I tossed away the soap but stood on the box to look in the mirror. Too many spots on the glass face but the image was not there. In some sort of serene gaze all I could do was stare at empty air. The mirror began to drip with liquid glass that reflected yesterday’s movement. This is what it is to feel depressed. Not always the sinister drought of levity but a profound emotional emptiness with the emphasis on nothingness. If this mirror could talk, it would walk away to a place of grace where smiles grow naturally like yellow lilies on a moving blue canvas. If this mirror could walk it would speak of powder blue roses with yellow stems and a sign made of thorns that says “do not pick.” The amount of money to purchase honey shows that many have ignored the sign to adorn their pots for moments of decaying life. Life that drips away like water down a mirror after a hot shower on a cold night. The mirror was so accurately accustomed to conversing with the wall that my image was completely ignored, as per chance I wanted to explore the reference window of reflection. Maybe I am not in the mirror after all. Maybe I am standing before the wall as is the custom. This is what depression feels like today. The wall paper appears to have been worn by the very light reflecting from the mirror. How peculiar. So busy staring at the wall in the mirror that I missed me. So in like mind the mirror only shows the walls eroding errors and not the beautiful being it once was, or perhaps is. So depression is the reflection of a mirror looking for the light that has long gone. Still I see the wall because of the light in the mirror. I see the mirror. I needed the soap to wash the spots. I will use the soap box instead. One day I hope to see me.
Small walk ahead. Small talk avoided. Shift in schedule takes a shift in consciousness to progress. But I digress to the topic of focus. Focus takes an inordinate amount of energy. To refocus takes some hocus pocus and not fewer than a few days to reclaim the train. Therapy session today is why I am always drained. Drained due to trying to maintain focus on topics that disappear without effort. Like cooking to maintain good health. Like those investment ideas to generate wealth. Like that shower seems so far away so not today. Here in lies the conflict. If the brain wants to stick to a topic, not even I can remove it. Not without effort that was for the next several days. So then I sit in the state of deficit for thoughts to return from break. Thinking drains like wine from rusty lanes. Trains of topics without tickets ride by. I scarcely have time to wave bye. When the thoughts of how to energize actively drain. When the thinking itself is the strain. This is where I find it difficult to maintain. This is where I am today. So I walk away from the rusty mind. Hoping for a sip of the sublime at some time up the road.
No need to medicate as all things seem great! Shhh! I know, just one night. Tonight my soul takes flight in the bliss of a manic kiss. From room to ruminate to the ability to reminisce. This is what the typical day will play for the norm who do not live under storm clouds. Where crowds gather to scatter the thoughts of playful delights. Coherent words like heart rhythms take wings and wade out of sight. Wow! I wish to keep this like air with a fist. Like yesterday after the wounded wrist. Wow! Sorrow makes way in just far enough to say “this is how everyone feels everyday.” For me tonight. Where did you put sleep? I asked with sincere opportunity. Sorrow was gone before an answer and without a final greeting. Wow! My sweet sorrow, why do you tease me and leave me. I wish I knew how to miss you but I bow my head and bid you adieu. At least for one night. The night where I find peace in a state of mind. I hardly recognized the calm winds of the moons dance. I can gaze at the suns shadow without the inner trance. One more glance of this cold night sky before I lie down in serene habit. Wow! Such beautiful quietness. Dogs are so joyful to bark deep in the night with sounds of protection. The courageous car shines headlights as it crawls on all four legs to the stop sign for a soft sigh. Wow! How wonderful the smell fall leaves that fell from a breeze a week ago. Look at all of this! Is this what I miss? Is this where I live? No, but yeah! I live here but only for a night. The night that depression took a day off. Wow! I just might fully engage and even write. With no idea what to say, I decline the pen and pad and decided just to feel glad. No writing for me tonight! Just another Wow and call it a night of unique delight. I must go for now. History just texted experience and offered me a group chat. Strong recommendations to open the Sunday square and swallow the contents. Somehow I know they are right. I know I have been here. Still, something else just feels right. Sunday pills, I ask and say please, just one more night.
Change is a must when not to change is the enemy of better days. Yesterday stares at the future wondering what could be. What should be. Trust that the process out of this mess is, as far as I can guess, truly necessary. It’s scary how many are growing stagnant. Older but not wiser but any means. The seasons seem to predict that constant effects are needed to promote new causes. Just because I feel safe in misery does not mean the risk outweighs the means. The committee speaks in community forums about scores of individuals on disability doing nothing. Nothing! Truly the process to help process this mess is better than this. Seriously! No, I am just being facetious but with a word full of tongue in cheek. Let’s speak as those who are in the know. We know that yesterday is not gone. We know tomorrow is already here. We know that if anyone is reluctant to change that it is all the same. I can predict the future. It looks just like yesterday without any change.
Met with psychologist recently and everything went decently as far as I can find. Went over treatment plan to ban together on how to deal with the masking tape issues that my facial features seem to stick with. To deal with leaving the agora without any phobia of returning home drained from the strain of acting very typical. To uncover the buried headline from recent times, my friend is doing fine. At least so far. Quite the leap from treatment plans to suicide prevention but this is how the world spins. This is how the nation winds around from experiencing exhausting shopping days to counseling former friends on the dangers of depression while alone and unstable. Now he is able to go to work again. Now he attempts to be normal most likely with the same hope that historic dark days were just a passing fad. He is glad to be alive for now. So am I. Follow up is so underrated. He and I even debated on the entire system of mental health that was created to assist the imbalance. Much more to explore but the discussion of personal performance perfection is tough to ignore. It is not a perfect system by any means. Yet, why allow such imperfections be the reason for rejection. I have received wrong orders from fast food establishments and still go out to eat. I have received bad advice from friends and still call those few almost weekly. I am on my 6th or 7th psychiatrist but I still keep going. They are who they are. If imperfections were the reason for rejection why do anything? Yet, the depressed mind has reasons that are very personal. Reasons from the place of pain and not quite fully functional. At least for my friend. Today however, he is better. Today he is at work. Today I sit at home and write. This is my job. This is my imperfection written with light and letters. My assignment is to work on masking. My treatment plan is to uncover. This is the first layer. I almost went to get something to eat today. Once my family came home I decided to just stay in my room and avoid them. The hour is later than I realize. I will eat snacks tonight and try again tomorrow when everyone is at work. Small talk is so trying. So useless. So dangerous. I will wait for the moment. I may stay in this corner all night as all day. With a mask that burns to peel away. I feel hungry. Where did this day go?
I have four legs. They are round and made of the finest rubber. I am very grounded and I sound like a parking lot full of horses and chariots. My charioteer very clearly needs all of my latest tech to circumspect the terrain. Once, on a night full of painful rain drops from the sky, most of which were forged with ice and wind, my charioteer would pretend to be loosely associated with reality. I have this habit of being on the right side of the road. This night in question, my lights were dimmed against my better judgement, and we went left of center, up a hill, on a dark country lane, in the painful rain drops of ice. Very nice of him to swerve back into comfort zones as I kept a firm grip on the loose ice which was attempting to convert the black top into its own form. I was born to ride in obedience. However, my engine is clever, and I sent multiple warnings to the Mania in charge of this trip. They must have immediately slipped by as we approached another incline in the road. This time my dims were substituted for the same shade as the night combined with the black ice which was secretly planning our demise. No surprise that we accelerated to keep pace with the manic thoughts that were raining out of control like the inclement weather. Left of center, up the hill, in the darkest night. If anyone else is out here, this will be our last drive. The fear that rings in my speakers is a word called “totaled”. This totally describes the mind state of the manic rain and the pain associated. Yet, the end of the road is near. Just a few minor bruises as we cruise for safer shores. Fortunately the winter night high ways were as empty as the bottles on the dashboard. I follow the rules of the road. I am well grounded with four legs that are round and made of the finest rubber. I ride right on the roadways day and night. My charioteer on occasion will manically make me ride against my smart computer like brain. It’s just a matter of time before the sum total is more than the total sum. I only wish there was a way to lock the door way when in such a state. No breathalyzers for manic minds. No tests for manic drives. Let me reverse, as not to veer off topic. Things seem ok inside for a spell. The horses are running tonight. The weather is changing again. These winds are ultra rapid cycling. I am roaring. I am running. It’s getting cold again. The weather looks like rain. The doors are locked as not to let anyone else in. This is a private run. The voice commands are coming faster than normal. I recognize the voice. It’s my job to keep things right.
There is a place where the dream seems so real, it’s surreal to think that this dream means mania. Not now, but before. Before there was a door to a lake. On the surface, the water faced my direction. In the water, the waves wrote an invisible invitation to walk over and jump in. They promised support. I am sport enough, though, it is tough to think back to the fact that water can not carry the stones that were tossed. But the bobber of the fisherman remains afloat, as does my boat. With a stroke of the pen I signed my name in the air without ink. I guess that means that I didn’t think about the sinking when walking on water was the dream linking the mania, while drinking depression away on the waves. The run on sentence simply foreshadows the reality. Water that holds me in a boat can’t hold me. The drinking was not strong drink, but the loss of thoughts that were already falling to the very place I would be instantly, as the step of security left me looking up to support. The boat floats. The water lied. Weighted down I guess by the manic jacket, the panic attacked me at the bottom of the lake. This quick decent was unique as the boat seemed to lift away from me. The water seemed to speak again stealing my attention from that which was my previous support. This time asking me to breathe like the fish that I see in the sea. For the life of me, I signed my name again, this time with wet ink and no pen. Common knowledge kicks in. The very water needed for life and support let me down in an instant, and offered a watery grave, of which I could write my own name in the sand. How grand to pen my own end. I can’t control the boat as it floats away. I can’t control what the water will say. I can’t control how I feel today. I can control the pen. I can write my name again. This is manic making me pray for relief. This is panic after support gives way for me. In the boat again. Not sure how. Willing to float again. Not sure why. The door has closed on the lake. I wonder by who. Mania for the fisherman. Mania is a dream come true. Please wake me up. I sign my name.
Heard a novel thought about how we think. The wave of the future is now waving goodbye to traditions. A sigh of relief for breath therapy. I was also enlightened on infrared light treatment. Of course there are so many courses online to choose from. I almost hired a lawyer to decipher all of these laws of physics and quantum mechanics.
Then it finally clicked. Superb thanks to all who study superposition. It seems like it will take super powers initially but the science lines up and technology testifies to its veracity. I will soon know either way. Hope to keep up with the updates along this journey. Until then, I will be riding the waves of possibility, collapsing the past into dead seas of forgotten waters. Forgetting everything that is behind, while wading into choices which create new history. A mystery only until observed. Let’s see.
Light fades every evening. Scholars say the sun sets in the west and yet, everyone knows that it doesn’t. Why do we accept this curious lie as if…as if it’s ok to say what we always say even though it’s untrue.
Yes, I am fine today thanks for asking! I am light fading over mountains and disappearing over streams. I reel in my rays at days end. I feel in ways that plays against logical sequence. I stand still but turn on axis I. Or maybe II. From manic day breaks to personality nightmares.
Yes, I am fine today. Thanks for asking. Just as I sit and wait for the flaming gas fire to set against all understanding. As if…as if I knew the soul of the sun. It runs upon itself until itself is no more. I guess the sun will set after all. Then I will answer differently. No! nothing is ok. Thanks for asking. I just was unaware as I was entranced by the sun that rose as red rays against common sense and I was completely unaware of myself.
So we wait, I and the sun, as we face the final setting. The day that breaks never again. The night that will never end. I am fully aware that I will never see the sun face to face. But I know that I don’t know how I feel today. I know that the sun never rises or sets but I just don’t have any feelings about it. That’s the truth that the lie can’t accept. That’s the logic that is illogical. We must just accept delusion as if… as if I was the sun running on myself until…until I set. Yes, I am fine, thanks for asking.
From organizing everything from closet space to little cars that race, I made haste to even things out. Symmetry is the key phrase that unlocked the door to why if I got hit on one side I would turn the other cheek. Not as a humble man, but to be hit again or feel pain of breaking the evenness. Not a fun thing when the older brother realizes the secret of symmetry and constantly uses it against me. A hit and run. A hit just for fun to see if I would hit myself to even out the pain. I did. I was a kid.
Two score years later I still sense the symmetrical tug. In order to keep things together but equally apart. It started with a look in the reflection which showed dissatisfaction at the lack of symmetry so obvious to me, and pointed out constantly. Even thinking occupies so much space, often it’s hard to focus on the things at hand. Like my hands have different lines to the point I was going to cut one to even the sight. When will “Even” retire for the evening? I read a solution is to tap one side and suffer through the uneasiness of unevenness. I am starting a petition to have their license revoked.
Out of Sound Mind 