When a lifetime is a blink how can you be content standing until your eyes dry out?
Savannha Brown
I don’t know what depression feels like
I picture it as a twisting and turning I picture it as a twisting and turning
An intermininet strife
Like a shower of bullets
Perhaps a raining parade of bad days
Or a feeling of this simply couldn’t can’t shouldn’t
Be happening to me
Why to me?
I’d rather be free
That was my first impression
Of the meaning of the word depression
The final answer to my question
What else could it mean
Other than a deep recession?
The closest distance between two people is a story
After making some friends I found a common allegory
People are sad
It might sound bad but people are just so sad
It most likely stems from something like a problem with a dad
Or a situation that was out control
Something that made them mad
Time and time again until it just turned sad
Or something like a comrade turning on them
But all these dead flowers come from the same stem
I’ve learned that these are just the roots
To the beginning of the end
The end
What a time of uncertainty
Certainly it will come but when?
When the time is right
Is the answer from some
When you lose the next fight
The end could be the outcome
But giving meaning to why we go
Has a way of working the world into ebbs and flows
A network of coincidences has crystallized
Into a spider web of truths and lies
Lies
Are all they see through the kaleidoscope of what the people feed
Their children
People wonder why they always seem to give in
And die
A toy consisting of tiny mirrors and pieces of colored paper
Is stolen from their children at a young age
Logic is an eraser
Forcing them to foster rage
A child raising a demon
Running mile after mile with this thing they have to feed
It grows larger and darker
And eventually bites the hand that feeds them
Another petal falling from the stem
Observation of body language is very helpful
The image of a person who never sleeps is typical
Messy hair don’t care right?
T-shirt slogans don’t really mean anything
But have you ever asked the girl with the t-shirt slogan how she’s doing?
You’re in class with her
She laughs everything off like she’s the happy-go-lucky poster-child
But you don’t know her soul is screaming because she feels like an exile
She is beaten everyday but all you see is a tired smile
Tired because how can she have time for sleep
When all she hears is the deafening sound of her own weeps
She’s closing her eyes in class when the teacher points to her seat
And scolds her for not paying attention
Assigning yet another detention
The distance is short but still there
You don’t know her story so you don’t care
Her petals are dying but no one is aware
I don’t know all but I know what it feels like to fall
Because heartbreak has a way of getting the best of us all
It’s called heartbreak because it feels like someone is taking out your soul
And stomping on it to later be replaced with a breath of stone cold
After the feeling of falling
We have a hard time loving again
Even when it’s our true soul mate calling
Salt rains down on us to heal the wounds of the past
But salt hurts when it falls into cuts fast
Especially when we’re the ones putting the slits there
We build walls around our soul to keep out the heartbreak
But what we forget to do is build a gate
We foster hate
Because we’re afraid that love will tear us apart
That it will be the end
Our fate
More petals dying everyday
I watch the boy in the window through a glass frame
I see blue eyes filled to the brim with pain
I want to ask him how his soul is doing but I’m too afraid
Because I know what depression looks like
His lips can’t take anymore talking
He just wants to get up and start walking
Away
But he can’t because he can’t find it inside of him to leave the glass frame
Because it’s bulletproof and he’s too afraid
That love will tear me apart
He feels like an anchor tied to the ankle of everyone who knows his story
He doesn’t want the pity or the glory
He wants to be alone to deal with it himself
Along with blue eyes I see dead petals drying on a shelf
Rejection never feels good I’ll tell you
But what feels worse is when it’s for a cause you can’t help
It feels like slipping in a glass shoe you know is going to break
Because once you take the first step in trying to help
It comes back to bite you like snake
And the poison doesn’t immediately kill you
Death comes to mind for a while and you don’t do anything
Why would you try to help yourself when you have nothing to live for
Why not drown in the poison of the world
Everyone else is fighting their own serpents
They don’t have time to save you
They have to worry about breaking their own glass shoes
Sometimes I look over my shoulder at my people
Who are running from the devil
And wonder how their souls are doing
If they’re running towards their steeples
I’m trapped in my own glass frame
But I built a gate to let out the hate
Now I ask my people to know if they’re at peace or in pain
I don’t want their petals to die on a window sill in vain
With their hearts afraid of love and there minds living enchained
I’ve started to gather a different view of what it means to be depressed
I see it more now that I know what I looks like
It can be beautiful on the outside
But once you close the distance between you and someone who’s opressed
When they tell you their story
That’s when you find out you should have been praising them all this time
With open arms and glory
I don’t know what depression feels like
But I bet it goes something like not eating for an entire weekend
Rather staying in bed for the season
Never finding the strength or having a reason
To live
Because living is hard work and people don’t have the time to lend a hand
They have their own demons knocking down their doors filling their mouths with sand
But depression must feel worse than that
It must feel like falling down floor after floor
And never really reaching anything
A bottomless pit of darkness and once in awhile
If you’re lucky you’ll meet a friendly stranger who wears a smile
But then they’ll keep walking because the kaleidoscope was taken from them as a child
The walls are built higher because people are not something to be relied on
They are all pawns on the chessboard called a universe
And it’s simply not simple
To get better sometimes we have to get worse
Simply Not Simple Reflection
I wrote “Simply Not Simple” last spring for my creative writing class, which was work-shopped by my peers and teacher, Mrs. Ellis. I wrote this poem because I love slam poetry and I wanted to write about something that I don’t have a personal experience with. I have never had depression, but at the time I wrote this poem, I was close with someone who had experienced it. I wanted to shed light on a dark part of society, as well as give a helping hand to people who are dealing with depression. I used references to children in “Simply Not Simple” because depression is often overlooked at a young age. People say things like “It’s just a phase, ” but sometimes people are struggling with deep eternal strife.
After writing this poem, I performed it at a talent show the following summer, and was astounded at the positive feedback I received. After my performance a girl approached me and said she struggled with depression. I talked to her for hours about how poetry has helped her recover. After seeing the impact my poem had on an audience, I decided to create a digital platform to expose the importance of recognizing depression. My video inspiration came from Savannah Brown, a poet who creates videos to portray her work in a powerful way. In Savannah’s poem, “The Madness of Two,” she used a projector to play clips of old horror movies while she sat in front of the screen.
I learned how to use a portable recorder when I recorded my poem, and I started by putting the audio into Audacity. I learned that Audacity can be difficult, so I switched to Final Cut, which was much more user friendly. I found tons of video clips to go along with my poem that I put together for the projector. After my video was complete with edits and transitions, I filmed it with Eric Wescott, my film assistant, in a small meeting room with a white wall perfect for this project.
I used blue lighting to set a tone for the filming room to appeal to viewers’ emotion of sadness. I sat in front of the projector with my notebook and plant. The notebook symbolized myself writing the poem and the plant was used as wabi sabi. I had tried to grow that specific type of plant for months, with no success, but finally my grandmother started a new plant for me, and it’s still alive today. The healthy plant contrasted the topic of depression, but also showed that growth is possible even after an all time low. Just like my grandmother helping me grow the plant, I want “Simply Not Simple” to help people grow away from depression. I wore a shirt that said Zara Woman on it because Zara is a trendy, fast fashion company. This “fast fashion” symbolization is represented in my poem because depression is a heavy topic to comprehend in a short video. I added credits at the end to my amazing advisers, Mrs. Ellis and Mr. Demello, for making this video possible. I learned a lot from making this first video and hope to continue improving my digital artwork.
Mystic Arts and Music 