Hide and Seek
For children who are just learning the meaning of depression
Close your eyes and count to ten.
Open them back up and then
You’ll realize I’m gone.
Make a guess at where I’m hiding.
As you’re looking I’ll be biding
My time. Don’t take too long.
Where is it that you first will look?
Will you know what path I took
In leaving you behind?
Can you guess where I am now?
I think I doubt you will, somehow.
You can’t understand what you can’t find.
A promise and a warning,
I could be waiting in the morning,
Waiting in the shafts of sunny day.
I could be hiding in the breezes;
In the water when it freezes;
Or in the waves that crash upon the cay.
A hint: I’m hiding in your mind
In caverns deeply scarred and lined
By feelings that you’ve tried to throw away.
You’ll never hope to find me here,
The place that above all you fear,
So here within the shadows I will stay.
I look around at memories cursed
And realize this isn’t the first
Game that, in your denial, you have played.
But if you bury deep inside
The anguish you mask with your pride
Then nothing new and nothing good is made.
Look for me in times of trial,
But as you search, know all the while
That it’s you who was hiding all along.
Someday I will take your hand
And maybe then you’ll understand
Where it is exactly you belong.
Sometimes it’s hard to deal with pain
But when knocked down, get up again
And you can face the horrors that betide you.
Then when your hiding days are done,
And your seeking days have just begun,
You’ll see that I was always right beside you.
(2012)
There is a lot involved in this poem, and it is inspired by a large number of people I have met throughout my life. In one idea the sum of the meaning can be derived from the lack of motivation that depression can bring. Depression is a powerful force, slowing daily activities and responsibilities, and can be a poison to the progression minded. It can be understandably difficult to rise above that force: difficult, but not impossible. I am a firm believer in the idea of mind over matter. If you face an obstacle, and you attempt to defeat it, attempt it as if nothing else in the world matters, then you will overcome that obstacle in one way or another. But the point is that you have to try.
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