David Donlon

Ode to an Antidepressant

Once as a child I walked the sanded beaches,
Free of this damning neuro-transmitter disease,
But lately swept out and under by degrees
By an unrelenting undertow. My God,

To know the beauty of unstained brainwaves,
Safe from the treacheries and deceits of mind

But I flounder, I drag across the rocks,
The weight of my being caressed
By the icy fingers of darkness, suppressed,
My muscles bunched in useless knots.

If only I had the strength to breast the dim,
Then, grasping a miracle out of thin air
I would scratch the icicles from my hair,
And, eyeing land, swim.

David B. Donlon is a poet living in Alexandria, Virginia, whose work can be further sampled at http://www.erols.com/frmst1.htm.