Depression teaches the student to slow down in life. The student attempts to rebel in order to excel but realizes swiftly that this is quick sand. Like the flu without the nausea, like the blues out of tune, like the Monday that never becomes Tuesday, like a run on without a period for relief.
This teacher of mine is very stern and demands constant attention to nothing. Changing the mind is like trying to remodel an old house without tools. Simply rearranging the same furniture that needs to be refurbished but just never got around to it.
As a student, it is the first day of school, again. I was here yesterday but nothing seems to change but the rate of thought waves. Nothing seems to change but the waves of moods that crash on the side of school buildings. A concern to learn if this brick and stone will survive this storm. Will this place last into the season of breezes and trees that seize the day? Will this ground ever play again to the sound of laughter and bells? The sliding board is very bored and slides into the quickening sand. Sad to see, such memories of the decline only to re-climb the ladder to slide again. Definitely understand that’s not a word but it’s what we did just before we slid. Now the slide slides into the grand sand as a lesson from depression.
Objects to teach each that it grips. Lessons to show each that it incarcerates. It’s the first day of learning again. I was here yesterday. The playground is different now. Looks empty and full of memories of what used to be. Memories that slide away gently into the sand. That’s the homework. That’s the assignment. To re-climb a ladder that no longer exists. To re-claim a mood that is hidden away.
Tomorrow is the first day of school. I was there yesterday and today. Recess is canceled due to rain and flooding. Tomorrow I just might play, anyway, in the sand. Just for a moment. It will be quick. It’s against the policy to play. It’s a lesson that I learned yesterday. Today won’t end anyway. Today I will just write in the sand.
Out of Sound Mind 