Ballade of Major Depressive Disorder
The frustration's just too much sometimes, you know?
Kinda stretching the definition of the Ballade, I guess, but why not.
Oh I should specify that the only relation this has to going to Anthrocon is that the plane ride back gave me plenty of time to compile the notes into a finished piece.
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My generation does not hope,
So many of our elders say.
It deepens, like littoral slope,
Enfeebles like a caustic spray.
So much encouragement do they
Declaim into cacophony:
How we our future selves betray.
How in despair we must not stay.
Our eyes shall open, one dim day,
But through the noisome noise we'll see:
The winning move? Is not to play
And our despair has set us free.
We played your game of hope and change.
Our pockets and our dreams you bled.
There's no more home on no more range
And as you did, you have not said.
So now we hope as do the dead
Who no more disappointments see,
Who no more by desires are led,
Who all their chains, their bonds, have shed,
Who lie in purgatorial bed
Secure in their eternity
With nothing, now, to win or dread
And whose despair has set them free.
I wonder how you'll justify,
When I am gone, your vanity.
Will all the children you deny
Receive the slightest legacy?
Your splendors and your bright array
Must yet succumb to entropy.
All that is gold must turn to gray,
And plans of man must go astray,
And all you weave must fray, someday
And leave naught but an elegy
O'er level sands to drift away
Where its despair may set it free.
You charge me, then, with laziness?
You ask me why I do not care?
Conditions you must first address
Before such talk goes anywhere.
If we had but the slightest share
Of power or prosperity,
How answered would be every prayer!
How mightily we'd hope, I swear!
And no, I did not choose despair.
It is despair has chosen me.
At least it's always played me fair
For my despair has set me free.
Prince, if you truly cannot see
How what we are proceeds from thee,
'Tis hard, but what is that to me?
The gods your charges may dismiss—
Perhaps I'll vindicated be.
Though, Gods Above! I'm done with this,
For my despair has set me free.