18 Degrees Below

[Dark Muse]

18 Degrees Below

I sink down behind the skyline,
watching myself disappear,
as the shadows ascend into the darkness
of a blank moonless night.

I cannot escape these compressions
de(pressed) against my head,
I never sleep because I am never awake,
just a flotsam jetsam
in outer space.

But lacking an orbit
to fall into, I can only sink down
and down again,
gravity looses its meaning
because I never hit solid ground.

Outer bodies
keep slamming against
the inside of my mind
leaving dents
which I can never quite push back
out.

I am ran through the ringer
(de)pressed into this
flattened sate
in which it seems infantile
to rise again.

There are no echoes
in my atmosphere
no sunlight either.

I feel the weight
of the sky above
always pushing me downward.

So I remain in this stagnant
state stranded as my own
island, with no one else
to share this space with me.

Always vacant
I am a body without a soul
or a soul without a body

will you tell me once you know?

And does anyone ever see me
where I hover
down low just below
the horizon,
never rising
and never setting.

Even Pluto I watch
with envy,
skirting around the spotlight
but I am always just a darklight,

and there is no one to take me home
no where left for me to go,
just a specter pulled between
the sunlight and the magic hour.

Just an invisible blot in the
horizon of your eyeline,
do you even notice me,

or mistaken for only a vanishing
piece of cosmic dust.

[Delta40]

wow Muse this makes me think of the lunar cycles and ones connection to it in terms of how it makes us feel.

[Dark Muse]

Thank you very much. It was sort of an experiment. I wanted to write a poem about depression, yet without making it sound like just another poem about depression. So I approached it from the point of view of examining the actual vocabulary of the word rather than just the emotion attached to it, and found that one of the definitions for depression was the angular distance of a celestial object below the horizon.

[Delta40]

well you have succeeded wonderfully Muse

[Dark Muse]

Thank you!

[hillwalker]

Yes, I have to add my few words of praise. An original take on the 'black dog' - and I like the idea of a celestial body never quite reaching high enough above the horizon for its light to be witnessed. I love the understated way you have written this, and especially those last two verses where it becomes more personal - a great poem.

[Dark Muse]

Thank you!

[Song of Mercy]

I caught the depression and even more specific the insignificance and futility. Really powerful.

[Jerrybaldy]

Enjoyable read Dark Muse

[Bar22do]

If it was an experiment it read like an experience. Your poem treats the depression in the best way I have read in a long time. Kudos.

[Dark Muse]

Thank you very much!