Postcards From the Edge OR Notice of Intent

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R._N._Taber

This poem provoked a flood of emails after it first appeared on the blog and in my collection during 2007. Most readers expressed pleasure if not relief that I was airing a condition with which many of us are forced to deal, frequently on a regular basis.

Many of my poems touch on the trauma of depression albeit ending on a positive note. Why is that? Well, for a start, too many people continue to underestimate depression, believing it synonymous with being very fed-up. It is an attitude that needs to change. Depression is tough enough without family, friends and work colleagues implying that all we have to do is pull our damn socks up!

There was a time when attitudes towards my sexuality provoked bouts of severe depression, especially as I have been prone to depression since early childhood (not recognized in children and young people then as it is now.) There are multiple causes of depression. We are all vulnerable to it, especially in the kind of world in which we live today although I dare say every century has had its various stresses and strains under which some people have buckled for one reason or another (there is rarely a single cause.)

My dear late mother used to say that when things are looking bad, the trick is to focus on all the good things in life and people. A simple idea, yes, even a trite thing to say. Ah, but does it work? Oh, yes!!! Maybe not right away but, like most things in life, we have to work at it.

Be understanding, patient and supportive towards with depressed people. yeah? Don't rush to write us off (as many people do) as whingeing wasters. Spread the word that there is no stigma in being depressed, and hopefully people might rush to understand (instead of rushing off in the opposite direction) the man, woman or child who so needs that understanding, patience and support.

POSTCARDS FROM THE EDGE or NOTICE OF INTENT

Driven to the naked edge of a snake pit, peering in,
all but poised to leap, defy demons on the brain
constantly jeering because I’m gay, weary of family
and friends urging no surrender to a growing desire
for my own gender, thus acknowledging this, a sexual
identity integral to every other part of me, although
those parts the same, no less true for being honest,
drawn to home truths haunting me since that dawn
I confronted myself for who I am, even as I continued
to perpetuate a sham of being straight (taught a sin,
at the very least a crime - to be gay)

With each new day, subtle shifts of opinion, even in
a fickle media, then legislation intended to give gay
men and women a kinder freedom

I'd stood alone and scared, desperate to end these lies,
half lies, a creeping among shadows like a thief,
seeking a love I dare not own in the face of society's
resolve to expose me for even less than a nobody
crucify me on that old stand-by Cross of Convention
but time, now to let history see I am my own person,
refusing point blank to be made subservient to stereotype.
while not my intention to offend those who mean well,
stood by with tears in their eyes watching the local bigots
breaking our backs with rods for straws, little thought
to making repairs because mud sticks

No more snake pits, self-blame, being made to feel
like a candidate for some Walk of Shame, time to get real,
put closet ways behind me

Copyright R. N. Taber 2007; 2018

[Note: An earlier version of this poem appears in Accomplices to Illusion by R. N. Taber, Assembly Books 2007]