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
Copyright © Triny Xiang | Year Posted 2023
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