Playing to hope and darkness, today, I’ll be featuring poems on both.
The Difference She ask me what the difference was between depression and sadness how can you be sure you aren't just sad? I looked at her, and out the window again and spoke the measured truth forming sounds that escaped dry lips, torn by nervous teeth falling into trickles of slow explanation sadness was a cut finger depression was a severed hand cuts heal lost limbs are lost sadness is a cloudy morning that passes into a sunny afternoon depression is a cloud living in your head and it doesn’t burn away, no matter how hot the sun shines outside sadness is losing a lover depression is losing yourself sadness is caring enough to cry and scream and wail depression is giving up not seeing the point of theatrical chest banging because it doesn’t really matter anyway sadness is a dead bird on the edge of the sidewalk struck down from its nest depression is to have never heard the bird sing, or to know that it existed at all sadness is a bucket in a well, that can be lifted and emptied depression is the dank water in the bottom that never dries up. Sadness has an ebb and flow a beginning. An end. Depression is being stuck beneath the waves a thousand miles from shore drowning in the cold darkness. AND the Light
The Bones are Good It’s in the small things micro moments hair breadth lines the brush of her fingers over the back of my hand the freckles each one mapping out her constellation a history of goddesses painted across her nose coursing through her blood It’s the crinkle of eyes green grass dotted with bronze and the fire behind them the lighted soul one stardust mote in a universe infinite it is how they save me every day give me reason to fight for better to be better These small things are the weight-bearing pillars of my world.
Sarah Reichert Author 