They say it’s easy

The Inspiration

I love music and literature.  I love all forms of artistic self-expression, but my emotions are stirred the most by music and the written or spoken word. As a result, my personal social media algorithms tend to lean towards indie artists, songwriters, and poets.  I also like to read the comments on these posts because I like to see how other people’s words are received by or impact others whether it be negatively or positively. After all, words have meaning and often, they can be received in ways we don’t anticipate.  So, one day while prowling the comment section of a spoken word session from this one poet I like, I saw a comment that pissed me off. It could be summed up as, “It’s easy and overdone to write about depression, why don’t you write something else.” It honestly wasn’t that deep of a comment, in fact, it was just the usual, random, thoughtless sort of thing that trolls often say in comments, but on that day, it really got to me. While I don’t know why it ticked me off, I do thank that troll because I decided to vent about it. So that’s this poem. ^_^

The Poem

“It’s easy to write from depression,” they say.
Sure it is.
It’s easy to slice myself open with words,
Dip my pen into my blood,
And smear it around the page for your amusement.
It’s a breeze to tear my flesh asunder,
And paste it onto the walls to be ogled,
To be judged,
To be weighed and found wanting.
It’s an everyday thing to lie on a sheet,
Laying bare my open wounds for others to poke and prod.|
Ignoring the urge to run,
Dragging my flesh around for your entertainment.
So, trample and smear and criticize it all,
Because it’s easy,
It’s a breeze.
I create art from my pain,
For others to treat it as a passing fancy.
I bare my soul every day,
Just for others to say I took the easy way.

December 14, 2023