The Back-Stage Pass Is Waiting

Is depression a band playing? Always jeering at my brightest sets Blows off the smallest bow leaving me a husk Depression cat calls behind the veil Dark days alone with my ever-present God Hopelessly kneeling to my sad nature A dead mane of a palm tree stripped by squalls My rot rooted by reality's check ever on stage Pop Seroquel to quell me to sleep Teach me patience in this depression Teach me the meaning of petite mort Keep me practicing dying on stage If not for love's tethers I would gladly exit To my ancestors behind the ol’back stage With my relations in line to come to Jesus Barred by chemical prescriptions Pop lithium and lamictal to unite polarities Lurasidone to sway my psychosis to tunes Trazodone for slaying me to sleep This time I'll stay adherent and penitent Drugs are courage buoying stage fright Chemical messengers knitting neurons Exposing me to paper cuts from the crowd Shrouding mania with suppressed dopamine Sadness in the background overwhelms me Remember dust to stardust gravely falling Those dark days twisting without love Sex and drugs are cheap distractions Cigarettes just crutches in the limelight Without drink and weed on center stage I want to go back-stage when love recedes Then I would not feel my heart racing Keep me above ground as life grinds on The accretion of well-intentioned lies Another day another poem Like broken records on repeat Veils of depression weighty as curtains Knowing doesn’t tear the thread of identity When I cross the veil, leave it all behind But, it's not time to go back-stage If not for love I would cut Fate’s twine Stay alive long enough without disguises Endure hours naked under the spotlight Hold moments of joy without expectations Confetti dismissed by peppered depression Killing time while crooning cruelly alone Waiting impatiently for the curtain call Depression waiting back-stage as usual