Depression is an Audience

“Good evening,
Welcome to the show!
Bring up the curtains,
Turn off the lights!
It’s time now.
Time to see him
Rise again and in rising,
Fall!”
 
I went to that show a thousand times.
I can see it all in my memory.
The darkened stage and mad mimes
Consulting with his enemy,
What a tragedy!
 
Slurping straws and jarring jaws
Rifled through the air.
And scrambling, conning claws
Just left him standing there.
They did not seem to care!
 
Each line, each damnable line
He cried was dying in his heart.
Some got up to leave in time,
Finding it joyous to depart.
It was only the bloody start!
 
He continued his weeping
Out of the notes of speech
That through thin air was sadly seeping
And though he tried his best to teach,
No one there would hear him preach!
 
After the curtains died.
After the crowd had gone.
I stayed and – with him – cried.
It appeared as though the crowd had won
And his acting days were done!
 
He left with me that night.
We took the last train together; alone.
And on his frivolous fleeting fright,
He asked if he could share my home,
Saying: “Where have all the lovers gone?”
 
When I awoke, he had made his way.
He left behind his love’s compliance.
And there, for me, his script to say,
And I read it aloud with clear defiance:
“If life is truly a stage,
Then depression is an audience!"
 
I went back to the theatre.
But, he was gone for ever.
No notes left back, no love either.
And as I turned, my body shivered.
As I saw a reflection in the street’s river,
Then I realised, that stage was a mirror.