite to poetry readings,
And drug dealers who clean their gun in front of you,
While talking about the time they shot up alley cats in their yard.
These are the good days.
The ones you struggle to recreate with every drink, every high.
The most insidious part of depression,
Is how little you care,
Even on the good days.
One moment you feel less than empty,
Is a good day.
“Depression, too, is a kind of fire”
as Mr. Mali puts it,
But it’s one that can survive without oxygen,
Without fuel,
Underwater,
Beneath the haze of Setraline,
The trick to getting there,
From understanding depression as a thing that happens to other people,
Is a long chain of good-days,
Days when you don’t feel sad at all.
