Stage 3: Depression
Bleak
Forget joy,
except as something lost.
Pretend that you are terribly busy;
but you are not busy,
you are bleak.
When you are with them,
Be quiet.
Give nothing
more than you have to.
Don’t ever let them in again.
Forget joy,
except as something lost.
Pretend that you are terribly busy;
but you are not busy,
you are bleak.
When you are with them,
Be quiet.
Give nothing
more than you have to.
Don’t ever let them in again.
Fragile (Part 1)
People are fragile,
do not love them.
They will shatter and die,
or they will leave, slowly,
A little at a time,
or they will hurt you in anger,
or in carelessness, or in deceit.
They will say cruel things,
they will lie and they will cheat.
They will cheat
and they will lie,
or they will shatter and die.
People are fragile,
do not love them.
People are fragile,
do not love them.
They will shatter and die,
or they will leave, slowly,
A little at a time,
or they will hurt you in anger,
or in carelessness, or in deceit.
They will say cruel things,
they will lie and they will cheat.
They will cheat
and they will lie,
or they will shatter and die.
People are fragile,
do not love them.
Jitterbug
A black cloud follows you around,
rains down on you and your parade
While I jitterbug on an electric fence,
spitting blue sparks through a rictus grin
That lets the joy leak out, lets the pain seep in.
A black cloud follows you around,
rains down on you and your parade
While I jitterbug on an electric fence,
spitting blue sparks through a rictus grin
That lets the joy leak out, lets the pain seep in.
The Long Winter (Part 1)
It’s a damp, dark day of black and white;
Bare, crooked branches against a gunmetal sky.
Snow showers sputter in stormy gusts
And the wind howls with a banshee’s mournful cry.
It’s a day of bleak thoughts, with no end in sight
To this long winter and all that it cost us.
It’s a damp, dark day of black and white;
Bare, crooked branches against a gunmetal sky.
Snow showers sputter in stormy gusts
And the wind howls with a banshee’s mournful cry.
It’s a day of bleak thoughts, with no end in sight
To this long winter and all that it cost us.
The Vigil (Part 2)
I stand vigil in the black and silver night,
thinking on the tattered remnants of my life -
From darkness we have come and to darkness we will go,
For life is only a brief dance in the light,
the mere blink of a sleeping god’s eye -
From darkness we have come and to darkness we will go.
I stand vigil in the black and silver night,
thinking on the tattered remnants of my life -
From darkness we have come and to darkness we will go,
For life is only a brief dance in the light,
the mere blink of a sleeping god’s eye -
From darkness we have come and to darkness we will go.
Unmade
It’s Valentine’s Day today -
When lovers give their hearts away
In the hope that they will then be saved
From heartache, loss and pain.
How can they be so foolishly brave?
Grief has taught me well to be afraid
For all the joy has run out of me,
To leave me grey and drained.
I know now that I can never be safe
When I can be so easily unmade -
For I have loved and I have lost
And I want never to love again.
It’s Valentine’s Day today -
When lovers give their hearts away
In the hope that they will then be saved
From heartache, loss and pain.
How can they be so foolishly brave?
Grief has taught me well to be afraid
For all the joy has run out of me,
To leave me grey and drained.
I know now that I can never be safe
When I can be so easily unmade -
For I have loved and I have lost
And I want never to love again.
Requiem (Part 1)
Are our lives just shadows passing over the ground,
running fast with the scudding clouds?
And those precious hopes of ours, our dreams -
are they empty shells washed up on a beach?
Are we mere sparks in the slow darkness of the universe?
Fireflies with lives brief as the blink of a god’s eye?
It’s as though you never lived, you are so utterly gone.
They have completely forgotten you - your life is undone.
Are our lives just shadows passing over the ground,
running fast with the scudding clouds?
And those precious hopes of ours, our dreams -
are they empty shells washed up on a beach?
Are we mere sparks in the slow darkness of the universe?
Fireflies with lives brief as the blink of a god’s eye?
It’s as though you never lived, you are so utterly gone.
They have completely forgotten you - your life is undone.
untitled
and I find this infinity
we so briefly live in
terrifying
and I find this infinity
we so briefly live in
terrifying
Fragile (Part 02)
Love is so fragile -
it’s too easy to break a heart -
it’s madness to love you
when every love will fall apart.
I know to enjoy the sun
before the clouds gather again -
to appreciate these small joys
and not complain when it rains.
But I know I will lose you;
death or divorce, you’ll break my heart.
There are no happy endings.
Every love will fall apart.
Love is so fragile -
it’s too easy to break a heart -
it’s madness to love you
when every love will fall apart.
I know to enjoy the sun
before the clouds gather again -
to appreciate these small joys
and not complain when it rains.
But I know I will lose you;
death or divorce, you’ll break my heart.
There are no happy endings.
Every love will fall apart.
Two Love Songs
01
I am haunted by the ghosts of romantic dreams
and crippled by thoughts of what could have been.
Our love has become a broken-winged thing -
I've no hope left for us, for me, for you.
02
I know this one-sided love will not be enough,
But if I stop loving you, will I stop living too?
You love not me, though you love to be loved
And I will have no other love - but you.
01
I am haunted by the ghosts of romantic dreams
and crippled by thoughts of what could have been.
Our love has become a broken-winged thing -
I've no hope left for us, for me, for you.
02
I know this one-sided love will not be enough,
But if I stop loving you, will I stop living too?
You love not me, though you love to be loved
And I will have no other love - but you.
Love is a ghost
Love is a ghost that haunts me
like the first breath of spring air -
Tantalising, teasing -
is it even really there?
Love is a ghost that taunts me -
my lover stays ever out of reach.
Full of his own sound and fury,
He cannot hear my grief.
Love is a ghost that won’t release me -
For my love is a burdened man
Whose love lays heavy on my shoulders,
Who loves me as best he can.
Imposter
I pretended to be the person I wanted to be -
A colourful girl with no dark history -
I pretended that her life could also be mine.
I played at being sociable, joyful and at ease,
But I was not that girl and she was not me.
I was an imposter living another’s life.
I can no longer pretend; I must be bleak,
And there’s a comfort in admitting it, a sense of relief.
I am an imposter and my life is a lie.
The Long Winter (Part 2)
But it’s been winter for far too long,
Dreary and grey and cold to the bone.
The dirty snow has outstayed its welcome
As it lingers by the side of the road.
Someday, a new season will come
And winter will seem a far off place.
But today it’s been winter too long
And spring seems a lifetime away.
Paper Heart
It was after Valentine’s and there were red roses
trampled into the snow outside the florists.
A bitter wind was blowing, chilling me to the bone.
I walked past a red paper heart -
tattered and torn and trodden into the slush,
it’s ragged edges fluttering helplessly
as it was crushed beneath our passing booted feet.
Well, hell, I thought. There’s a metaphor for you.
These are the lies
When an ant is squashed beneath my boot,
The whole anthill holds a funeral, a long trailing procession
Of tiny trumpets and tears that ends in a Viking’s pyre.
He lived a long life, they’ll say. It was quick;
He would have wanted to go this way.
When a squirrel drops stone dead from the winter’s cold,
The other squirrels bury her in the snow
And squabble over her stash of nuts and other treasures.
She would have wanted us to have them, they’ll say,
That her death might bring us life; that was her way.
When a cat sits in the window and dreams of his lion self,
Stalking gazelle through the grassy plains,
His owner brings him moist, tinned lumps on a plate.
This is better for Tiddles, he will say.
He has all he needs; he’ll live a longer life this way.
When the firefly leaps about in the dark
Under an infinite sky of fiery stars,
She will look up for a moment, feeling small.
I’m like a star, she will say. Burning brightly, a spark in the night
And I will shine as brightly as those stars one day.
These are the lies we tell ourselves, every day.
When we’re abandoned by a lover, we’ll easily find another, or so they say,
And a better job than the one you lost is coming any day.
When a child dies, it’s because God loves them, which apparently makes it okay,
Not to mention, of course, the fact that time will apparently steal our grief away.
No matter that when we die the world still won’t know our name -
Haven’t we already abandoned our childish dreams of fame?
And if none of this consoles you, remember we’re all going to a better place.
Yes - let’s believe in heaven, so that our lives don’t seem such a waste.
For these are the lies we tell ourselves, to pretend that we're okay.