Submit your work, meet writers and drop the ads. Become a member
Elena Aug 2023
I ran away from home
Home that was so cold
Freezing my soul
I ran away from home
Now the past is haunting me
Now traumas follow me
Leaving me out of breath
Nigdaw Jun 2023
I have bawled and shouted
stamped my feet
blamed God my mother
AND the universe
but I'm still here
spoilt petulant little spec
on a blue green planet
infinity never heard me
or gave a ****
about a small ape like creature
spinning around
and around
at a thousand miles an hour
going nowhere
it's time to take
the bitter little pill
and just get on with it
I’ve been sad so long I’m afraid of what it means
When the world isn’t weighing down on me
Don’t know what to carry when it’s not heavy.
I’m skeptical when I’m happy,
Unsure of my identity when it’s easy,
Feel suspicious when I’m breathing freely.
Who am I when the sea isn’t tumultuous?
Lost when times are prosperous?
What do I do when I can’t trust this?
I’m uncomfortable with the blank spaces empty of mental illness.
Who am I when there’s no battle to be faced?
I feel hollow and out of place
Like I am made of clay that hasn’t quite taken shape.
I want to be someone when there’s no foe to vanquish
Have a meaning beyond my aguish.
I know there’s more to me than sickness,
But I feel no strength without my weakness.
How do I become the person I am meant to be?
How do I find myself when I am happy?
Paula Davey Jun 2023
My world has stopped, my life’s on hold,
We got the news, our family told.
How I want to turn back time
To laugh and love, reverse my mind.
You’ve been so brave but we both know
How short this sentence is, although
We have a year to say goodbye
It’s so unfair, I don’t know why
He had to take you from me now
I should be strong but don’t know how.
It’s all so wrong, this shouldn’t be,
My heart has just been ripped from me.
When I met you if I had known
That I would end up all alone,
I’d still have spent these lovely years
With you, the laughter and the tears
The time will fly, the drugs will ****
It’s tough to swallow this bitter pill
All I can do is watch and wait
While cancer destroys my loving sole mate
Please God, while we’re dancing to your tune
I beg of you, don’t take him too soon.
neth jones May 2023
watching for air                              a mad thing of static to do
unwashed  i hold it all foreign   my perspectives clothed as the enemy
an agreed muscle of tension       with pockets fracked into my hands 
i look out the window   wide agape guidance                                                     invasive drills of heat   the giving sunlight ; punishing,
a tree,   the grieving buildings
the whinging of cicadas
and here i am     watching for air

one point for the weather                                                      
one­ point for the view                                                            
­one big point for my ****** condition                                
one point for the passers by and their galling dramedies

and there it is ; the wiry plan that's built                        
from one small tickle of wild thought              
                                 formed long ago
trickling to the current day
some whipped wit of poisoned psychology          
     fed to the inbreed   (welcome   you panting imp)
decades of saved up fatty layers
a deed   of habitual sediment
retching until the tide laps become still
   a cured and congealed gladness
marbled, a butcher would say
i am full and hearted and heated and padded senseless
        turned under a heel   with my wastrel history
  i’ve accomplished this     a stifled condition
                               of poisoned obscenity

seated deep        almost fully incapacitated  
in my armchair   on this chummy day
my leisure clothes greasy     sluck against my blemished hide
a packet of cigarettes   to my side
rounded upon  by sounds of the neighbours affairs
with a gasp of energy   i 'skin one off' vigorously
my system trembling   with years of hard liquor
borderline   to a state of unconscious whelm
retained final       prime for ignition
i could manage a spectacle
a blinding flare
                                  a glorious incineration
and the release
                      of my true oder

i light a match for my cigarette
a glass bottle                                                                                  
formed-to-conform-to-be                                                
         and not simply shatter       with  '*******' explosion    
(though it is an option)


imagining the worst sinnings in the rooms surround
rayma Oct 2022
to some, i am a person worthy of righteous protection,
the blind spot beneath the tree where
dandelions sometimes get trampled.
i am never enough yet always too much—the
drive-by friend you can wait to see.
on the inside lies a multiverse of
goods and bads, talents and failures.
sometimes i’m pretty, sometimes i’m not,
but i am always something to behold.

and to you?
the one who changes the focus like an optometrist,
“one…or two?”
until my multiverse unites.
a good writer, a good singer, a good friend;
the little things others don’t find funny that always make you laugh;
the validation i’ve been searching for,
an honesty that lets me trust myself a little more.

to you i hope to be an eternity,
a couple of shambling girls united against a world
that doesn’t always have space for people like us.
for verity, my partner in crime, the other half of a shared brain cell, united in one chronically ill dynamic duo
Nigdaw May 2023
they take my blood for their machines
to analyse
the very heart of me
laid bare to scrutiny

a diagnosis
of an ill I never realised
I needed a prescription for
just to survive
so nice of them
to save my life
but I feel fine
rayma Mar 2023
my body is a symphony of sounds
like the
             snap
               —crackle—
                                               pop!
                                of my bones as i stretch and climb the stairs,
                                                         ­                                        the
                     ­                                                                 ­ thud.
                                                           ­              thud.
                                                           thud.
                of my heart, frantic in its rest.
                a shrill ringing underpins it all
        when my ears ***** to a phantom sound,
the
    \gasping\
                               |huffing|
            ­                                      sighing
                                                   ­                   keeps the beat of uncooperative lungs.

               my body, like an old house where teenagers throw a party,
                                 finding a way to keep it alive for one more night.
Now featured in the Spring 2023 issue of Collage: A Journal of Creative Expression!!
Nigdaw May 2023
a possibility the machine is broken
a pause, a stutter
a halt in locomotion
sometimes the parts wear out
not made for the harsh road
travelled
sometimes a weakness will shout
to demonstrate a need for slowing
but after all we've been through
to be betrayed
this far on the journey
I'd chop you in for a new one
if it weren't for the fact
I'm human
Heidi Franke Apr 2023
He called in for a shower after being alone on the streets for a week.

Is that time enough
to get ***** for a shower
   as a man nearly twenty-six
in years.
She could turn him away
like her father’s sister
might have and did.
From time to time.

It all depended on how many times in a week,
month, or year
he would show up without a call.
Without knowing he still existed.

Somehow, his presence and
absence
were a mixed blessing.
His presence was like a merry-go-round
that goes against the earth’s pull.
Like a brazen thorn
stuck into your shoe.
Unpredictable.
Vacuum-like.
******* all the ***** things in.
Taking everything in its sight
and power and making
everything contort
to his reality.
Where he and only he resided.
Would she open the door for him?

What she does know
is that she might risk speaking
in a bright happy voice
of a mother
so gladsome to see her son.
Welcoming him in.
Rather than turning him away
because of his inconvenience.
Grief is inconvenient.
That is one thing she knows.
Notes on helping a mentally ill adult child. Copyright 2023 @ Highwireart
Next page