MELANCHOLIA

Breathing right up against a window pane 
Gives evidence of life, but quickly fades 
Socially surrounded gives proof I exist 
It is the time spent with self that gives me pause......

To those that turn inwards I say refrain!  
To you navel gazers, self contemplators, 
self analysts, students of the Id, 
I say beware!

If I am busy it's a simple life, 
living to eat, eating to live.
But in the "down" time, 
The unfilled minutes and hours, 

That's when the unfocused 
Wandering mind entertains itself 
When the thread is followed 
The less travelled paths are explored 

Here the gossamer possibilities 
Take ponderous shape
Looming with dour portends
Blackness all too familiar lurks.
 
Melancholia, Anhedonia 
Woebegone, mournful 
From the ancient Greek times 
Athymia proves its timeless existence.

Maybe what we now label as depression 
is an unexplored inkwell. 
Maybe when the ink is used 
The bottle becomes clear.

Maybe the fear of the stain 
Leaves the bottle unemptied 
Darkness unplumbed, gloom untraversed 
The "Slough Of Despond" remains un-passed. 

If one were to embrace this, 
Is that the answer or the end. 
Has anyone made it through, 
Traversed this darkness this cavernous abyss? 

The question remains does depression use you 
Or do you use depression.

It is inevitable yet I won't except it
A difference but it's just the same. 
It was always there, but now I am aware. 
So I breathe on the glass in search of proof.