Toppled

"FALL SEVEN TIMES, STAND UP EIGHT." - JAPANESE PROVERB

"Fallen Soldier," 2007 oil on panel by Gerry Perrino

The latest headline to catch my eye from today's New York Times pays tribute to the final hours of business at Manhattan's legendary F.A.O. Schwarz.  An endlessly looping song traditionally played in its Steiff™-strewn foyer memorably proclaimed the two-story building a "World of Toys," albeit one of diminishing quality in this age of faceless Amazon and Walmart supply giants.  The store was also famed for the costumed employees greeting visitors at its door, dressed as members of the old fashioned Queen's Guard -- "toy soldiers" come to life, as if from out of The Nutcracker.  Recalling this, my mind immediately raced to retrieve not that ballet's libretto, but lyrics from late-'80s Billboard topper Martika.  Her smash hit "Toy Soldiers" was meant to illustrate a friend's debilitating cocaine use, but now, repeating select stanzas aloud, I am struck by how precisely they illustrate my depression, with its mental fog and physical weakness, much-worsened by starvation habits and compulsive rituals.  Observe:

It's getting hard to wake up in the morning
My head is spinning constantly
How can it be?
How could I be so blind to this addiction?
If I don't stop, the next one's gonna be me.

Only emptiness remains
It replaces all, all the pain.

Step by step
Heart to heart
Left, right, left
We all fall down
Like toy soldiers

Bit by bit
Torn apart
We never win
But the battle* rages on...

*FOR WHAT IT'S WORTH, I'M STILL FIGHTING.