Notes About The Poem
Written for the contest " unconscious bias " sponsored by Edward Ibeh.
Here I write about mental illness, specifically Borderline Personality Disorder, and how its so stigmatized, and frowned upon, how their emotions and behavior is often confused with manipulative behavior and as attention seeking!
I pity the world that sleeps on mental health cries!
This one goes out to all those silenced, and all those that feel ashamed to express because of society's unconscious bias!
Unconscious Bias
I forgive the stars sleeping in nothingness,
too afraid to embrace eclipsed spheres…..
In the midst of sweltering gloaming,
I ascend, obscured and tarnished,
like a tainted trinket lost
in the tangerine haze.
For I’ve long been burning
from the coals of stigma~
stamping labels upon troubled torrents,
using malignant metals,
mirroring the fear within lichen eyes,
consumed by ancient
arrows of anguish~
from the era of Hercules and Midas.
But if only they knew, there is
no remedy for the jaded jewels that
refuse to sparkle,
for my purity remains unseen in
growing darkness,
oblivious to the liquid gold
that flickers compassion,
as they see not
beyond their fractured vision.
O distorted colors of the sun,
I’m not your perplexed perspective;
I breathe in hues of humanity,
infused with luminous lavender.
I’m not a Medusa siren luring you
to serpentine rocks;
I swim in chromatic, evanescent streams,
brimming with blissful bioluminescence,
illuminating my way under the midnight sky.
I’m not the suffocating wintry winds
freezing oxygen in your lungs.
While it seems your tongue is silenced
and tied to the twisted strings
of broken instruments,
I ink words of hope and
empathy upon your cynical skin.
I am more than the blind rage
seeping in fury.
I’m not a heartless harpy
screeching into the emptiness~
drenched in despair,
pushing boundaries to
the ends of the earth.
I am Atlas holding the world on
his shoulders,
I am the glistening stars aching
to touch the silver ring around
the jasmine moon.
But life is like a helix fixated
on unconscious bias,
constantly critical of diverse dialects,
watching me struggle to stand
under the weight of pressure,
knees buckling as your assumptions
lacerate me, breaking me down,
burying me in your ruthless riddles.
I feel rumbling dirt beneath
my bleeding feet.
My sarcophagus is rising,
built from your putrid ideals of me.
Losing footing, I refuse to fall into
the seething seas of sorrow.
So remember, I was never
the soulless monster hiding
beneath your ignorant bed.
But I am now the skeletons
etched within the cataclysmic
aftermath of your
shallow misconceptions.
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