Thursday, June 24, 2010

Guest Blog: Depression Session

Abby Caplin, MD, MA practices mind-body medicine and counseling in San Francisco. She helps people living with chronic medical conditions to lead empowered and vibrant lives, reclaiming their wholeness despite illness (http://www.abbycaplinmd.com/). Abby also offers a weblog, Permission to Heal, for people who are "up in the middle of the night or down in the middle of the day" because of illness. The following poem was first published in Pulse Magazine.

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DEPRESSION SESSION

The chopped apple of her father's eye,
She tastes the grapes of her mother's drunken wrath
The barely visible slivers of silver-tongued almond
Needle her intestines as she savors
The seedless watermelon of fruitless friendships,
And endures the hard rind
Of a body gone awry,
To be chewed and chewed until swallowed or
Spat out. A salad of sorts
Surrounded by lemons
Home-grown, organic, bitter
And full of juice. She brings me a tough
Clear plastic bag filled with them
To our session.
"They're the last of the season," she tells me.
I pray this is true,
While at home, I pore through cookbooks,
Searching for yet another recipe.

- Abby Caplin