Depression

“Depression” is a poem about a woman at her breaking point. Section 1 describes a woman whose mental health condition has left her feeling isolated and withdrawn from the world. The first line, “I have gone into my eyes” (Line 1), tells the reader that the speaker has already withdrawn from her daily life. Her use of past-perfect tense tells the reader that the poem begins where her ability to keep functioning as she did before ends. Instead of going on as she had before, she spends her time “under the sun” (Line 3) consumed by images of bones, rivers, and incense.

She watches “a piece of light” (Line 6), a little beacon of hope, bump around inside her head with her until it turns a corner, away from her. This image shows her struggle to hold onto even a small morsel of hope. Physically, the speaker has “settled” (Line 11) into an uncomfortable space. She paints a picture of a sickly room: air that molts, “blankets that cover sweat” (Line 9). The bedsheets “continuing dreams” (Line 10) represent the blurry line between restless sleep and depressed waking. The speaker takes off her clothes, furthering her commitment to stay inside and in bed. She wonders if she is nothing but “a voice delighting in the sand” (Line 14). The speaker has become disoriented and isolated in her depression. It is a vicious cycle: Her symptoms keep her from living her life; she feels lonely and disconnected; and then this overwhelming hopelessness pulls her even deeper into her depression.

The scene shifts slightly between Sections 1 and 2, after the speaker has spent time wrestling with her despair. Section 2 begins after the speaker has “cried all night” (Line 21). The tears fell hard and long, “pouring out of [her] forehead” (Line 22). The speaker is exhausted, but she is too distressed to sleep. The tears come from deep inside her, “a spinal soul” (Line 24) that runs all the way back to her birth. This depression has rocked her to her core. She hears “the moon daring / to dance these rooms” (Lines 27-28), the reader’s only indication that she has spent another day in bed. Inspired by the dancing moon, the speaker dreams of a way to escape the depressive cycle: “O to become a star” (Line 29).

In telling the reader it is desirable to become a star, the speaker tells the reader more about what it is like to be depressed. Stars “seek their own mercy” (Line 30)—they are not dependent upon anything else. The speaker wishes she was more self-sufficient, because her depression has isolated her away from people who could help. Stars also “sigh the quiet” (Line 31). This creates a contrast between the stars’ situation and that of the speaker: The stars have control of their environment and a degree of tranquility, or “quiet,” around them. This implies that, in comparison, the speaker feels she has lost control and now has no peace of her own.