Guest Blog: Writing Poems on Antidepressants

Nikki Moustaki is the author of The Complete Idiot's Guide to Writing Poetry and is a recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts grant. She has taught at New York University, Indiana University, and the New School. The following poem was first published in the Bellevue Literary Review.

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WRITING POEMS ON ANTIDEPRESSANTS

Writing poems on antidepressants
is hard. You can appreciate the difficulty
by reading the previous two lines.
Metaphors are easy
to come by when you're aching
or pining or wounded in love,
which scientists have proven is a type of madness
and madness can be cured with a pill.
Not everyday
is Paris. Not everyday
does a bird come winging
out of a carpet to give you a free metaphor,
especially if there are oranges on the table
and you're on your meds.
Each day offers some little irony or a dream
or a blind albino woman
sitting next to you on the train
with eyelashes like white silk threads
attached like broom-straw to her one closed eye
as she taps her cane against the window
and you, the poet on antidepressants,
thinks: look at that, hmmm, interesting.
Did I buy dog food? Here's my stop.

- Nikki Moustaki