Here’s a poem from my chapbook, Plant a Garden Around Your Life. The book attempts to show those who have not suffered from depression what it actually feels like, and to give hope to those who suffer from it.

Tension

Limbo, my old dictionary says,
Is a place
On the edge of hell.
It is also the tension
Between knowing what you should do
And not having the strength
To do it.

Limbo is the tension between
Hating yourself or nurturing yourself
Limbo is where you are stuck
Between calling yourself names,
Such as lazy or loser,
(If you have the energy
To call yourself anything at all)
And calling yourself courageous
For not having given up.
A long time ago.

How can a place so static
Be full of so much tension?
I have been trapped in the middle
For as long as I can remember.
My responsibilities pull from one side
And my exhaustion from the other.
How can I stretch so far and yet not break?

I do not break yet
Because I am in limbo,
That place on the edge of hell
In another dimension
Called depression.