My Companion Elegiac

Contemplations on My Journey with Depression

(Author’s Note: It seems fitting that today, my 58th birthday, I offer this compilation of writings about one aspect of my life that has played a significant role in shaping the person I have become and am becoming).

The First Reading

The Creature On My Shoulder

(From June 12, 2019)

I have always liked ravens.
Not because of a certain Poe-m or its iconic phrase.
It is not that.
I have admired their black bodies’ flashing hues, sparkling eyes, cackling conversations in the spinning trees above me as I step out into the clinging fabric of another day.

The one that sits on my shoulder is silent.
Even on good days, it is there, a shadow just on the edge of my vision.
I sense its weight, shifting ever so slightly when I move my heavy arms to the task at hand.

We are reluctant companions at best.

Read the entire compilation on Medium

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