"wellness" poems
You… you’ve got a lot going for you
You’re famous, you’re smart, and you’re powerful
but you are ugly.
You think we can’t see the evil under that gaudy, outdated sweater
but we can.
You think that fancy perfume you wear hides the scent of terror
but it doesn’t.
You think the makeup you put on daily covers the pure pain written on your face
but you are dead wrong
bipolar, you are hideous.
Sometimes, though, that’s easy to forget
when it feels like I can do anything
the world is my oyster. When I feel that ungodly fake happiness
that masquerades as wellness, when I’m with you
and I don’t want to leave.
That’s when you have me. Then you take the opportunity
to torment me.
The façade is gone, and it all comes rolling through the gates.
You scream a thousand voices into my head
you bind my body and I can feel your merciless crushing grasp
you convince me that everything is good, it’s not bad,
it’s bad, it’s not good,
this is good, that is bad, I need to say it over and over and over again
you take over, and I don’t stand a chance.
My peace of mind is gone, and my humanity is soon to follow
How did I let this happen to me? I’ll never know
but I’ve learned this:
You do take no for an answer
and I have a lot more control than I thought.
If I ask you to stay away, you’ll ask me why, and I’ll tell you
because I want to be better
and as long as I let you anywhere near me, I will always
be stuck here
on this nightmare of a rollercoaster.
So you accept that, thank God
thank you, bipolar, for setting me free,
at least once in a while.
I feel less alone without you because
I can love more fully, for longer, forever.
I can accept my imperfections rather
than suffer in the desire to be rid of them. to be rid of you.
I can be still and know
that it is ok.
I’m ok, you’re ok. and I intermittently have my **** together.
I’m sorry things are not working out between you and me,
bipolar disorder.
but I’m not sorry that without you,
my life is ******* beautiful.
Nov 14, 2015
Nov 14, 2015 at 5:11 PM UTC
Well, well, well
Something that you don't wish to obtain:
wellness.
Whether it be hunching over the toilet,
evacuating today's third feast of the day,
or continuing to hear whispered words from made-up beings,
not taking the cocktails to silence them
or maybe, just continuing to stay empty,
not letting anything fill the void
Staying sick --
Whether it be of the body,
mind,
or soul,
will not make others love you more,
and it will not make others stay
but it will have them fade away
just
like
you
Sep 17, 2018
Sep 17, 2018 at 12:15 PM UTC
We've only got a week left to last you know,
Thank every deity that ever was or ever will be.
I've aced the class now I've gotta go!
Had a wake for Wellness, and Spanish is buried -Now a funeral for Chemistry!
Banish those 'noble' gases and all that higher math.
What's a word smith need with polarity, molarity, or stoichiometry?
Well at least now I can tell an asymptote from a hole in the graph.
The freshies have it next year, but us -We cheer and sing, "BETTER YOU THAN ME!"
May 15, 2014
May 15, 2014 at 1:21 PM UTC
service failure the ***** will offer
there's something medically askew with it
the usual role is proving so unfit
a second chance in a transplant's proffer
another dies to bring life back again
wellness being redeemed by precious gift
the recipient receives a big lift
living's joy restored out of the rain
someone's kind donation affording breath
so that the period of existence stays
a healthy liver performing its job
for not to have this giving there'd be death
the bestowment allows those future days
gratitude felt within a person's cob
Oct 9, 2016
Oct 9, 2016 at 9:27 PM UTC
Finally it is done.
For months I have been
collecting ingredients
for the magical elixir -
home grown ginger and rosemary,
fresh organic garlic, onions and lemon,
finely chopped jalapeno pepper,
powdered turmeric,
Ceylon cinnamon,
tulsi, kelp and black pepper.
What eluded me was the
pungent, fresh horseradish,
unexpectedly absent in our stores
and farmers markets,
until a birthday trip to New York,
when we found the massive roots
in a Russian market.
And, once properly chopped
and shredded and zested,
all is covered and bathed
in organic apple cider vinegar,
a superfood in itself,
where it will draw out the
healing constituents
of each vital ingredient,
creating a powerhouse of wellness.
And now we wait.
Four to eight weeks
of shaking the jars every day
before we drain the lot,
run the pulp through a juice extractor
and add the final touch ...
local honey, raw and unfiltered,
adding sweetness and
its own preserving power,
along with a strong boost to health.
A long time to wait
for this Nectar of the Gods,
but so very worth it:
a shot of this each day
and colds and flu stand no chance -
bacteria and virus alike
overwhelmed -
say goodbye to illness.
Let us now give thanks
to our grandmothers
and all the lay herbalists
of generations long past,
for through their efforts,
our own knowledge
is greatly enriched.
We stand on the shoulders of giants.
5July2015
Jul 6, 2015
Jul 6, 2015 at 9:19 PM UTC
He loved it when she slid up
to him, as sweet as a sprinkle doughnut -
but now, something has befallen her,
she's been burned or frozen, tastes more like
cinnamon raisin; but by virtue of his
firelit face and tall tales,
he still gets invited out.
_____________________________
He creaks upstairs an hour late, we
are already tangled up on the
back porch, smoking, and the
liquor has made everything
an economy of scale.
He is a ray of sunshine. Tells us
all the old groaners. The big fish.
Ultimately says, "Happy birthday.
Never let your guard down."
and hobbles off, with barb-wire chafing
his heel, and the rheumatic suspicion
that "rest" and "wellness" are
the fables taught to us by
bogeymen, trying to convince us
there are no bogeymen.
I am a tender Twenty tonight.
I want to twirl my fists in Muhammad Ali speedbag-spirals,
saying, "I am the champion. Never undefended."
But I am too drunk, and maybe
too humiliated.
God! He floats like painkillers. He stings like loss.
There he is, the tall order, the iron giant:
a two-story brainfreeze milkshake.
I shudder, a pipsqueak of a prizefighter.
The bucktoothed squirt at the icecream booth,
too short to notice that there are only three flavours.
Sep 15, 2010
Sep 15, 2010 at 3:01 PM UTC
If you get it, you lost it.
I am here
(On this platform it is evident for your reading now)
I express myself
(Heads scratching, wondering what and how?)
I share pieces of me
(A defragmented glimpse of an experience deemed ‘worthwhile')
Callous, sensuality?
(Or a traitor in sheep cosplay?)
A dead-end hi-way?
Or this pawn from yesterday?
Here, your final say
This family we never asked
Amontillado without it's cask
Dry and cheery
Heart’s are bleary
We own this laborious task
My sins are scrollable, thumbed in haste,
Wrapped in ribbons of curated taste.
A gallery of masks, all timed just right,
My shadow dances in the ring light.
What of shame when shame gets likes?
What of thought when thought’s in spikes?
I weep in drafts, but post a grin—
The world won’t wait for the shape I’m in.
So brand the bruise, then sell the hue:
A wellness tip in sponsored blue.
This self I host in feedback’s cage—
A pet, a post, a digital page.
I bare my soul (or just its shell).
You’ll never know. I sell it well.
I logged on seeking something undefined,
A tether, maybe—some reciprocal ache.
But all I found were mirrors misaligned,
Each smile too wide, each word opaque.
The comments pile like leaves, not read.
Applause from ghosts, replies from ghosts.
I feed the feed, it feeds instead—
A hunger that consumes its hosts.
I draft a truth. I dress it twice.
Add polish. Then delete.
I write in blood, convert to nice,
Make trauma fit a beat.
No lesson left. No higher shelf.
Just one more version of myself.
Jun 10, 2025
Jun 10, 2025 at 10:16 PM UTC
It is my belief, that at our core is a connection
with a deep “Inner Knowing."
It's abode resides within each of us.
At the point of deep silence.
Between our inhalation and exhalation
There is a point of stillness
In the quiet of our personal eternal now.
The Dove sitting quietly on her nest.
Do you call her an Angel?
Holy Spirit?
Or the Self Actulizing Higher self?
Or someing else?
A quiet knowing warms the heart
A scream or a shout you will never hear!
A quiet tender voice
Calling.
Without a doubt!
Do you understand her deeper nature?
She is the Ancestor,
The Guru, The Teacher, The Guide, The Witness
The maintainer of Life itself.
Lovingly, tending to the questiions of your heart.
She comforts the destressed soul.
Tames the racing fears.
Dispells the wild winds of assupmtions!
Vigulant, never ceasing
Always enduring to the end.
Raising us up!
We are a unified whole
Layers upon layers of energies
knit kindly togethter
With Her Love.
Mar 30, 2020
Mar 30, 2020 at 6:26 PM UTC
Enraptured in
a fevered spasm,
Captured in the
mind's phantasm,
Swimming through
the ectoplasm,
Pouring from the
roaring chasm,
Hidden in the
soul's recess
A subtle, gentle,
warm caress
So jubilant, it
doth redress,
The hindrances which
so suppress,
The progress of the
spirit's wellness,
Showing things which
words can't tell us,
Giving gifts, which
none can sell us,
Do you
hear the
bell that's
ringing?
ringing
from a
distant
shore?
It resonates from
mammoth spheres,
In orbit, shedding
countless years,
Through aeons of
causality,
And boundless
temporality
We see how worlds
arise and cease,
We see how yearning
lays the fleece,
The wool over the eyes,
deceiving, cool
Dispassion's peace
relieving, our
Great webs
of pain and sorrow,
Darkening,
to light the morrow
For as all things
must come apart,
So suffering's,
great work of art,
is merely but
a transience,
receding slowly
in the dark.
Jan 6, 2019
Jan 6, 2019 at 9:15 PM UTC
so ive been thinking about ending my life a lot lately. nothing seems real anymore. i just feel so, so worthless. ya know? i dont know how to handle anything anymore. i used to try to be happy, but i kinda just gave up. ive tried hopelessly to recover but nothing seemed to work. the coping skills, they let me down. they dont work. my antidepressants, they make me feel worse. i just dont know how to cope with my emotions, and i dont think i ever will. so i need to make up my mind. death or wellness?
Jul 6, 2015
Jul 6, 2015 at 2:47 AM UTC
"Don't leave out the graphic details."
Oh, trust me. I won't.
The gruesome, disturbing, intimacies.
The bone-chilling, hair-raising fragments.
It's almost too much to bear.
But not quite.
This vulgarity is just enough to keep them on the edge of their seats.
Every tiny, twisted moral of the story.
In between the cracks, find shining slivers of redemption.
Only to immediately cover them up with rotten deception.
Good, ***** flair. Scummy additions. Sick annotations.
Keep the masses rollin' in.
Complexity, concentration, then chaos when they want more fear.
The blood-curdling, stomach-churning truths.
The disgraceful, distasteful deductions.
We've come to the conclusion they crave this coagulation of ****
Dark disdain eating away at the corpse of wellness.
Vermin, pests, gnawing, slobbering.
Choking on the bones of prosperity.
The decomposition of this life is what they love.
Flies, gnats, swarm. Maggots clump.
Crack, rip, slurp, gag, choke, ******* die.
Sep 8, 2010
Sep 8, 2010 at 6:57 PM UTC
Pal, you are from Mumbai,
Of course that's not false,
On the way back take care,
Just stay safe my darling,
Again it reminded of 2005.
Seeing you healthy is divine,
Take your health to the next level,
Aim 100% health today along me,
You're better if you are healthy.
Some desires for life remain,
A desire is my parents' health,
Final desire is your wellness,
Effect it will have on our kid's health.
And my emotional strength too,
Note my dear request to you,
Divine is this feeling of love.
Sifts through my mind's crevices,
Only your safety day and night,
Until we see our grandchild,
Not just its birth but even its life,
Dear, you gotta stay healthy for it.
Aug 31, 2017
Aug 31, 2017 at 3:13 AM UTC
Within the night, deep into the wellness of her mind
which hides pain, that lay hidden in her Pandora's box
are the tears and loves she has no more
as her sanity was slowly slipping way....
With her labyrinth of dreams she grabs hold
drips with madness this day
she grabs hold of the screams of the night
all she hopes for has flown out the door.....
If her life is between fate and hope
then her reasoning wouldn't last
with blood angels in the distance
she braces her attack from descent madness...
She sings the starlight serenade
her sadness grows, only her fingertips
grasp for the edge of the world
with her last breath the reflections of long ago....
Debbie Brooks 2014
Sep 13, 2014
Sep 13, 2014 at 3:11 PM UTC
I am three pages into the most honest letter I’ve ever composed to a brother when I realize I’ve been writing with my finger. I tell my daughter it isn’t crying if you’re drinking. she’s asleep. it’s there she hears a piano. sees a typewriter.
May 1, 2014
May 1, 2014 at 11:08 PM UTC
the doctor
wore secretly
a nightgown
and poured
a glass of milk.
his wife
disappointed
she had not seen
a ghost
remained his wife.
-
( the wellness of my mother
does not need
my mother
nor does
the wellness
of yours )
-
if you see a white mouse
in a dark city
a light
for which
I have kept
vigil
goes on
in my son’s head…
Apr 1, 2013
Apr 1, 2013 at 4:58 PM UTC
My daily dose of wellness pills,
Is in a weekly container,
The sadness of filling it up,
Makes me want to take the remainder
Mar 11, 2016
Mar 11, 2016 at 8:05 PM UTC
Sometimes love comes in like a storm without warning,
veiled as a vast ruin with good intentions
entering your heart as an army with no ammunition;
for nobody warned them about what kind of vandalism goes on
behind the wall of thorns that time
can conceive.
Sometimes love goes down easy like the banana medicine
you used to drink as a child,
slowly but surely, the way you would feel wellness well up
inside of you until all your self hatred
evaporated from your heart
with each sugary swallow.
Sometimes love is discreet and strange, reminding you
of days you crossed the street without looking and somehow
did not get hit by anything other than your own stupidity,
making it unable for you to decipher the difference
between the outline of fate and the shadow of coincidence.
Sometimes love appears out of nowhere on the most
ordinary of days during the most ordinary of circumstances,
meaning everything to you but nothing at all to the other person, similar
to the way you can lay beside someone staring
at the clouds on a clear day and see
an angel with a crown of flowers beaming down on you,
when to the other person it’s nothing but a ball of cotton, floating
gently away.
Sometimes love reawakens ancient longings,
desires you used to have and never knew you had;
memories you had forgotten and mornings that made you glad;
causing tears of discovery at how enough you now know that you are,
no matter what has happened, or how deep go your scars.
Sometimes love is enough and sometimes it’s not,
sometimes you’ll keep giving it to someone despite how clear it is
that they just want to be left alone to rot;
and although you can beg for them not to
dig their own grave and declare their defeat,
you know it’s as useless as throwing flowers at their feet
but you continue to love and you continue to pray,
for you more than anyone have seen what can emerge
from the beauty of decay.
Jun 17, 2014
Jun 17, 2014 at 6:38 PM UTC
*The paradox of our time in history is that we have taller buildings, but shorter tempers; wider freeways, but narrower viewpoints.
We spend more, but have less; we buy more, but enjoy it less.
We have bigger houses and smaller families; more conveniences, but less time;
We have more degrees, but less sense; more knowledge, but less judgment; more experts, but more problems; more medicine, but less wellness.
We drink too much, smoke too much, spend too recklessly, laugh too little, drive too fast, get too angry too quickly, stay up too late, get up too tired, read too seldom, watch TV too much, and pray too seldom.
We have multiplied our possessions, but reduced our values.
We talk too much, love too seldom, and hate too often.
We've learned how to make a living, but not a life; we've added years to life, not life to years.
We've been all the way to the moon and back, but have trouble crossing the street to meet the new neighbor.
We've conquered outer space, but not inner space.
We've done larger things, but not better things.
We've cleaned up the air, but polluted the soul.
We've split the atom, but not our prejudice.
We write more, but learn less.
We plan more, but accomplish less.
We've learned to rush, but not to wait.
We build more computers to hold more information to produce more copies than ever, but have less communication.
These are the times of fast foods and slow digestion; tall men, and short character; steep profits, and shallow relationships.
These are the times of world peace, but domestic warfare; more leisure, but less fun; more kinds of food, but less nutrition.
These are days of two incomes, but more divorce; of fancier houses, but broken homes. *
Apr 19, 2015
Apr 19, 2015 at 7:27 AM UTC
*Words inspire, Words transpire
They are the writer’s creation
a peak of the writer’s soul
A positive release
Or
A negative outcome
Dull words into creative thinking
Sparkles of wellness
Pure and Raw emotions collide
Reflections of what we imagine
Beginners and new beginning
Flows in a dynamic determination
Empowering its readers
Curious to meaningful insight
Playful art of thoughts
For me
For you
For everyone
To
Enjoy*
Dec 2, 2015
Dec 2, 2015 at 11:12 PM UTC
Life is the greatest killer of all.
Cancer. Sickness. ******
Wellness to illness, function to dysfunction:
Two sides of the same coin toss.
The greatest civil rebellion lasted
122 years, give or take, yet
In all the struggle few realize that the true oppressor
Is always enslaved to a certain animal within.
Our ancestors die, our rivals die, our sisters die,
We've been choosing death all along.
Look at our blood: from tree to house to ash
And mammal to mammal to dirt to memory.
All things before the sun, that great heap of ******
Will have the color drained from them.
The great white is an event
Of the great blackness. And when it explodes . . .
And there's a lesson to be told here,
Call it 1.1.
There is a lucky infinity
Of the few who, unlike us, life
Didn't take them, and there is a growing infinity
Of us the many who death will take. I fear
That there will be a great war
To ruin the eternities that dot the night skies,
The Olympians. I fear a great war
Where infinite darkness both ways
Will finally collapse -
And us in the middle, the living,
This star chained away
By space and time and
The magnificence of its light,
Breathing away every last drop -
Will fail,
And the big black bang will stretch out in both ways
As a final **** you to existence.
And that'll be the end of it.
Sep 21, 2025
Sep 21, 2025 at 4:25 PM UTC
Born with a better life
Formed with a rugged line
Caught in a muddy mind
Inner war in full force
Empty shores
Grains are coarse
Brain is worn from the thought
Of the cause
And the flaws
In the bottled up troubled times...
Keep that light in sight though
Eyes open wide,
So you can brave the flow so
You can find all the times
To unwind
Organise
And refine
How you fight Home Made choke holds
Feels like I'm courting
A black hole I'm forming
Distorting rewarding
Thoughts formed flip to morbid
'It's just a bad day not a bad life'
Ever had a day that lasts a life time?
Guess I'll be right in the mourning
What sort of a mess is this
Formed full of emptiness
Scorn for my premises
Thinner walls
Creaking floors
Feeling worn
Sleeping more
Brain is worn from the thought
Of the cause
And the flaws
I have bottled in hesitance
Keep that light in sight though
Eyes open wide,
So you can brave the flow so
You can find all the times
To unwind
Organise
And refine
How you fight Home Made choke holds
Start with absorbing
The wellness from talking
Succoring the morbid
Thoughts formed flip to glory
'This is a good day not a bad life'
Ever want a day to last a life time?
Might just be right in the morning
Oct 29, 2022
Oct 29, 2022 at 8:19 AM UTC
*
It was a complete mess.
Loads and loads of things,
From soiled hosiery to paper cups
From books to each piece of clothing I ever had
Were thrown everywhere around in the room.
The whole place looked robbed.
Cleaning the room and keeping things in order
Was never my responsibility.
It was hers.
She would nag about it all the time.
She would ask
What I’d do without her.
This was the one question I never wanted to know the answer.
May be that was why,
I was reluctant to clean the place.
Deep down, I believed,
If I waited long enough,
She would figure I could not manage without her
And she would come back
And clean up the mess.
But weeks had gone,
I still had no clue about her whereabouts.
Why would she do that to me?
I was the love of her life.
“Enough is enough.
I am going to clean this mess.
I don’t need her.”
Enraged, I decided to start with books.
Books were the second best thing in my life.
They’d keep my company always.
Then I saw the book, which she bought me
When we moved to the countryside.
As I picked that book,
A small turquoise-y peacock feather fell.
The falling feather brought to me
A series of memories-
A mix of sad and happy moments with her.
After we moved here, we went to a park
In hope, it would cheer me up.
And it did cheer me up.
We played, we laughed.
At a distance, there was a peacock,
Boasting its colourful feathers.
I’d never seen a peacock before.
Amazed, I found a feather it had left behind.
Which I insisted to keep.
She placed it in the book
We just bought.
I still tremble sometimes,
When sights of my drunkard father beating her cross my mind.
He would abuse her and do sick things to her,
Still she would say he was my father
And I ought to respect him.
How could I?
And one time, he beat me.
He beat me with a belt
Because she bought a ‘stupid’ book for me
Instead of a bottle of bear.
That was the last time
I’d seen him.
She decided we would move away
Without any second thoughts.
“You’re meant for great things.”
She would always say.
She did odd jobs,
Tailoring, waitressing, private tutoring,
So that we could manage my school bills, rent
And square meals a day,
Probably ignoring health and physical wellness.
She sacrificed everything for me.
When she’d me, she left her job to look after me.
After we moved here,
Things were supposedly normal.
But she was going great troubles
To make ends meet,
With a smile on her face, she kept going.
At that instant, I knew she would never leave me.
She was still watching me,
Probably telling the stars
About her 'childish' son.
“I will make you proud.”
I promised to my Mom, my hero.
… And I am still trying.
*
Aug 9, 2015
Aug 9, 2015 at 5:43 AM UTC
Attentively is an art,
It needs patience, skill and
imagination,
That creates an aura of wellness.
15/8/2025
Sep 15, 2025
Sep 15, 2025 at 2:29 PM UTC