gonna lose my licence

because I've been ... well ... this is kind of embarrassing ...

I've been content. You know: not all wringing-my-hands, furrowing my ivory brow, stamping my wide feet—none of that. So what's to write about?

But there's always something to latch onto, and I can thank zeno for providing me with an exercise for my febrile (or was that feeble?) mind ...

yes, I used to do the Haiku Smackdown in its brief but heady heyday. Of course we knew that those were merely cheap jokes (the more obscene the better) in the form of a haiku ... so I have some of the same self-consciousness about chiming in after zeno's prompt for sonnets.

But did that stop me? No. I've been feeling realllllly well. I can't stop looking over my shoulder when I say that; I really am still terrified that depression will just come swooping back in on me. It seems way beyond obvious to say that depression is not my preferred condition. I've been feeling so damn normal that I often almost forget to take my meds. Because I don't feel as though I need medicine! For! The! First! Time! Since! At! Least! July!

Therefore it is not entirely with tongue in cheek that I present a poem in praise of my antidepressant:

On Uninhibited Uptake of My Multiple Reuptake Inhibitor

Duloxetine, dear friend! your small green caps--
So time-released and so easy to swallow—
You don't damp down my lust (although perhaps
I wish leisure to satisfy would follow) —
Had my psychiatrist not been inspired
To write your lovely name on his scrip pad,
My poor affective state would still be mired
In that exhausting state that outstrips 'sad'
As 'cyclone' outstrips 'breeze', or 'typhus', 'grippe';
We melancholics grudgingly endure
Great torments, passed off with an offhand quip ...
"Depression's a right motherfucker, sure."

This motto, though, makes black thoughts sunnier:
What doesn't kill me, makes me funnier.

Comments

[zeno]

Shakespearean melancholia, very nice; especially:

In that exhausting state that outstrips 'sad'
As 'cyclone' outstrips 'breeze', or 'typhus', 'grippe';

Applause...

[udge]

Excellent.

[scott]

I once sat weeping
In an empty stadium.
Where's everyone gone?

This a Haiku based on a genuine experience. I don't know why I wrote that. But it's true. Have a lovely weekend, Jill.