I wanted to give some information about the poem “Drone.”

I wrote it, as it says, while I was mired in a depression.  I have never been able to adequately describe what it is like for me, what depression feels like most of the time.  It is incoherent and sloppily written but I have made no edits.  It is exactly as I wrote it and found it a few days later.

The drone itself is one of only a few auditory hallucinations I’ve ever had, and the only one that is consistent.  I have gotten to the point through many years of work that I can recognize a depression coming, or my husband does and warns me, but if I hear the drone, it’s too late; I’m too far away now.

I recall that I was lying in bed at this time, so the drone was inside me.  If I am walking, it follows me like a mindless creature, from habit, drawn to warmth.  It is in the same place every time, on my left, slightly behind me, floating along.  I see it as a sort of fuzzy ball, always black, about the size of a tennis ball. And the sound it makes, the best I can say, is a drone.  A deep, rumbling, yet quiet drone, like a bagpipe sort of, that’s the best way I can describe it.

It does hurt, depression, as I mentioned.  I’ll expand on that later.  But yes, it does physically hurt.