depression poetry – valerieparente

Looking At The World Upside Down by Valerie Parente

Acrobat

At first I thought my reality had flipped
accredited to an objective view
but this melancholy feels too personal
It must be the sickness in my mood.

I have been feeling so low these days
Barely hanging onto my sanity
I know I am moving backwards
But I cannot feel the ground beneath me.

I have difficulty finding my direction
Hesitant to trust my inner compass
And truthfully, I see no point in trying
Since the day my heart aimed and missed.

The world is no different than before
It is my perspective that has changed
I made a choice to distort my vision
When my priorities rearranged.

Looking at the world upside down
I can only see in morbid shades of red
But I guess that is supposed to happen
When the blood rushes to your head.

– Valerie Parente (4-23-2018)

Grandiosity of the Sick by Valerie Parente

When retention of information is censored through sanity
then attention from the psychologically challenged must rely on vanity.
It is a self-centered way to overcompensate
for what we lack in our mental state.
I call it Grandiosity of the Sick.
The glorified martyr heuristic.
Where those of us who struggle hone our inner pain
through an art quite prone to become vain.
Thinking the anguish we feel is profound.
As if to be miserable puts us on higher ground.
Saying those who reject our thought process
don’t understand because we’re too complex.
Creating beauty from our moping
is a dangerous form of coping.
Because perceiving mental malfunctioning as our best,
can lead to believing we’re only useful in our distress.
But to call this warped mindset a stigma is not entirely fair,
because what could be more admirable than finding comfort in how we’re impaired?