I cleared the clutter
from my mind. Meditation
beats medication!
Our world is full of indecision
There are too many voices in each ear
Blue lights overshadowing our vision
More overstimulation every year
Far too many choices to consider
Self help books, influencers, and podcasts
My peace of mind to the highest bidder
One after another, it never lasts
With attention spans to weak to hold on
Mental exhaustion and burnout is real
Depression and anxiety will spawn
And a suicidal fate we will seal
True inner peace comes from a quiet soul
So less distractions will make our hearts whole
The past carried so much normalcy that it was deemed boring.
I remember the smile that I left with you and the stars that shone only in your eyes.
The present now carries a lift that you thought made things easier.
But you continue to run.
You have run the biggest race of your life, driven by a mind you never chose to have in the first place.
I met a child in the past, and I can remember him by his smile.
The man standing before me is still smiling, but he often wonders what the point of it all is.
Sometimes it feels like I am dealing with two different people.
The man keeps trying to convince me that he isn't that different from the mind I knew.
Oh and I believe him. Not just because he wants me to, but because I know the man he became is one that was born out of the desperation to survive whatever this whole cycle is.
The present gave him steps, noises, and countless clicks that satisfied only an urge.
As he tries to silence the noises and then continues to tell me about his world, which is now new to me,
He will click click click until everything becomes okay again.....
Leaving dusty footprints on Texan soil,
a drifting unemployed taxi driver.
Stumbling through nights of doubt,
towards seedy lighthouses that shone brightest.
He scratched her name on napkins, in margins,
on the fogged glass of Greyhounds—
rehearsing a love that would never be more
than a monologue for his mirrors.
Believing the act would be a sentence,
six shots, one ricocheted love letter,
so that on his arrival,
history might remember him
as something other than a ghost.
Samael: "The orchard is open to omphaloses the stables are Sable's cheery O's and so cereal of woodwork, is fairy cereal so bold."
Uraeal: "I open the gates true north crashes down, the hell of highwater is where the shark surely drowned, but the westward gate is closed and so is the east and the south closes now, like heathery feasts.
The Pro: "Should be palaver again, the moon bright the brittle bread?"
Samara: "I bred in this fire, I tire of liars who are of the sort who won't kindle my fire."
Gladius: "The other festoon is under thine eyes, like he needn't cross-work on crosswords for prized possession, taken by the ghoul of Mary sent brethren."
Aurora: "If the course if taken by the northmost gate, let golden rakes fill the plates."
Helel: "Should we wait for the north gate to crumble, before he humbug the buggie and send swallows aflutter?"
(Anonymized character) "I created once before now I was become death, the pita bread moon like the harvest moon's friend."
---End of act V---
blank stares
streaming tears
the tip of the pen
piercing my skin
Why am I doing this?
I know this is wrong.
I know I'm going to be mad.
I know I'm going to hate what's left.
So why?
I need to feel something
when I can't feel anything.
so the pen
scratches the surface.
heartache
pen goes deeper.
sadness
scratch marks.
anger
blood.
Why?
Why do I do it?
Why can't I use other methods?
I wrote this poem right?
Why can't I do that?
I need to feel something
I need to feel pain
It's what I deserve
So pen scratches cover my arm
I have to hid them now
hide the evidence
"nothing's wrong"
"I'm okay" "I'm fine"
hide the evidence
I'm not hurting
and no one would care if I was
so why would I share?
I need to feel something
anything
aren't there other ways
so why do I choose the pen
time and time again
the pen
the scratches
the blood
the scars
the pen
showing my pain
disappered and covered
by my sleeve
Today it's been 16 months
16 months since I have seen your face
16 months since I felt your embrace
16 months since I heard your laugh
16 months since I knew you were in the world
even when I didn't see or hear from you
It's also been 16 months since I have seen
the pain in your eyes
FELT the pain of you words, go straight to my heart
Seen the effects of your illness on your whole being
Seen that you were a shadow of who you were before
mental illness took over your life
I MISS all of you, but I am not sorry you found peace
and I am trying to make you proud by screaming hard
and loud that Mental Health is crucial and our resources
are inadequate.
I love you, my son and I miss you!
Mental Illness is not a violation.
It's a human experience.
One many carry unspokenly.
The real harm is uncovered
How others respond:
The quick labels, the cold
Stares, the whispered verdicts.
A mind in toil needs support, not punishment,
Compassion, not condemnation.
Because the truth is straightforward:
The crime is in the person
Who sees the hurt and chooses to
Judge it.
I was tying my shoes
Wrapped with thoughts of death
Wondered if the stone beneath me
Would appreciate the human dire
Splashed over it like ketchup
And no, it wasn’t thoughts of suicide
For I know death is not really what I want
Maybe I do write letters sometimes
About my last day on this ground,
but they're just words caused by pain
And yet I can’t help but wonder
If murderers do feel fear when they kill
I wonder if the sin of lying is equal to killing
Anxiety l loathe you, yes loathe you l do
Uninvited , you invade my whole being
You serve me no purpose
When you get hold of me….there is no freeing
I never invited you in
I have told you continuously to leave me alone
Yet you do not listen
You still invade my whole being down to the bone
So, l reluctantly live with you
I do my best to keep you and your negativity at bay
I manage you , l cope with you
Though l know…..you are never far away
I have this jar, nothing special about it
Aside for the fact it is used to save money
You may ask about it, actually
I'm saving for something sweet like honey
They say everything cost money
If you live you pay for you to keep on living
If you die you pay to be buried
And here I thought if I just disappear
So does my financial responsibility
Isn't so hard, to choose
Whether to live or to die
Either choice still cost a fortune
So here I am keep on working
Keep on living, Saving for my funeral
triggers triggers yet they
fall before me
yellow purple
what colors do I notice
palm trees beach views
something I see there
is called home.
I can feel the dust on my tongue
yet as they dissolve and then solve all my
issues.
clinically and emotionally why
Does this little tabloid make me gain weight
I can’t seem to shake
All because I am a
schizoid.
When I was young, I didn’t have much.
Which means I didn’t worry
About it being taken away.
Didn’t worry about robbers, private or public,
And didn’t care about changing the world.
That wasn’t the brand of hubris I was born with.
Now that I’m old and retired there is a lot to lose,
My life and family, savings, property and stuff.
So I pay more attention to those who preach
The doctrine of redistribution, hope and change.
It’s easy to get caught up in it all
Since it’s always in the news.
But it’s also easy to forget there's an easy way out,
A simple and sure way out of hoping
And worrying what change will come.
And that is to simply sit,
On your own private cushion, or better yet
Beside a dog.
But best of all, outside, amid the greens
Under the clouds in a sky of blue
And let the sounds and sights of nature
Give you all you need.
No need for hope or worry about changing a thing,
The world is doing just fine within you and without you.
(9/10/26)
Shadow Man
Sitting in an empty room.
He watches down the hall.
As shadows move across the floor.
And dance along the wall.
His eyes grow darker like the room.
Cause to him it’s all the same.
Rejected by the light of day
the shadows call his name.
Sitting in the darkened room,
Where nighttime never ends.
He don’t seem to mind at all.
The shadows are his friends.
He listens to the whispers.
Carried in the nighttime air.
As shadows repeat secrets.
That someone dared to share.
Be careful what you say or do.
It’s part of a greater plan.
The secrets told that he may hold
the one called Shadow Man.
Edwin C Hofert
She lay still,
within the rot of her festering limerence,
bleeding on clovers in the field beneath.
The red of the clovers
begins to darken with the crimson blood
spilling from her wrists,
as she fixes her gaze upon the lonesome stars above.
"Oh God, oh God, oh God."
She repeats internally.
She seems to find peace
in a sense of nihility,
though she desires death before being.
It's almost as she yearns for the feeling
of fester and decay,
eager for the obscurity ahead.
And with her final breaths,
she casts a parting glance
upon the clovers strewn below,
in search for any sign of luck
among her inevitable solitude.
A four leaf clover lay
within her stilled grasp.
Yet still,
dawn knows no delay.
Mental Health Categories
Definition | What is Mental Health in Poetry?
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