An Annoying Traveling Companion

I remember too well the darkness.
It never quite leaves.
A soft melancholy hovers,
just out of reach, always lurking.
I will not call it my friend,
that would be too strong a word.
Merely an annoying traveling companion,
vile enough to ruin a day now and again,
but mostly a bother easily ignored
while you travel.

I am rarely happy. That emotion of
magical moments eludes me most days.
The melancholy leaves me second-guessing
even the best of moments.

But they are moments. Nothing more.
I have gladly exchanged the loss of those moments
for a deeper joy, for contentment
in the light I carry with me. The knowledge
that the darkness will never again
consume me. That I have become wheat strong,
able to bend and spring back, grow,
bear fruit.
Light.
I used to think it, the light, was outside me
because I was so broken
and so much had leaked out
And yet it also leaks in.
(Thank you, Mr Cohen).
But not all. And as long as there is
even the tiniest flicker,
the darkness is doomed.

About this poem

I fight depression. Like a berserker I fight it. Most days I win. Regular readers know this. I make no secret of it. Because I have learned the truth of the line from Leonard Cohen’s song “Anthem”: “There is a crack in everything. That’s where the light gets in.”

Now and again I need to remind myself of that. So I write poetry.

The picture was taken at the Vanderbilt Mansion on the Hudson River.

Tom