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Anais Vionet Mar 2023
Saint Patrick died on March 17th.
So we celebrate the day with green and drink.

Patrick, was kidnapped to Ireland as a slave,
a condition he never fully forgot or forgave.

Patty (as he was known by his friends)  
was a sober, relentless, devout Christian.

As a missionary, he gallivanted methodically, converting heathens
and if he failed to convert you, you weren’t left breathin’.
He could burn you at the steak for ignoring ‘reason’.

To show Christ’s power, he ‘banished’ the snakes,
It’s amazing, the difference a miracle can make.

The year 461 pre-dated laptops and even the Internet,
so, I think it’s time we finally forgive and even forget
the sad, sordid history of Catholic conversion “therapies”
because today we need a reason to drink until we’re green.
BLT Marriam Webster word of the day challenge: Gallivant: “travel for pleasure.”

My roommates and I went to Dublin, Ireland last summer.
In casual conversation we asked how they celebrated Saint Patrick's day and their celebrations are like ours, more or less - a secular overindulgence. But on a deeper level, this holiday, they say, is dedicated to the patron saint of heathen genocide.
cas Dec 2021
Long have gone since that day
I still think ‘til this day
Nightmares may it be,
I suffer, so I plea
The girl whom we killed,
I spit on the ground, to have it live
211216
Norman Crane Aug 2020
Rip the saintly halo
From above your hallowed brow
To see how it obscured
A deep satanic vow
As through your skull are sprouted
                   Two twisted bony horns:
A rose no more disgracing
A beautiful stem of thorns
Mark Toney Mar 2020
HEAR the quiet sea
SEE the man looking for me
ME hiding from him
HIM with simple eye
AYE his words I hear
HEAR the quiet sea

THINK the time has come
COME take life's water free
FREE yourself from sin's grip
GRIP hold of the real life
LIFE everlasting at last
LAST days require us to think
THINK the time has come

LISTEN to words inspired and true
TRUE faith follows the thing heard
HEARD faith without works is dead
DEAD we are to our former sins
SINS forgiven by means of Christ
CHRIST one to whom we must listen
LISTEN to words inspired and true


© 2020 by Mark Toney.  All rights reserved.
2-20-2020 - Poetry form: Lyric echo - © 2020 by Mark Toney.  All rights reserved.
Emma Cheung Sep 2019
I lost the faith
I never had
And became the laugh
That echoes itself
Crashing off damp cave
Walls
Interrupted by drops
Of condensation.

I found the faith
I never had
And saw the hills move
With steady rhythm
Grass green as a child's
Questions
Cow parsley swaying
With the cold wind.

The sky was still
And the ocean flowed.
The eggs round
And fragile
Sat in their nests.
Everything remained in
Its place, but everything
Was different.

I became the laugh
That laughs with others
I drink whole milk
And gaze into the sun
Blinded by purity
Deafened by possibility
In the arrested daylight of
the present.
aj kamari May 2019
the light in your eyes
is drawn away but the darkness of conversion
to someone you don’t want to be
society pulls and strains
until the light is ripped in two
and disintegrated
and the dust
is blown into oblivion
making the darkness a monster of their own imagination
you are filled to the brim with their ideas
of beauty and normality and acceptance
squandering any chance of revival
and forced to live among the social rocks
another victim of their rage and discontentment.
sorry it’s been a while ya’ll i’ve been super busy but enjoy :)
Who is this young girl,
Thinking she has the right to be in my office?
I pretend to be nice,
I do all the tests,
After all, I can’t risk her suing for neglect.

I comfort her, by telling her it’s stress,
Indeed yes, this is all in her head.
I let her tell me all of her symptoms,
She must be a hypochondriac because how else would she have come up with all of that?
Nevertheless, so she can’t say I haven’t done my job,
I send her for an MRI and EEG,
I also use my favourite words:
I tell her it’s nothing sinister.

I can’t believe she’s wasting my time,
She has anxiety, her brain is all fine!
Now that I’ve ridden her off of my list,
I can move onto to patients, who are actually sick.
She walks in looking young and healthy,
Does she really expect me to believe her?
She’s too young to be sick, and all her tests say are that she needs a psychiatrist, not a neurologist.
I give the advice I’ve learnt from my medical degree, “just get on with life and do whatever you were doing. Go to university, you’ll be just fine! You can’t keep relying on your family forever.”
Poor them, they must be really fed up of her,
She’s just too lazy to make her own food, to get out of bed, to go alone to the toilet unaided.
Yeah, she can still go to university, it’s not like she needs 24/7 care in case she falls down the stairs!

I tell her she doesn’t need those crutches that she uses,
I tell her she’s wrong about social anxiety, although she says it’s much better and I’ve only known her five minutes,
She’s just stressed, her diagnosis is functional.

Six months later her MRI and EEG are normal,
But I already knew it would be,
I advise her doctor to sort her out with a psychiatrist, even though she’s already seen one because I don’t get paid to actually listen to people.
A year later and she’s trying to get another neurologist appointment?
We can’t be having that, let’s make her referral disappear!
She’s told an ophthalmologist she’s having temporary loss of vision, flashes of light?
Who even cares? It’s just in her mind.
She’s chased up how her urgent referral hasn’t be fulfilled in a month,
I guess I’ll have to write her doctor a letter then,
I’ll say it’s just migraine auras because when I saw her she was fine.
She’s only pretending to be disabled,
After all it’s functional so she must be pretty messed up inside.

I’m a doctor so people know I’m smart,
So I get good money,
I don’t need to actually believe my patients and look for things that are not obvious to see.
I’ll make sure she feels like she’s going crazy and will never be helped or believed.
Matthew Barnes Sep 2018
You wanted to convert me,
But, conversely, we conversed,
And I converted you.
You saw my point of view,
Saw you,
Saw them for what they are,
Decried the false prophets in your mind,
Lent yourself to freedom,
And left behind the shackles of your life.
I freed you, I thought,
But your freedom came at a price.
Instead of joy, your soul swelled with hatred,
The lies you had faced became too much to bear,
And, in your pain, you lashed out,
Then jumped,
In the hope of finding the freedom they'd promised you,
And I was left alone again.
Read more of my work at: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Matthew-Barnes/e/B07BYSKPWH/ref=sr_ntt_srch_lnk_3?qid=1535894386&sr=8-3
I'm just attempting to manage my emotions,
I'm doing the best I can,
Mostly I think I'm doing very ******* well,
Or maybe I just want all these "professionals" to be wrong.

Occasionally I stop and remember:
"Of course they're right Chloe,
How can you possibly say you don't have deep psychological issues right now?"
But since these dissociative symptoms have started:
I've felt amazing mentally.

I must admit that before that,
I felt pretty bad - bad enough to actually admit and ask for help,
But doesn't that show how I'm "dealing with it",
I don't like people telling me my body's dealing with my psychological feelings physically,
I express myself all the **** time,
And they don't know anything!

I'm sick of the psychoanalysis,
And then them claiming they don't psychoanalyse
On that website they keep telling me to revisit.
They seem to think if you talk about your problems -
They just disappear!
And if you educate yourself on conversion disorders -
The symptoms will finally go away!
I could go through that website,
A thousand times and I will still
Remain to have spasms, tremors
And weakness.

I am managing my thoughts and feelings at the moment,
But that doesn't help me manage my physical symptoms:
They are literally debilitating and unmanageable,
Only they tell me I need to "accept it",
This whole poem is showcasing me doing exactly that.
As many times as I deny thinking that this is a functional illness,
I match referring to it as just that.

It's funny that I write so much,
And almost worship the skill
Yet I haven't felt the need to write about what's been happening for months now.
The reason I finally am in this moment,
Was actually because
I think I'm starting to feel things again,
And now I'm wondering if I've been pushing all of it back,
Which is exactly what they want to hear,
So they can say "your body's expressing it because your mind can't manage it, you need to express and deal with this."
You know what?
I really do wonder what the hell they think that "coping" is!

Maybe they would just say,
I'm avoiding my feelings and memories right now,
By coming to my notes section to seek some peace,
As what they would like to think of as a facade,
All comes crumbling down.

The waves of intensity belong to me,
And as much as I don't always enjoy them,
You can leave them all alone because they're mine,
And you can't tell me how or if I'm handling them properly.
Sometimes I just feel like this is who I am,
This is what I'm prone to,
And if you want me to just get over it then fine,
I didn't seek you out in the first place
So if you want to think that I'm over it,
Then that's okay with me.
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