There’s a weed grows wild in my garden,
I kill it but it still survives,
No poison or potion imagined
Can quell it, it lives though frequently dies.
It buries beneath to find nurture,
It spreads out, could take over the land,
But I prune it with shears every morning
Or else it would get out of hand.
It’s a bugger that haunted my growing,
Taunted whenever it could,
I bought all the pellets, I cropped it,
I did what I was told that I should
To stifle its errant persuasion
For no one can live while it feeds,
It sucks all the flavour from living,
It thrives as can only a weed.
I looked again, freshly, one morning,
I hated its sight in my eyes,
Recognised world and its worries
And my nature combined fuelled its lies.
I wept at the weed, strong despite me,
Forgave it its nature and face
But begged for the chance to grow flowers
In most of the wide-open space.
I became gardener to flowers,
To roses and riots of blooms,
I decreed weed was unwelcome,
I accept it but it gives me some room
To be all the me that I can be
For inside of the weed there’s a charm,
Understanding its nature, accepted,
I refused to be controlled or be harmed
By the power of depression that fixes
Into crevices, people and place,
I chose to be happy, I still do,
In spite of the weeds that I face.
Its not all a garden of roses,
It’s not all a wasteland of weeds,
I plant what I can, where I can,
How I can, and hope is the best of my seeds.
Now I see gardens where both grow,
Possession is nine-tenths the law,
I pluck them, I fuck all the stranglers,
Rose-tinted with a hopeful hacksaw.
I recognise that there are many types of depression and that not all can be addressed by a shift in perception. For me, it worked. It was either that or live on anti-depressants. The world depressed me and is still capable of doing so. I choose not to let it as best as I can. With hope and fight. And every tool at my disposal – sharpened.
scottishmomus 