#717

Forever is Just Another Word

I don't know where all the words have gone.

Perhaps they've all been used on someone else.
Perhaps there's nothing left but me
to hold you in the dark.

But we don't need them anymore.
We only thought we did but we never knew.

There is so much time.


20 May 1990
 
 

I don’t know when exactly B. left for Ireland but I do know that before she left I was showing signs of depression. Although I’ve been through four major depressions in my life I’ve always been reluctant to admit to being depressed. It’s so much easier to blame other things like overwork and, of course, in my case, overwork to the point of burnout has without a doubt been a major contributory factor. This was the start of my second breakdown. Maybe not here exactly but hereabouts. I’d just turned thirty-one so it’d been about eight years since my first breakdown. About eight years after this I’ll have my third and eight years after that my fourth. By my count my fifth is overdue or maybe I’m in the middle of it and haven’t noticed.

 

I’ve read this poem over and over again. Can’t for the life of me figure out who the “you” might be. It’s not B. or F. or anyone else. Maybe it’s that other part of me who’d run out of words, the “me” I’m constantly waiting on to say something clever or witty. Suffice to say I was suffering being unable to write and there’s definitely something unnatural about this one. I’ve been here before, needing to write but struggling to and so I force one out before its time. This poem definitely needed more time but my need to write got the better of me.