As I've mentioned before I am taking part in a challenge to write a poem or something creative every day during 2016. I post what I write on a small Facebook group for friends also taking part in the challenge to write more.
Over the last month or so (actually since the beginning of December really) I've been struggling with my mental health again. Amongst the poems I've drafted about nature or train journeys I've written about my mental health. I thought this sequence of poems might be useful to share to show the stages of my mental health.
Mindfulness
Empty your mind
They say as if
I could just break
Open its shell
Fragile casing
And pour out its
Meagre contents
Like cracking an egg.
Brittle fragments
White sharp shards of
Memory and
Matter mixing
With the mess of
Thought impression,
Leaving nothing
Behind but a void.
Ambushed
Ambushed, my memories wrenched from me
Leaving behind jagged shards and bright splinters
Like glimpses of my past through shattered mirrors
Half an eye or a lip all that remain of a face.
Flickers and fragments of chaotic scenes:
Grown men weeping
The arch of a flaming branch swinging
A motorbike roaring down a school corridor.
Disjointed but not unrelated,
Scattered leaves before a bonfire, yet to catch light.
Facebook On This Day
Washing stagnates in the belly of the machine
No longer rocking queasily
Dirty dishes heaped in squalid piles, offerings
To the gods of procrastination
A walk to the post box and arctic expedition
So I stay at home
Facebook's Never Miss A Menory, tells me of
Nine Februaries spent like this
Black Dog
When the black dog comes
I can not make a simple choice
When the black dog comes
I can not perform the simplest chore
When the black dog comes
In the smallest things I find no joy
When the black dog comes
I am a tree petrified to the core
When the black dog barks
He drowns out all sound
When the black dog barks
I cower for cover
When the black dog barks
I can not be found
When the black dog barks
I have become another
When the black dog leaves
Which he always will
When the black dog leaves
I struggle free
When the black dog leaves
My senses fill
When the black dog leaves
My life unfreezes.
New Day
Rain washed morning streets
Fresh light on an old scene
Paving as reflective as mirror
Inverts the brightening sky
So the gulls reel at my feet,
Their cries a scree of sound,
Fragments falling from the clouds
Raining on the park birds' song.
Walking as far as the light house,
Looming sentinel of saltiness
It's eye blank never blinking
Blind to the sea's gleam and glitter,
I notice on my way but not when coming back
An abandoned sodden bobble hat
Strewn like a bloated sea urchin
In an expanse of inky Carpark.
Wishing I'd brought a coat
In a dress smothered in poppies
I shiver towards the memorial
Where a lone man reverently reads
The names of all of the fallen
I'm so grateful for this journey
And chance to see new places
And think of the old things differently.
This is something I couldn't do last week
Sit back, eyes closed listening
To rain peppering the roof
Of this train platform shelter
To the flourishes of bird song
The scurrying sound of nature
To the industrial roar of the
High and low speed trains
To smell my freesia and pear
Perfume, a rare luxury
To drink scolding creamy coffee
Savouring the flavour
And just enjoy the experience
For what it is: being alive.
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