My 3 Best Mental Health Poems About Depression

I hope you enjoy three of my best depression poems from my first book, In Search of Happiness.

You Can't Write Poetry About Depression

You can’t write poetry about depression
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You have to feel it

It has to seep out of your bones
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It has to leak out of your eyes

The poetry is in the becoming

the shifting feeling

the falling breath

the terror of monotony

the naked desperation

the losing of hope

and the long wondering if it will ever return



You can’t write poetry about depression

You have to experience it

You have to know it like a brother

And you have to hate it

so much that you use it
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you terrorize it
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for what it did to you
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Until you see the sudden strength

hidden within the darkness

Until you become the darkness

and in so doing

you realize

you’ve always had the light

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Shame is a  Box

Shame is a box.

Silence, its walls.

Inside, the air is stale.

Nothing gets in.

Nothing goes out.

Just

the lingering, rancid stench of shame.

And shame is not an easy feeling to handle.

If it feels oppressive, it’s because it  is oppressive.  

Of all the tools in the public’s tool belt, shame packs a hefty punch.

Social media missives become missiles,

targeted

to destroy.

Sent to enclose the person in his box, inside of his shame.

The world feels small in there.

But a box is a box,

not a castle.

It’s not an impenetrable fortress.

That’s the funny thing about shame.

The walls are made of silence,

and they can be walked through at any time.

It’s the fear of failure, of annihilation,that keeps the person contained

within the walls of shame.

But there is a way out.

It starts with truth, and it comes from within.

It’s a budding awareness

that grows and grows until the person in the box

outgrows the box — and slides through the walls of shame.

Fortunately,

truth knows no bounds.

Self-love is shapeless.

It’s a chameleon.

Because it knows no shape, its potential is unlimited.

That which is formless fits no box

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Hope is a Funeral

Hope is a battle

A broken dream

A mist, a swamp, a fire

Hope is not what you think it is

It’s an uplifting funeral pyre

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If these three mental health poems spoke to you, I have many more like them--in addition to many that are not about depression, but other common mental health issues--in my 5-star-rated debut mental health poetry book In Search of Happiness: HealingThrough Mental Health Poetry.

Mental health issues are not only common, they are a part of who we are.

‍We all deal with them, so we might as well try to understand them.

A Final Thought on Mental Health Poems and Depression

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Thank you for reading my mental health poems. With so much focus on mental illness and how much we all struggle with it, I wanted to take a different approach with my first book.
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I know there are books and writers out there that emphasize mental illness and depression and how difficult it is.

I'm not negating that--or the important work they do.

My mission is to provide accessible, meaningful community resources that increase insight and develop understanding.

Mental health resources don't have to be about doom and gloom. They don't have to be about empty jargon and scare tactics.

I hope my mental health poetry and the articles I've written on The Mental Health Update open a window through which you find meaning in your own life.

The resources on this site are here for you to use.
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