Link to full Slam Youtube Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1LxgW8wOIJo&t=2s

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.