Category: mental-health

Sleeping Alone

Sleeping alone –
so intrusive –
a child born of
so many intentions
awash in a trail
of barricades

I cope, cook up
breezes, strike
wet ground,
stuff myself
to satiate
the onslaught

ground rapidly
shifting –
Earth Mother
exerting presence –
too stubborn,
I turn away

Look for
God, but my
cup keeps moving –
I am unreachable,
charmed by
a broken tale

aimless,
oppositional,
overwhelmed –
cry out but
absence holds
no listeners

need adhesive
to fix this urgency –
a peerless torrent –
if only I could simplify
these wounds
find a stopgap

emotion
bubbles up
overflows
manifests
external turmoil
replaying sorrow

sleep offers
no repair
alone
tormented
by the issue
at hand.

(Image: blogs.voanews.com)

Flawed

Why do I try to please
those whose motivation
is only self-serving, material
gain more important than
intrinsic rewards?

How is that I’ve tied
myself to the downtrodden,
dependent upon the nay-sayers –
those lacking imagination
incapable of celebration

settling for the mundane,
as if choices are limited?
I want to embrace each day,
dignify each moment,
regale the glory

life is miracles
and mystery, passages
and opportunity; and I yearn
to break through the walls
of limitation and rejoice

yet I am subjected
to the whims of others,
passion overridden by
disappointment, convinced
I am never enough.

(Image from pinterest)

 

 

Preposterous Business of Balance

I have tried to be pragmatic,
to adopt a religious perspective,
even found potential in support,
driven myself to make peace
be a model for my family,
a yet, no amount of contriving
can help me get over
the incest thing.

Dirty secrets
define our family
support ugly cliques
fearful of helpful outsiders
questioning probability
of untainted providers
dubious of alliances –
a sense of humour,
our only strategy –
we united psychologically
divorced ourselves from evils
projected into outer circles
confined to chaos

If I married my paranoia
to a more thoughtful version
of self, would that create
a calming union?
could it be that we are born
with checks and balances,
and is it even legit
to presuppose that balance
is achievable, and what about
partners – don’t they bring
their own amount of excitable
energy to the mix, and
how then is equilibrium
supported?

(Image: smashinghub.com)

Heartquake

mind regresses
in the aftershock –
tremors of misspent
devotion reverberate
suffocating debris

teenage hearts
caught in the quake –
a marital schism –
plucked unripe
sweetness battered

I, colourless
abandoned, like
a runner-up in
a beauty pageant
forgotten, flailed

failed as a mother
withdrawn, rattled
psyche exploding
survival a slow crawl
challenges weighty

aligned my burden
with that of another
six adolescents, and
a bi-polar man looking
for female direction

craved the laughter
of children, the sanity
of structures unbroken
dust of the aftermath
clouding sensibility

anarchy rejoices
at lack of clarity
loss of control, dreams
of bliss have no home
when depression rules

retrace steps –
ponder the road
that led to destruction
search for light before
darkness took possession

found a trail of
foundations lacking
fortitude, wrought
with cracks, underlying
angst threatening

the earthquake, I see
as inevitability –
my landscape strewn
with fault lines
corrupt under stress

drama follows the weak
an internal compression
and shifting, uncontainable
wildness – destined to
destroy – breakthrough

(Image: dictionary.reference.com)

 

 

Losing Language

hardwood…
it rolls off my tongue
stops in mid-air, mind halting
Is that a real word?
I stretch for familiarity,
find none – I apologize
quizzical expressions
indicate my mistake –
such a funny word,
I fumble for explanation
humiliation crowding

How do you spell resile?
my English teacher brain
searches, comes up empty
Do you mean reconcile?
No.  So I google it
discover its validity
spell it out –
can’t say I ever knew the word

thicket, I type
and then back space –
need a term to describe
prickly shrubbery, off
the beaten path, but
it eludes me, the letters
line up but fail to evoke
recognition. why

is my mind turning,
blank spaces replacing
stored knowledge, as if
corruption has overtaken
memory’s files – thoughts
sputter, drop beginnings
and endings of words –
dragging me through muddy
fog, shutting me down…

(Note:  for those that don’t know me,
I am challenged by ME/CFS, a disease
that affects cognitive functioning. 
Writing is a way for me to battle
the deterioration – this poem
illustrates the frustration.

Image: pixelmuttz.blogspot.com)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A Nightmare in Poetic Form

(Note:  Inspiration for my poetry is derived from the Dreamtime.  Occasionally, a nightmare will evoke the creation of a short story.  A recent nightmare continues to haunt me, so I have attempted both forms of literature to garner new meaning.  The poem follows and the prose version can be seen here.  Which form offers more insights I wonder?  objectivity in the form of comments appreciated.

Nightmare:  A Poem

Melancholy hovers, haunts,
fed by isolation, taunts
threads of sanity.

Darkness, incomplete,
reveals movement –
trickery of light?

Fear’s grip renders
motionless its victim
serenity shattered

Logic has no tolerance
for the undefined,
ghosts off-limits

Is disease the culprit,
inflammation upsetting
equilibrium, a mind aflame?

The veil between worlds
is flimsy, unhinged, shifts
awareness now peaked

I know you are there!
Show yourself!
Stillness.

Madness threatening,
pleas gather insistence
Come forward – be known!

These are merely games
one reality pit against
another, neither winning

A feminine figure emerges –
her presence emitting an aura
of alarm, indicates a window

Two figures, cloaked in black
towering shadows stalking
live prey, the scent of vulnerability

The ego withdraws, seeks
cover, cannot stop the onslaught
of monsters emerging from walls

Delusion, one last prayer for sanity
but the floorboards recede, reveal
skeletons, there is no escape

 

 

Needs Not Applicable

Needs, you insolent, little
bastards – interfering
with my independence,
gnawing at these walls

Nasty, you are, and heartless –
pathetic, infantile, cowardly
what part of unwanted
do you not understand?

I am making a stand –
choosing to erect barricades –
a stronghold of invincibility –
quit circling the fortress

your endless chatter
annoying me to distraction –
I will have none of it –
will not tolerate vulnerability

I am strong, singular
do not need sympathy,
empathy, understanding,
nor acknowledgment

I am an island –
self-sufficient and proud –
and your insignificance is a blot
on my otherwise perfect landscape.

(Image: www.dreamstime.com)

Teach Her Well

(Poem inspired by previous post:  Choosing Self Love )

A locked door
a screaming sister
a mother in despair

a child rejected,
scorned, neglected
blames herself

carries the cross
of her mother’s burden
through passing years

bears responsiblity
for a husband’ poor
choices; bleeds guilt

is still the child,
wounded, insecure,
her needs abandoned

desperation motivates
her thrust for control,
to orchestrate harmony

cannot see the fallacy
disappointments repeating
loathes perceived inadequacy

needs someone to unlock
the door, quiet the yelling,
hold her through her fears

teach her that in compassion
is detachment, that she is
worthwhile, and deserving

begin a legacy of self-love,
initiate a path to healing,
release these lifelong tethers.

 

Thwarted

Have been unearthing the boxes
of my subconscious, clearing ill-
cast tales, intent on an end goal –
restitution at very least, but

my sister, no stomach for process,
wants to suction up the guck –
impatient for a quick cleanse –
plugs the workings:  therapy,

a finicky machine, falters,
water oozes between cracks;
we are flooded by mutual
wounds, personal emoting

ankle-deep in truths neither
can bear, waders, all thoughts
of sanctity dissolving, and I
espy cobwebs forming, corners

once cleansed – dysfunction’s
mockery of hope – reminder
that when roots are rotten,
scars are reluctant to heal.

Resignation

Tried to drop in, visit the past –
hoped to resurrect old passions –
all that remains are intellectual
reserves, in need of costumes
to enact a play written without me;
I’d help out but have neither
the resources nor the physical
ability to lower or raise myself
to such expectations.

It’s all so unnatural, this pandering
to an ideal, this self defined by roles
and education:  this soulless state.

So I caught a train out of there –
boarded before I realized
that in my already off-balance state
the movement would throw me,
fell, cried, met with further coldness
should have taken a bus,
buried myself amidst the nameless
masses, too anxious to signal stop,
would shamelessly ride to the end
sobbing even harder, be expelled
by a driver, hardened by the reek
of human neglect, find myself
at the corner of what was
and a swift passage to nowhere.

Better to accept this stranded isolation –
nearby places out of reach – too weak,
too frail to stand – this place that is home.