TIPpression (Poem)

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All TIPsters are familiar with the crushing wave of depression, the apathy and desire to withdraw from the world and sleep for weeks when TIP is over.

During the height of TIPpression, rising third year Margaret Overton penned this poem/story/essay thing about the inner turmoil that all TIPsters feel at the end of TIP.


TIPpression

I've been curled up on my bed for two hours in a state of acute awareness of a disjointed reality.

I have complete control over my movement

But I am barely focused on my physical body

And almost consumed by the turmoil in my mind, soul, and spirit.

The memories, déjà vu, the songs, the voices of my friends and fellow TIPsters

The pictures I have in my mind's eye of the quad, dorms, classrooms, and the Marketplace

The sounds of my friends and classmates laughing and singing and cheering

And whispering to each other on the last night.


My mind has never felt more separate from my body

As if some unseen force is trying to keep the pain

In my heart, in my every thought, and breath, in every fiber of my existence

From tearing me apart.


It is the agony of this TIPpression

The joyless void of despair

The gaping hole torn in my heart by the loss of Max, Meral, Neel, Michael, Sydney, Jaz, Corrin, Charlie, Hannah, Ella, Emma, Wyatt, Derek, Grace, Andy, Meghan, Abigail, Matthew, Charlotte, Sonia, Alex, Clayton, Tyler - I could list two, three times as many names

But already I'm starting to lose control over the one thing I can ever be sure of

Now that the core of my existence and the basis of my reality has been taken from me:

Myself.


I can't think clearly, conversation becomes a burden, focusing on anything physically and mentally becomes a nearly impossible task that I can only do for so long

Before memories of TIP seep into the corners of my thoughts, rushing in like a flood to consume everything

In a tidal wave of emotional turmoil, heartbreaking loss, depression, apathy, and a strong desire to never have to think again

For fear that I might remember TIP

And lose the ability to maintain a grip on not only reality

But also my mind

My deepest emotions.

TIP is the only thing that keeps me sane

And because of this

TIP is the only thing that drives me insane.




During the last hours of his third year at TIP, Devlin Moyer wrote this poem to describe his emotional turmoil.

Ashes (or something, I have no official name for it)

The ashes of my heart have long gone cold.

Any love that may have once burned therein have moved on,

The climate to cold for any fire to start.

The storms rage forever more o'er the land of the lost,

The walls once keeping them safe now keeping them trapped.

All the fiery life now sealed in stone.

The ever-present beat is no more, the pulse of life slowly fading.

The trees struggle to grow, the sun never shining and the rain always falling.

The once verdant plains now icy tundra.

The lost wander forever more here in the ashes of my heart.