The Black Dog worsens

I"ve been in a fragiile state what with resuming some medications.  They don't seem to be helping.  For the last four days I've been stuck in a horrible mood.  I wake up crying; I can't stop all day.  Only at night do I get a little relief.  And I stay up, afraid of the feelings the next moring will bring.  I see my psychiatrist tomorrow but after six months have little faith we shall be able to put this beast back in its cage.  I swear when I'm normal I'm normal.   But these long bouts of depression are killing me one neuron at a time, one ambition at a clip, yes, I am disabled.  I couldn't work like this.  I couldn't practice medicine like this.  I'm sick, really sick.  Kathleen says I'm as bad as she's seen.  And just two weeks ago it seemed I was getting better, with the addition of one new medication and some traveling that kept me from thinking about myself.  That's the main thing--trying to distract yourself from dwelling on the black hole within, that abyss that sucks all you were into an infinite descent.  Here's another dark sonnet I just penned, no great shakes poetically but honest.


Dark Sonnet XV


You wake up weeping but you don’t know why,
Stream after stream without why or what for.
You never have attempted suicide.
You think of it as the coward’s last chore.
Trashy novels hold you for a while,
Detective gore and science fiction fare
But all less real than the painful smile
You engineer to dodge the stranger’s stare.
You want to spare the ones you love, your friends,
Your children, brothers, sister, beloved wife.
A gift of guilt’s no way to make amends.
The best course is to hold on to this life
And trust and suffer and lean on your God
Though you’d no doubt prefer six feet of sod.

7 Kilorats,

Craig