cycles of depression

April 13, 2026

/ HJ / Leave a comment

scrolling the feed
social media and doom
and feeling the gloom of
what a world what a world what a world

reading the newspaper
and seeing only sensation
the worst things are what sell
what a world what a world what a world

listening to the hot gossip
and feeling not so great about it
and maybe the subject matter and the talk give me
what a world what a world what a world

what a world
i cry
what a world
i try to fly away from it all
what a world
i mean
i’d like to die
but that could just be the suicidal ideation talking
or it could be this world
what a world
what a world
it could just be
this world

and here’s the thing
i know
i know
i know the world
can be pretty great sometimes

the people
their actions
there’s compassion everywhere
if you know what to look for

but sometimes we get caught up thinking
what a world
that we forget
what a world
to take a moment
what a world
and forget
what a world
about the world
what a world
and concentrate
what a world
on those
what a world
immediately
what a world
surrounding us
what a

huh

these folks/animals/vibes are pretty nice actually

what a
kind
cozy
comfy
tiny
world

April 6, 2026

/ HJ / Leave a comment

to do
to do
today
today

what to do today of all days
other than to trap yourself in your mind
and climb and climb into the hole of depression
hold that anxiety deep within me
and maybe
maybe
make it out the other side
someday

[that’s on my to-do list
for another day]

March 15, 2026

/ HJ / Leave a comment

hold your breath

count to ten
and count to ten
again

breathing reminds you
you’re still alive
though you’ve spent your whole life
dying
to die

compose yourself
expose your insides
for art
for payment
for friendship
for funzies
for a dare
to anyone out there
who may feel the same way
[though it’s so lonely
in one’s own mind
it’s impossible to imagine
finding company]

wander around
while catatonic to the ground
and know
it’s all in your head

[which is somehow supposed to make it
easier]

[what do they know]

February 12, 2026

/ HJ / Leave a comment

i wish i could just
relax into knowing
i know something

but instead the anxiety decides
to show up right at that moment
and “release” me from feeling
good about
anything
and instead
i feel
stupid/foolish/in over my head/a fraud

a straight up, full on imposter

how will i ever feel
like i’ve achieved
anything
if this is what my brain chemistry
does to me
every
single
time?

October 5, 2025

/ HJ / Leave a comment

i got
a sudden sad
yesterday

appearing out of
[seemingly]
nowhere, bubbling up to my eyes
hot with unexpected tears
all of a sudden
filling
overflowing
dripping down my
sad sad face
as i searched for something
to take the pain even slightly
away

and my kip was there to hold me
[the only thing that ever truly helps]
and jiggle/wiggle me around
to make me laugh some of the tears away

and the puppy was there to nuzzle into my face
and dry up the dripped tears with her fur

and the cat was there
to confuse my sadness away
when she tried to lick the inside of my
recently emptied coffee mug

but later

kip was on the couch
slowly melting to prone
as the weight of the news
read from the phone
crushed them down
gravity invading their bones
until they couldn’t move anymore

and i had used up all my personal stock of
any sort of ‘light at the end of the
fascist
tunnel’ feeling to wipe my eyes
and continue the laundry that needed
to be done,
so i couldn’t be there for my kip
as they had just been there for me
experiencing the same sadness
i had just
felt

this is a horrible timeline

why can’t people
[in power]
just
be
kind?

August 20, 2025

/ HJ / Leave a comment

as fall approaches
but isn’t quite here
not yet
not yet

the memories of late summers past
invades my mind
sans consent
[do flashbacks ever ask?]
and no matter how stable
and lovely
and mine
my life is today

i keep seeing

loss
upon loss
upon lost trust
upon that feeling of any control in life
fleeting though it may have been
stolen in an instant

and this current administration
certainly doesn’t help this
weird ptsd i’ve found myself in

everything seems to be
culminating in something
and i continue to avoid all emotions and memories
until absolutely
necessary

August 11, 2025

/ HJ / Leave a comment

i heard a stat the other day
that straight depression
[and also perhaps straight anxiety
don’t know specifically, since the show
was only about depression management]
is so much easier to treat
than the intertangled combo of the two

and coming from someone who has been officially diagnosed
with major depressive disorder
and generalized anxiety disorder
[at the same time]
and feel like i’ve never known a brain
without the two holding metaphorical hands,
this sounds quite accurate

what gives me distress?
is it the depression?
is it the anxiety?
i honestly have a hard enough time differentiating the two
since they seem to egg each other on
like the “bad kids” at the back of the classroom,
and simply identifying one
or the other
is trouble enough
how would i even begin to just take on
one
or the other?

[and, honestly, i also have to ask
how
in the world
someone even could have one
without the other?]

watch
in fifty or so years
they’ll change the diagnoses,
and my particular issues
will be called something different
[and maybe, by then, they’ll have come up with
a great treatment regiment…
but for now, i just keep trying to keep them both at bay
as best i can
with the resources available
to me/
to us]

June 12, 2025

/ HJ / Leave a comment

how can there be
so much horror in the world
alongside such beauty?

how can death happen one day
and the next, the miracle of a whole new life?
how can those celebrating a graduation/
a union/
pure friendship
be next door to
domestic violent terror
in one’s own home?

i haven’t figured out yet
how to be a happy person
while also knowing
so much that happens behind
tightly closed doors

in front of
tightly shut eyes

because, from my position here,
it feels counterintuitive —
i’m trapped in feeling like
one thing cannot be acknowledged
if the other isn’t also

but perhaps that’s my own black and white
fault
thinking

because there’s also
often
mundane day happening
alongside mundane day

and it’s the grey that
somehow
sometimes
keeps us going

May 28, 2025

/ HJ / Leave a comment

frustrations
and stress
and an almost good day yesterday
which should have lent itself to
an almost good sleep last night

but instead, it was some of the worst sleep i’ve had
in a month or two or three
[or more]

i suppose i shouldn’t discount
the amount that stress
impacts my own nighttime
half-waking ponderings…