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Sunday 18 March 2012

Depression, Fear and Anxiety

This is a submission for Poetry Jam's prompt So How Do You Feel? It is concerned with the relationship between intangibles like an emotion and a tangible descriptor such as a colour.


When you are young
and darkness comes,
it dominates your mind.
I don't remember fear,
not real fear. Never
did I need a night light lit
or anything like that,
but I recall anxiety
which spread in time
from darkness to
the colour black.

So much that I have
undertaken since,
in terms of art,religion,
poetry must owe its birth
to trying to reverse
that state. Like blowing
on a fire to see it flare,
to see the embers, black
and burning still, fall back.
And yet I think, the close
association is intact. Black
represents anxiety - and
as for many others, speaks
of a depression. Even,
dare I say, that black dog
or the dark night of the soul.

14 comments:

The Weaver of Grass said...

Interesting stuff. I don't think of black in that way at all. Although I am rather scared of the dark, I do enjoy the really dark night with a myriad of bright stars and a total stillness. I wonder just how many different takes one could get for black, Dave - it must mean so many different things to so many people. Good poem.

Brian Miller said...

nice man...when you speak of poetry ther ein the middle i get this...writing has been a great therapy to me in processing my emotions...some i post and others is hold dear...

Mary said...

Interesting to think about the relationships between 'fear' and 'anxiety' and 'depression.' I think that poetry helps with all three and definitely think of black as a color of depression. Though sometimes, for me, grey is the color of depression....like an endless succession of cloudy days!

pilgrimchick said...

I like how you used the color black here. Feeling this way can seem overwhelming, and I think you captured that here.

Carl said...

The darkness may be the natural state, and bringing the light of thought and creativity to it can help us find our way. Much light a flashlight on a dark night

Helen said...

Enjoyed the way you brought 'night light' into the poem .. I never needed one either. :)
I toured a home last week ... one of the bedrooms was painted black. Wonder what that says about the owner? I hope he considers his bedroom a refuge, a safe place .. not a place for hiding.

Windsmoke. said...

Very dark but enjoyable all the same :-).

Kat Mortensen said...

Oh, say it! The black dog must have his day!

Peggy said...

I like the way you assigned the color black and darkness to these feelings--yet developed it in a creative way. I used darkness to represent negative things in my poem as well, and I didn't realize it until I read yours! Thanks.

kaykuala said...

Dark nights can be intimidating,Dave! I see that! But it can spawn ideas that bright lights detest. 'Black is beautiful',once before! What's happened to it, I wonder!

Hank

Elephant's Child said...

A really interesting take. I hadn't realised until I read this that for me black is soft and comforting and it is a particular shade of blue which signifies both anxiety and depression.

Dave King said...

A quickie with thanks to everyone

A bit short on time again today - a hospital having made a complete pig's ear of their appointments and swallowed up what remained of the day!

A big hi and welcome to my newcomers and thank you to all for your visits and comments.

I found the latter thoroughly fascinating, but incredibly difficult to sum up - as difficult as I found the original prompt, in fact.

jabblog said...

Should we rather embrace the dark, the black, and appreciate it or try to understand it rather than trying to push it away? I don't know.

The Bug said...

Even anxiety can be diminished by a light - or at least in my case it is. I often start drowning in that black fear only to realize that there's nothing really there once I've turned the light on & LOOKED at it.