The Chair Poem about Losing a Spouse The sun woke, stretched, streamed upon an early, April mourning. Birds arrived at the feeder chirping. I watched, sipping my steaming coffee. For a minuscule moment distracted until I noticed the chair out of the corner of my eye still indented with your body's footprint. And I thought of you. Justin Farley
The Sailor – A Poem
You’ve sent me off as an aimless navigator
Traveling upon treacherous and torrential seas.
Once was a proud and confident sailor,
But now find there’s no compass I can read.
Needles spin with the wind and poles have no meaning
When they are altered by my heart’s magnetic field.
And upon this ship it’s no easy sailing
With a split and swollen keel.
These waves that come rolling in
Only reaffirm and remind me of what rolled out with the tide.
Everyday the heat beats down on scorched, sunburnt skin
And drifting upon the open sea there’s nowhere to hide.
I do not accept my demise
And have not given up casting out my nets.
But I can’t help hungering for my past prize
When salty, quenchless water is all I seem to catch.
At least if I was shipwrecked
There’d be land where I could lay my head to rest,
But as it is I have trekked
Across endless waves and seen nothing but deep, blue nothingness.
You sent me off as an aimless navigator,
Charting waters without a course.
There are no maps for the heart-broken sailor
When the only land I know how to seek is yours.
-Poem Written by Justin Farley
photo credit: nice sea waves 2 via photopin (license)
As we go through life, there are inevitable seasons where it seems the skies are always cloudy, always raining, and the forecast will never change. Anyone that has ever dealt with depression (or any mental illness for that matter) knows that it is like a ghost that haunts you no matter where you go or how hard you try to hide from it. Fight all you want, but you can never defeat the forces of darkness with strength alone. In these times of darkness and pain, how do we keep moving forward? How do we resist the temptation to give up and let the pain of life suck everything from our soul?
Typically, telling yourself to “cheer up”, “suck it up”, “pick yourself up”, or having someone else tell you to stop feeling sorry for yourself only makes matters worse, and I believe does a disservice to our heart. Deep depression is not an easy thing to fix, and the reality is that sometimes there are circumstances in our lives where the only appropriate response is to mourn and cry. And sometimes we need that time to just embrace the issue and recognize that it is ok to feel pain. But how do we not drown in that pain?
I believe the only way we can move forward is by grasping hope and refusing to let go. It might not get better today, it might not be tomorrow, but as long as there is hope that things will get better, the ghosts of depression are unable to penetrate our locked doors and totally possess us.
The Clouds of Mourning – A Poem About Depression and Pain
The clouds of mourning
Hang and hover over me
Like ghosts – translucent,
Yet allowing only darkness to pass through.
Their pale gray sheets flap and flutter
In the breezes of life,
Dimming and drowning out
All traces of light.
Their wails send nails
Falling from the sky,
Raining down and driving like hammers;
Pounding their melancholic clamors into my heart.
My palette is stained,
Soaked in ashen gray paint.
Non-washable, permanent and persistent;
Resistant to the colors I attempt to cover with my brush.
The clouds of mourning
Flood my skies like ghastly Dementors,
Following me through the hours
And sucking at my soul one minute at a time.
Sweet angels,
Have you lost the fight to the terrors?
Have your hallowed halos burnt out like smoking embers
And lost their luster and glow?
Where are you hiding
In this dark and stormy night?
Where are your shields and swords,
Why are you overwhelmed by the demons of darkness,
Why do you refuse to fight?
What weapons do I pick up
To fend off forces invisible and invincible?
Is there an amulet I can hang over my heart to keep out
The ghouls that pass uninhibited through locked doors?
The icy rain covers my window pane
In sheets of tears running down in streams of solitude.
Winter’s wrath bars my path
And leaves me shivering in the cold wondering what to do.
The clouds of mourning
Hang and hover over me
Like ghosts – translucent,
But hope shall be my exorcism.
-Poem Written by Justin Farley
Like an empty bottle of whiskey,
I’ve drank you down to the last drop.
The alcoholic in me is still thirsty,
But my rationale tells me to stop.
A madman feening, I sit alone with my demons,
Pacing, wrestling with racing thoughts.
Counting the minutes waiting out these hellish withdrawals,
But the hands sit idle on the clock.
There is no joy for an addict
Walking away from his self-prescribed relief.
Yet knowing that somehow he must get clean,
But doesn’t know how to bear the grief.
I’ve sworn off the drink,
But the fire of your aftertaste still burns on my lips,
Memories on my mind, wanting to rewind
And get just one more fix.
I may be sober,
But the hangover remains.
Without my elixir to soothe me,
I’m left only to bear the pain.
This bottle remains empty –
A void of space that can’t be replaced.
I know that another drink could be my downfall,
So why do I long for another taste?
