I've written a poem. It's depressing, the child of depression. I feel better now.

The Void--a poem

Yawning at my feet--
        An abyss
                  Blacker than night
                  Blacker than black
                  Bleak and black
                 
It sprawls before me--
          Universes could be swallowed whole
                     Lost without a trace
                     Every last dust mote consumed
                     Devoured
                     Lost within the Void


Empty
         Though it has devoured Everything
          Still it hungers...
                      Life
                      Dreams
                      Hope

All lost
             All sucked into the dead, cold nothing
             The nothing that is the void.
                         No matter how much--
                                       How much it takes
                                       How much it swallows in chunks it rips from my soul
                          It is insatiable

And still it crams its relentless maw
                      and eats
                               and eats
                                        and eats

It eats until 
             silence
                     light
                           darkess
                                    even space itself

Are gone


The abyss at my feet  
             The abyss in my soul.
                            The void, blackest and bleakest,
                                         Immense  and implacable
Unfolds itself--
             stretches out its massive tentacles
                         Engulfs my heart
                                                    my soul


It takes everything but consciousness
That is left--inexplicable--to know

The void is inside.

The void is outside

There is nothing but the void

And the terrible, terrible ache of longing

The emptiness

The void.
                        

Life is .....

beyond my meager comprehension....

I've been battling a pretty serious state of fucked-upedness this week.

I suppose that going to the new therapist has stirred up a lot of shit and I am so deep in depression that I seriously just want to die.

I saw her again on Monday--she wanted the reader's digest version of the family life, so that she "knew where I had been" and could get a handle on it.

I recited the litany as if it were a nursery rhyme and without much emotion--but ever since then, it has been like being chewed up by a chipper shredder.  I've been crying all the time.  It's sickening.

I'm so tired of it.  My head hurts and I want to sleep ALL THE TIME.


I'm not even sure what I'm crying about--I just feel unbearably sad and so alone.

Anyhow--

I have an assignment from her--something about the kind of support network I need--who would be in it--how it would work--what I need from it.

I don't know jack.

Mostly, I want to be left alone when I am in pain.  I don't want someone hovering over me wanting me to explain why it hurts.

so, that is my current emotional state--SUCKAGE.

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In other news....

Today, I put a patch on a pair of jeans for one of the boys--i sewed it by hand--it was a huge patch.  hehe
i did a nice neat job of it, if I do say so myself.

Also, today, one of my boys came into the room, and I could see right away that something was not right.   I said, "Hey, Tim, How's it going?"

He said, "Pretty shitty, Cheryl"

 I said, "Sorry to hear that.  Anything I can do?"

He said, "No."

 I taught class--then at the end, as they were lining up by the door as they always do--I said, "Tim," and crooked my finger at him in the time honored, "come here" signal

He came over with a look on his face, like, "NOW WHAT?"

 I stood up and put my arms around him and hugged him tight.  I whispered--"I can't do anything for your problems,  but I can care and love you."

And he just sort of melted into my arms--I felt his hurt lifting.  The feeling of being alone in his misery leaving. He is a BIG boy too--very tall--at least  a foot taller than me.  But when I hugged him, it was like hugging a very little boy.  He asked when my prep was and if he could come in and talk to me.

I said, "You are ALWAYS welcome in my room, Tim."

So, during my prep he came in and spilled the story--a girl was involved, of course. I gave him my teacherly/motherly/big sisterly advice, and he left in  much better spirits.

At the time, I wasn't thinking about anything except Tim--my eyes were filled with tears at HIS misery--after he went back to class (with me fibbing to Nick, the math teacher who is not at all touchy feely, that I needed him to help me with something--I am notoriously SHORT--and always impressing someone tall to help me with stuff)
after he went back to class, I sat in my room thinking how easy it was to help that little stinker--and wondering why it is apparently SO IMPOSSIBLE for me to get anything like that for my own self.

Is it that other people are just less observant and able to pick up on the clues than I am?  Or is it that they just don't care--or that I am unworthy of that kind of care?

I don't know.

The highlight of my day was eating Chicken and Broccoli from China King for lunch.

Yummy