A Temporary Surrender

Sometimes I surrender,
letting the blackness ride roughshod
over me, letting it leave it’s marks
without resistance, without complaint,
content for just a moment
to give the pain full voice
and sing it’s siren song of beautiful oblivion
fill my mind. I lay
as the dead on the battlefield
with a smile
that for just this moment
there is no battle,
no need to be strong
or wise or determined, and
for just this moment
I can be beautifully, temporarily dead.

About this poem

I have written here often of depression. One thing I have learned is that you have choices: You can suffer from it. You can manage it. Or you can battle it. At different points in life, I’ve done all three. And I have come to believe that battling it, proactively, aggressively learning the enemy and fighting each day is the best way to keep it at bay, to reclaim the joy, to reclaim ground.

Because only battles have the possibility of victory.

But even warriors need rest. And at times, I surrender. But only for a moment, and in a time and place of my choosing. And I can do it only because of the strength I’ve gained in the battle, in the knowledge that it has been beaten back enough that a day of rest is no threat, but rather a refreshing to battle again tomorrow.

Tom