What is depression?

What is depression? I ask myself.

Is it a loud crowd silenced by the pain?

Is it dancing with tears in your eyes?

It is walking in the rain?

But it’s not the rain that makes you wet.

Is it sitting in a cafe, 

alone.

Pouring your heart out to nothing but an electronic device.

Is it feeling the pain in a room, 

because you relate.

And it drags you to heal the broken hearts.

If I can heal others.

Can I heal myself?

Do I tuck myself away in a bottle of alcohol,

hoping that one would drink it and feel my pain,

through the bitterness in every taste. 

Perhaps they could describe it to me,

what depression feels like. 

Through every sip, and as they stumble.

Weakening their systems,

increasing their chances of getting sick.

Well if that’s the case,

they would probably be depressed too.

Tucking themselves away in bottles of alcohol.

And the cycle continues. 

But alcohol isn’t depression. 

It’s escapism.

Are we all trying to escape?

Are we all depressed?

Sometimes I feel it, 

Sometimes I escape.

~ Shantey Moabelo