Languor by Mariana Delgado

Languor

A Poetry Collection
confectioned by Mariana Delgado

For every single person whose emotions aren’t valued enough,


this one’s for you.




1

Page 13

From Home Body, Rupi Kaur
depression is silent
you never hear it coming
and suddenly it’s
the loudest voice in your head

2

Page 33

From Home Body, Rupi Kaur
anxiety feels like i’m hanging
off the side of a building
and my hand is going to
slip any second

3

Smile

Nat King Cole
Smile though your heart is aching
Smile even though it's breaking
When there are clouds in the sky, you'll get by
If you smile through your fear and sorrow
Smile and maybe tomorrow
You'll see the sun come shining through for you
Light up your face with gladness
Hide every trace of sadness
Although a tear may be ever so near

4

Speech: “To be, or not to be,
that is the question”

From Hamlet, William Shakespeare
To be, or not to be, that is the question:
Whether ‘tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles
And by opposing end them. To die—to sleep,
No more; and by a sleep to say we end
The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to.

5

We the Birds

Mariana Delgado

I make myself think of the selfish and ignorant
Human I’ve slowly become over time.
But why can’t I be one of those?
Who lives without regret or worry because they are
Everything I’ve ever wanted to be?

The reason I am the way that I am
Is because, in this society, you have to do
What everyone does in order to survive
Charles Darwin said it first.

A bird that can’t camouflage
Is prone to be hurt by the predators
A bird that doesn’t have the right beak
Is prone to starve because it can’t eat.
A bird that can’t become independent
Would face nature’s biggest hardships.
A bird that can’t fly
Would fall, and die

A person who can’t blend into their surroundings
Is hurt by the people who see them as outcasts
A person who doesn’t have the right body
Is prone to starve just to get that ideal shape
A person who is become medicine dependent
If not taken, would go through a 24-hour hell
A person who can’t motivate itself to keep going
Would fall, and die.

Why is our life Darwin’s theory of evolution?
When the point of everything is to be extraordinary?
Why are there cowards that critique your
Creativity to their content?

We are the birds to this planet
And the reason we do what the majority is doing
Is to avoid exclusion, hate, depression, death.
If we don’t adapt to our surroundings, we die.

So stop making this theory its own
Before it becomes a law of life.

6

“Tell me what’s wrong.”
That white couch felt like a void I could fall off from at any moment. The presence of a lump in the back
of my throat, tears begging for release, my heart pounding in my head…
Knowing what’s wrong and refusing to admit it is only one of the many things I did while dealing with
anxiety and depression for the past 6 years of my life. I pushed it under the covers until it became
impossible to ignore, and refuse to accept it until nowadays. It’s impossible to analyze what I’ve
experienced to its perfection, but every single poem here reflects in shorter words the feelings I couldn’t
and still can’t explain on this road of realization.
Rupi Kaur, an Indian poet who now resides in Canada, is one of those who put even the biggest feelings in
the smallest number of words to perfection. In her book Home Body, she focuses on the smaller
conversations we have with our own bodies. In her poems highlighted on pages 2 and 3, she describes the
feelings of anxiety and depression I face. She structures both of them in a four verse stanza. This short and
unusual structure shows how simple it can seem for other people when you feel your world is crippling. In
addition, interrupting one whole sentence by splitting it into four different verses is used to create a feeling
of impatience, related to the mental challenge I face almost daily. Moreover, her use of simple
personification and similes bring the illness to life as if they were humans. Describing them as “the loudest
voice in your head” or the feeling of “hanging off the side of a building” makes them so understandable to
society by comparing it to a feeling others could realistically experience.
Over time, I declined emotionally to the point I became a younger version of Hamlet, asking myself the
question of which was better: “To be or not to be.” The soliloquy by the White, English author, William
Shakespeare, is one that I sat to reflect on. Comparing the idea of dying to one where you go “to sleep”
reflects the carelessness one inherits with their life when they are depressed. In addition, the metaphor
between the suffering of life with “the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune” as emotional pressure and
complex situations eventually evolve into physical pain that leaves you unable to move. Your chest feels
lifeless as if a thousand arrows have pierced the air out of it.
In an attempt to overcome my hate towards this genetic flaw, I sought out Nat King Cole, an african-
american artist from the early 1900s who has always been one of my favorites because of my grandparents,
especially with his song “Smile.” It’s always been a tear-jerker for me, now more than ever. The repetitive
contrast between having “Smile” at the beginning of almost every verse and finishing it
with “aching,” “breaking,” “sorrow,” or “sadness” creates this balance where a person feels
understood but motivated to be happy. I try to listen to this whenever my “heart is
aching”, because the tone present is one that inspires me to “light up” my “face with
gladness.” In other words, the verses added to encourage me to smile because “maybe
tomorrow/ you’ll see the sun come shining through for you.”
Regardless of still suffering from anxiety, I’ve evolved to reflect on my experience
and those of other people, while also seeing it from an outsider's perspective. In my
own poem “We the Birds” I implement the metaphor between humans and the
“cookie-cutter” standards with Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution, where those
specimens who don’t adapt to the latest changes, die. This is something we
see in society so often where if people don’t do what others are
doing regardless of their personal opinion, they tend to fall
under social pressure which usually doesn’t end properly.
In addition to the metaphor, I use parallelism with words
such as “A bird” and “A person” to apply some
emphasis to the metaphor. I also use it with the word
“why” and make it repetitive in order to represent the
constant questioning I went through in this process.