Depression 

IS DEPRESSION REAL?

I ask myself:

Is depression real?

D—E—P…

Wait.

Spelling it out

makes it real enough.

A hidden itch in the body’s orchestra,

a silent note

no one else can hear,

claiming lives

more than it should.

A count without number,

unexpressed thoughts linger

within the walls of intellect,

beneath every conversation,

mowing down our sense of reasoning.

Sad.

Just one word,

yet

it carries weight—

more weight than language,

claiming more lives

than it should.

The itch finds

the introverts,

the non-entertainers of nostalgia,

the silent.

It’s like death—

the great equalizer.

It comes to all

within a hollow hole,

but can be tamed

as a whole.

Souls are depressed,

fluent in

smiles with hidden pain,

unsolved quantiles

of sorrow.

And sometimes,

Norian imagined

the veins of a leaf at its mercy—

visible to the eye,

but the struggle

deeply hidden.

Refusing to be named,

it becomes X.

Though depression depresses,

it can never oppress.