Category: mental-health

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.

 

 

Alcohol’s Child

Funny, this present impulsivity –
am alone, overweight, a dreamer

self-propelled, looking for a friend
who doesn’t see me as last resort

not exactly beside myself with offers –
coasting asexuality (inside fickle)

will extend libations, marriage,
possessions – am willing to sell all

like an automaton, will deliver
drinks, manufacture abundance

Child of alcoholics in attendance –
a comic, in charge and hesitant

at ease, I am hopeful, the original
leisure queen – avoid rows at all cost

live for the moment, dream of beaches,
never married, non-conforming, team

quencher – will promote any dreams
(but my own) – like a mechanical bull

dizzy, in need of social management
or at least, a friend who finds me worthy

all needs met here – delegate away –
I am soda pop refreshment, slightly

oddball, restless, and okay, a little
needy – just not able to befriend myself.

Invitation Anxiety

Social invitations sing
of acceptance, delightful
opportunity to intermingle

for the hale, the rehearsed,
practiced in the choreography
of wardrobe appropriateness

disability cringes – NO!
contrived behaviour suitable
for enacting a script too stressing

compromised memory can’t learn
lines – intellect impaired, not
improv-friendly – RETREAT!

isolation a recurring sentence,
illness the jailor; except anxiety
has replaced physical challenge

only Will holds option’s key –
attire no excuse: tossed together
clothing apt gear for gatherings

pretense overcomes stage fright
a worthwhile role for any story,
especially one notably improved.

(Image: bestfriendsforfrosting.com)

 

 

A Bee’s Perspective

(Note:  I draw much of my inspiration from dreams, and recently I’ve been challenging myself to write prose as well as poetry.   This poem and the piece, The Vortex, are inspired by the same dream.)

A bee, caught
in a violent draught,
collides with woman

her body a salty
concrete wall
of frenzy, she is rigid,
obsessed, unspoken rage

emanating from her pores –
a gale force spiral, woman-made
vortex threatening the sanctity
of her contrived domesticity

Normally, she would swat at him –
is aware of the potential for venom
delivered via puncture – cannot pull
herself out of the vacuum of fixation

eyes riveted, hands locked on video
controls, breath shallow, heart pounding
a rabid diatribe of self – loathing:

useless woman,
irresponsible,
neglectful,
unworthy,
guilty,
fat

with each beat the tempest grows
perceptibly, the bee breaks free,
encircles the figure of a lone man
bent over a fragrant cup of brew,
is dismissed by a distracted swat

lazily careens upward, buzzing
past a sleeping child, and settling
on a sweet sticky cheek, startling
its owner, who lashes out then rises

unsteady legs toddling in search
of Momma! , the whine a catalyst,
piercing his mother’s mania –
her instincts now cat-like, body

pouncing past the insolent insect,
arms reaching towards pudgy limbs
thrusting forward into loosely
attached guard rails, now plunging

the bee surveilles the scene –
a final circuitous flight before
finding escape, the drone of his wings
a testament to the glory of being a bee.

(Image: www.flickr.com)

Solitudes

Solitude, I dream
of expansive landscapes,
crave your panoramic
silence, thrill to the ideal
of your boundless sanctity

Solitude, you wrap me
in separateness, strip away
my cardboard walls, tear
at the corners of my instability;
no refuge from the stillness

Solitude, I am smothered
by your starkness, by my
starkness, cries of madness
reverberating through vast
canyons of aloneness.

(Image: serendipityteam.wordpress.com)

Bureaucratic Dystopia

Bureaucratic automatons
privy to personal dilemmas
fuss over delegated tasks –
vessels sans initiative –

policy makers overriding
common sense,
common decency
paper pushers passing
verdicts condemning

downtrodden, unable to fight
whose day-to-day living –
questionable at best –
lacks the necessary survival

guide – procedural forms
dehumanize suffering,
cubby-holed egos void
support, icily authoritative

dystopia is no future construct
no fantastical presupposing
for those trapped in the maniacal
system of disability claims.

(Image: threatquality.com)

Dear Charlotte Perkins Gilman

(This is a repost of one of my personal favourites.  Check out a live performance of this poem.)

VJ's avatarOne Woman's Quest

I have examined your wallpaper,
discussed the scholarly attributes
of shades of yellow, traced the edges
of your unravelling with my mind,
argued the merits of Gothic horror;

marvelled at the brilliance of wording,
the courage to define the nature of
feminine madness, the boldness to
highlight inequalities long before the
establishment of a Person’s Act.

Forgive me, but I need to set aside
this keyboard for a moment, for I tire
easily, am suffering from an exhaustion
that is systemic and calls for elimination
of all stimulus in favour of rest, you see

I share your sentence of confinement,
isolated to a room with windows, my
mind wandering to ancestral gardens,
contemplating shadows and movement
cognizant of underlying forces, creeping.

My husband has just left, dear man, having
checked on me, taking on my burden,
concerned that I am not sleeping at night
thinks that by reading and rereading…

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