silenced by this skin that covers
screaming out into this shell
lost track of feeling empty
overtaking i know well
back again
reappeared
laying dormant
all this time
thought you vanished
hibernation
is your sole disguise
(Anne Jackson, 2007)
Comments
7 responses to “Poetry: Hibernation”
Beautiful. I get it. I have suffered from depression since I was 6 years old. Cried out to God, flat on my face at the age of 30, broken in so many pieces I didn’t think they would ever be found. Then went the whole anti-depressant route for off and on for ten years. Went to therapists. Then on depressants for a solid ten years. Now have gone off anti-depressants to see if there is anyone still inside of me that I recognize. I am fighting. I am struggling. It hides for a few days, a week, a month, and then there it is again. The dark abyss; and I am staring down into it and it isn’t staring back at me it is swallowing me whole. I fight to breathe. But I am fighting.
And maybe I should go back on the medication, but there are parts of me, the real me, that I have found again, that I have missed. That creative person. That darkling child. It is dangerous here in the shadowlands sometimes, but then again, sometimes it is brilliant. And I keep wondering, is the only choice to either risk falling into the abyss or else to not feel at all? Can’t there be something in between?
There is a me
in a mirror
I do not know
Ten years gone
and I
I have awakened
to find
I have lost so much
time;
Time to be crazy;
time to rant and rave and cry and scream;
but my time
nonetheless.
Time to grow and create and sing
in abandonment;
And it is gone
but I —
I am still here.
Somewhere behind those eyes
I do not recognize
in the mirror.
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Incredible. Thanks Anne!!!
I grok this. Evocative & powerful.
Here’s one I did:
I am nothing so much as like
A plastic shopping bag:
Seemingly strong, easily rent
Quickly discarded, or stuffed in a drawer
Cast aside, lining trash cans
Wadded up, by the roadside
Buffeted, full of nothing but wind:
Given thought no more
I love this season, because it’s not what you expect. Winter is a season that appears to be full of death and dead things, but look below the service and life is beginning to spring up. All kinds of wonderful things are in the works during some of our coldest seasons. (Draw spiritual parallel… NOW.)
Jeff, your post reminded me of a great book by a Canadian pastor, Mark Buchanan; it’s called Spiritual Rhythm: Being With Jesus Every Season of Your Soul. If you haven’t, definitely check it out.
Fantastic. So simple yet it keeps growing in your mind. I wrote recently on my struggles with addiction. It’s a very similar road to travel, especially for a Christian. We’re supposed to be good and joyful, but it’s hard to be one when you’re not the other.