Poetry Blog by Randy Horton (2020, depression)

Depression is a question
of stamina. We know how to win.
Build walls and fill them with light
even as darkness batters the barricades,
threatening a wholesale invasion. So we turn on more lights,

call more friends, play, dance, and work, work, work.



This isn’t mania,
unless swimming to shore
in a river of white-water rapids is also mania.

We’re strong,
and we can make it.
We just...

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If I wanted this poem to be more intimate,
I would address the reader directly, and
invite the reader into my inner world.

I would use second-person pronouns and
share the deeper and darker aspects of
my personality. I would regale the reader
with stories of elation and spiritual fulfillment
along with brutally honest accounts of
self-doubt, anxiety, fear, and loathing.

I might make i...

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No, it’s true, April does not

Arrive as a grim reaper

Coming to take souls

Off to underground rivers

In the waste land

Or anything like that.

On first glance, April

Is a reprieve, new life

Is in abundance, and

We step out and look up

For the first time in awhile.

Now we can rouse ourselves.

Lift ourselves from bed

And go out into the world.

Daffodils,...

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