Tag: depression

I wrote you a love letter

She makes me cross-eyed

My dearest,

Do you want to know what hiding anxiety and depression look like?

Try an erattic pulse, forgetting to breathe, anticipating the worst and soothing that only comes through the reassurance of intimate connection.

Try looking at the relentless gym goer, the man obsessed with providing the best life he can to  his family, or even extend an eye of empathy to the war mongers who see no healing except through expressing how much they want to kill themselves, by curating outwardly creative, yet deceitful ways to justify killing others.

And on the topic of suicide, how do they hide, those suicidals?

We hide in prayer, in worship, in devotion to something larger than ourselves. 

You may think strangely of the above, but if you allowed yourself deeper reflection, you’d realise, that we have to stop pathologising these things, and rather see them as symptoms of not extending every last fibre of our being to a cause.

Not expressing the immense tapestry of our abilities onto the world and releasing it in creative and artistic splendour.

It’s the soul taking you to account, the inner knowing, that voice that speaks to you and again is not a stigmatic label like schizophrenia nor a disorder of any fashion, it’s that buzzing, that noise that won’t go away, urging you into action.

Anxiety, depression, suicidal thoughts and a whole host of concocted psychological disorders are just by-products of unfulfilled potential incessantly knocking on your door. It’s the gnawing consciousness ear bashing you, soul crushing you, so that like cardamon, you release a fragrance.

Don’t be sold on these ideas that are hell bent on categorising you and lulling you into inaction and the comfort of a diagnoses (read: excuse). Rather, understand them as cues to spring into action because your soul knows you are capable of more.

So see all my efforts and exasperation as just answering the call, as a reluctance to procrastination, as a fulfilling of a Godly command, to realise our fullest potential in total and utter gratitude.

Wesam El dahabi

wonderless, wanderless

Disconnect, seems to be the only thing that lingers,
familiarity like pulse, like breath,
like work beaten out of your forehead,
all that relieves, all that comforts,
only ever a wish, despondent,
a reminder like a splinter,
small, intolerable,
stuck,
and in your fingers.

W.E.

Anxiety, the liar


It takes a lot of stepping in and out of yourself,
to know anxiety,
is a host you don’t entertain.
But most don’t travel in deep enough,
or away far enough,
to get an honest view of it all.
Instead, they entertain and feed it,
with the sugar and junk food of being,
with self coaxing,
blurring to a fine film of self loathing.

-Wesam El dahabi

dear grief – 14

 

It’s meant to be a release,
but it singes either way.

The ney,
wails reluctantly,
sorrow ensues,
by the breath of the entertainer.

He assumes he fashioned you this grief,
and gives no credit to the flute maker,
who crafted the scale and haunt,
out of nothing more than bamboo and a file,
and assumption of engulfing the mourner with embrace.

Little do both care,
the ney can only cry so much,
before it’s reed is discarded,
and it’s body turned to mulch.

W.E.

unbecoming

unbecome
I’m so afraid of unbecoming,
that I’ve un-become.
So stifled in the midst of stillness,
with no one to turn to,
nowhere to run.

This cycle of oft returning,
ever burning,
helpless abasement,
and stomach churning.

I can’t stop it,
so with irony wrought for imbeciles,
I fight it,
I grit my teeth and face it.

And in the thick of battle,
with no one to turn to,
with no where to run,
that is where courage forges inside you,
That is where the war is won,
Valour and bravery, one in one.

You’ll find us always in the midst,
lost in the haze,
disorientated in the fog,
with stillness, in this is the meditative state,
sticking it through until the covenant,
promised by God,
‘Verily with hardship comes ease,
verily with hardship comes ease’,
is fulfilled.

-Wesam El dahabi.

dear grief -2

dear-grief2

there is a darker side to grief,
most won’t admit it,
but self therapy,
makes you admit things,
things a normal therapist will have you ignoring.

writing out grief through prose,
makes me admit things only I know.
here i flow, here i grow,
one moment in tears, the next, a tantrum throw.

upward a spurt, then cut down in hurt,
we paint the pretty side of grief,
as going through the colloquial norms,
sadness, depression, hurt, longing, mania, whatever.

but what about indifference, insensitivity,
ignorance, anger, rage,
what about the state of not giving a fuck,
what about tearless, heartless, remorseless?

i propose all you down your glasses looking honcho’s,
step down from your fake professions,
humans are going to take over,
from the pseudo industries you have created.

therapy is going to come in the form of,
poetry, writing, painting and all the arts,
it will come from fighting, breaking, spilling blood,
it will come from silence, indifference, numbness, intolerance and narcissism,
until we find our own little niche to carve a nest for ourselves.

enough already, you’ve damaged the world enough,
let us grieve, grow,
sieve and know,
plough and sew,
wait for our flow,
hide in basements of darkness,
or shine in bright suns glow,
whatever which way,
when it’s time, we’ll know.

W.E.

Suicide (mental) note

suicide

The only thing harder than suicide
is living with the inner war of
cowardice and bravery for not
going through with it

-Wesam El dahabi.

How does the dichotomy turn into reconciliation,
How do answers agree with questions,
When ending it seems the only suggestion,
From the highs of elation and the lows of depression.

How do I look myself in the face,
When all I can conjure is utter disgrace,
Wherever I find myself, I’m out of place,
Death seems such a worthy embrace.

Then my cowardice kicks in, urges me to go on,
Ignore bravery and sing life’s song,
Urges me there’s more for me, the journey is long,
And I have to fake for others, being strong.

W.E.

random memories of you

I have a mistress,her name is sorrow,
grief,
shall be our child.
-W.E.

but how will sorrow’s womb be fertile,
if she leaves no room for my whisper,
how will I inherit grief
to carry on my name
if the sporadic nature of her call
is through the most mundane

how will grief grow bones and skin and eyes and fingers
if her bosom sees no sun nor candle

so don’t look at me as a madman, an adulterer, a man of the tavern or temple
just let me be this brittle being
hidden-unseen, having been
an in between, anything but unclean

the loss of a child strikes you mad,
when grief is a metaphor for dad.

W.E.