A friend of mine wrote a poem speaking eloquently about depression. She gave me permission to share it on my blog page.
Learn your animals
Claws scales hooves and hair secret
vices and habits hear their hunger
for your thoughts dress
their wounds as you do yours.
cultivate your space for them digging
through dirt perfect
for nasturtium mint Sunday sleeps
trim their nails and give them names:
give them names and a bed
how do they sleep and walk and where
do they go oh
and when you know them,
love them.
Mine, some I love
some starved quietly as they were born
I didn't hear them scratching in the attic, didn’t
taste their fingers in my food we slept
in the same bed and I never named or knew
and now their breath is the steam
of the compost out back through
which I with sinking shoulders sift
searching for bones of the ones I left alone
Can I piece together the dark wet brown
Can I name the dead
and will it forgive me
-Haley Behnfeldt