Depression is the gatekeeper
It holds the master key
To the deepest, darkest parts
Of the human psyche
Life, or death
Which, shall I chase
The cool arms of death
A consoling embrace.
More reasons to die
Than reasons to live
Staying alive for someone else
The hardest thing you ever did
They couldn’t picture the struggle
Couldn’t feel the pain
The night falls fast
Freedom calling your name
You exist inside the darkness
Lonely, empty and cold
But remind yourself, so faintly
You can pull the plug tomorrow.
Though not written by myself, I feel that this piece of poetry applies to many of us on SP. It is considered one of the darkest poems of the English language; written by William Cowper, after his suicide attempt, in 1774 – following the poem Sapphics (“Lines written during a period of insanity”).
Encompass’d with a thousand dangers,
Weary, faint, trembling with a thousand terrors….
I … in a fleshy tomb, am
Buried above ground.
— William Cowper
Though the sands of time pass
The wounds remain fresh
Ones that cannot be healed
By even sins, of the flesh.
A journey through emotions
Long, dark and cold
Enough to make even the youngest
Feel old
From depression, through mania
And everywhere between
The pain, everlasting
The struggle, unseen.
They say that life is a journey
I stand and contest
From the womb
To the breast
To the end of one’s quest
Life is merely a leg
For death holds the rest.
Escape from its grasp
An impossible task
For the afflicted is trapped
Within a one piece clasp
The issue before thee
One cannot see
The moon from the night
The shore from the sea.
The cock of the hammer
The slam of the slide
Signaling the death
Of one’s self pride
One pull from freedom
One final thought
Shall my soul fly
Or, shall it not.