Poems and Depression

Posted on Fri Oct 28th, 2022 @ 10:21am by Captain Bethsabée Leroux

Mission: Sojurn
Location: Senior Officer Quarters
Timeline: Day 320 04:00
593 words - 1.2 OF Standard Post Measure

Beth stirred and was instantly aware that she was not alone in bed with a jump. She smiled as she realised Michael had snuck in at some point and was very much sound asleep despite her sudden movement. She really needed to talk to him about the fact that they were using his quarters instead of her larger one but every time it was brought up it was brought up with a joke over him being thrown in the brig. Maybe the joke would one day get old but it did not seem like it would any time soon for him. She watched him sleeping for a long moment taking in everything about him as she saw him resting what looked like comfortably for the first time in a long time.

She slowly moved away fearing her sudden insomnia would rob him of the rest he needed and climbed over him moving to his desk area. She sat slowly in the chair fearing a squeak from it protesting the sudden weight. She angled the lamp away from the sleeping area and turned on one bar of the light so she could look at the poem that she had been working on the night before.

Whose friend is that? I think I know.
Its owner is quite sad though.
It really is a tale of woe,
I watch her frown. I cry hello.

She gives her friend a shake,
And sobs until the tears make.
The only other sound's the break,
Of distant waves and birds awake.

The friend is pleasant, heavy and deep,
But she has promises to keep,
Until then she shall not sleep.
She lies in bed with ducts that weep.

She rises from her bitter bed,
With thoughts of sadness in her head,
She idolises being dead.
Facing the day with never ending dread.

She dropped the PADD in stunned realisation of how dark and down her thoughts were truly becoming and sighed to herself. She had always enjoyed writing poems to contemplate in the process of her thoughts but now she regretted every word that should’ve wrote on the PADD. An overwhelming feeling of dread took over and for a moment Beth just sat there trying to work out what her next move would be talking to the man who was asleep, talking to Avira or talking to Gerhard were her options and none of them pleasant at all.

The Captain for a brief moment, contemplated all she had fought for and all she could lose if she gave up now. Michael had been right before when he said even with Gerhard there was no real leader to carry on and a power vacuum would tear the ship apart if she did not get some help. She was determined to keep going, to simply swallow the sense of depression and deal with it later.

But so much had happened thanks to Smith, three Marines lost, Reade dying thanks to an brain aneurysm that had been impossible to fix. Both coiling or clipping had been used to try and repair the ruptured brain aneurysm but it had not worked, the knock had been more extensive than had been let on until it was two late.

On any other day she probably would have gone to bed and rested to make sure the mental anguish she was finally experiencing was not made worse by exhaustion, but not today.

Today was a day of pushing the limits it seemed as she started to delete word by word the poem.