<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="yes"?><oembed><version><![CDATA[1.0]]></version><provider_name><![CDATA[Ballastexistenz]]></provider_name><provider_url><![CDATA[https://ballastexistenz.wordpress.com]]></provider_url><author_name><![CDATA[Mel Baggs]]></author_name><author_url><![CDATA[https://ballastexistenz.wordpress.com/author/ameliabaggs/]]></author_url><title><![CDATA[Because I have never liked gravitational metaphors of&nbsp;depression.]]></title><type><![CDATA[link]]></type><html><![CDATA[<p>&#8230;they always seemed backwards to me, all the stuff about &#8220;falling into a depression&#8221;, as if gravity would always pull you down into the dumps.  So I wrote these, instead.  (Don&#8217;t remember when, they&#8217;re in a giant file of my poems.)  Because it seems to me the opposite, depression involves pulling yourself away from reality, against gravity.</p>
<p><strong>Rising Into Sadness</strong></p>
<p>When the world is a graveyard<br />
Of dusty skeletons falling apart<br />
And the sky cannot be seen<br />
And even the pines are no longer green<br />
I know that there have been<br />
Too many words</p>
<div align="right"><strong>Falling into Joy</strong></p>
<p>Tossed for moments into living color sky<br />
Ever falling back to a cushion of drabness<br />
This is the way of the world, we said<br />
Watching our eyes adjust to the dimness<br />
Gravity works funny ways, said the world<br />
For those who trust in words<br />
Laughing to itself<br />
As the ashen floor crumbled<br />
Knocking the wind out of us<br />
Smelling the soil as sky blinded our eyes<br />
We had landed on solid green</p></div>
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