A poem of approximately 365 words that encapsulates how my depression and anxiety rule me even when I’m in a peak rather than a trough.
Penultimate day in month of my birth,
since turned sixty-three seems I’ve found a berth.
A niche, a cubby, a space that feels right,
feeling optimistic as I now write.
My mindset, my essence, gives me stink eye,
depression and worry at core of I.
My mama schooled me keep at steady keel,
lest peaks and valleys my potency steals.
Knew of what she spoke, dear mother of mine,
as her childhood was most trying time.
My mama’s mother was given name Ruth,
famine and hardship fam’ly faced forsooth.
Ruth’s brain chemistry left her in despair,
so to asylum Grandma Ruth sent there.
A century back, nineteen-twenty-four?
Fear psychiatry offered little cure.
Electricity they zapped through Ruth’s brain.
These convulsive shocks did not make her sane,
but as convalesced sanitarium?
My grandfather Phil made hard decision.
Phil placed my mama and Mom’s big brother,
in an orphanage as Ruth recovered.
Phil had little choice, as they were quite poor,
and with children safe Phil could go labor.
This shocking story, pun intentional,
is tale based on facts, not tale fictional.
My mother preschool had only her bro
to offer comfort lived ill libretto.
Grandma Ruth discharged as doctors declared,
“Electro convulsion Ruth’s brain has repaired.”
Great declarations with most meager thread
any advancement sickness in Ruth’s head.
Hippocrates’ line bout first do no harm?
Human Guinea Pigs? No need for alarm.
In name “Greater Good” we’ve lobotomies,
Syphilis Study, down in Tuskegee.
Taken great detour, circuitous route,
a Great Circle trek near whole globe did flout.
I now shall return to the present day
and optimism penultimate sway.
It’s not been two weeks since turned sixty-three,
April’s most pleasant of months, least for me.
Flowers and sunshine, such Earthly delights!
Hope springs eternal lovely April nights.
Calm water sailing, with all my needs met.
It ain’t paradise but is Heaven sent.
Sinewaves of my brain, the peeks and the troughs?
Currently surfing; at this I don’t scoff.
But I have been taught, and I have been schooled,
to know yin and yang can never be fooled.
Dark days are coming, no doubt that is true,
can’t I rejoice in my current mellow?
Penultimate day in month of my birth,
since turned sixty-three seems I’ve found a berth.
A niche, a cubby, a space that feels right?
Live in here and now? For this I must fight.
keithakenel 