Poems by Denise Sedman
Under the Influence of Depression: Group Meetings
We signed a confidentiality agreement,
so, if you think you know us
you really don’t!
Regulating,
medicating, and
suffocating
You said, “I’m depressed.”
How depressed are you?
“I am so depressed
I cannot go one minute
without saying I’m depressed.”
Climb out of your foxhole.
Attend one more meeting.
We are all depressed.
Congregating,
contemplating, and
vegetating
We have problems,
not fake ones,
but real problems.
We can’t get out
We can’t get out
Get out of the hole
Get out of the hole
Crying,
Sobbing,
Weeping,
Heaving, and
Believing
Three pills a day,
just three makes
the blues go away.
Who helps us?
Who helps us?
Who helps us?
Flat broke
smacks us
in the face,
but we were once:
Executive,
Big Shot,
Manager,
Supervisor, and
Head of the rodeo
What did you say?
Your mother wants you back
the way you used to be.
Out-of-sorts,
Off-kilter,
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest,
and crazy,
Who said that?
Dim-witted,
dumb ass.
We don’t want to be depressed.
We’ll just snap out of it!
The Blue Marble
My sister stole a blue marble
from a Chinese Checker’s game,
glued it on the lid of a Popsicle-stick box,
Made one-word-sheets of
paper, tore them in to pieces,
stuffed better-day dreams inside.
No one cares. Not one bit at all.
Go mumble to yourself,
look outside through bars,
watch Soap Operas all day,
make a gimp for your sister, but
do not open a locked door.
When my sister said:
“I’m going to kill myself.”
Our father said:
“I don’t give a fuck. Kill yourself.
Get the fuck out of here.”
How the knife got back in the drawer
before she shimmied next to me in bed,
I do not know,
but I died a hundred deaths.
About the Poet
Denise Sedman is an award-winning poet from the Detroit area. Recent work has been featured in San Pedro River Review, New Verse News, Nassau Review, Gravel Literary and Poets Reading the News. She has a poem in the 2017 Nasty Women Poets anthology by Lost Horse Press. Her signature poem, “Untitled,” was the source for architect students at University of Detroit Mercy to build a temporary environment in Detroit. The original poem was featured in Abandon Automobile, Wayne State University Press, 2001.
