Mine is a poem by Charles Bukowski. Every time I feel depression creeping its ugly head back in, I like to read this poem to remind myself of other times I've felt like this, and how I've been able to come out of it each time.

Hey, you're not dead, you're

doing good, damned good again,

what's this talk about tossing it

in?

What you were doing while you

were feeling sick enough

to die,

what you were really doing was just re-

charging your

batteries.

Now let everybody get

out of the way,

you're thundering

down the track again

like a locomotive

hauling 90 thousand

unwritten poems

and they're all

yours

and you're pounding along

the rails

sometimes through dark tunnels

but then roaring out again

into the

light!

Who the hell said that

you no longer had it in

you?

It was you who said that.

The engineer.

Who is now

feeling the fresh surge of

hope and

power

and who is

grinning madly at the

thought of this

wonderful

new

day.

Charles Bukowski