Mental Illness Poems | Examples

The Artist

A perfect moment of pure inspiration, 
What a fantastic thing to have.
Catching artistic fevers from the very air around you.
Eureka.

Don’t you understand?
The graceful curve flowing from the neck down the back,
can’t you see it?
The simple, modest yet absolutely perfect line.

A forest of art suffocating sanity.
So fine, beautiful, I feel like I’ll burst.
But, something is still missing here.
What could it be, I wonder.
(Why is it whispering to me?)

Please help, will you?
I will show you, 
an amazing work of art.
If I don’t create now, when will I?
I need to express myself now.

I will decorate your last moments
with these gorgeous wings.
Paint this stadium in your colors,
Stain this stage with those beautiful feathers.
Yes, this is true art.

One more stroke,
you will become my greatest masterpiece.
The ultimate canvas,
I am on the edge of great inspiration.

The Whispers

My mind is full of jumbled whispers
Whispers coming from each corner 
Telling me how I am to be
How I must do everything 
The whispers like smoke in my lungs
Filling me with darkness
Why can’t I be who I want to be
Why must the whispers tell me how I am
Why must the whispers travel through every Nerve in my body just to make sure I act how They want me to
I want to scream into the heavens
Tell the whispers this isn’t what I want
But every time I do
The whispers come back stronger 
Like a blade to the mind
Slicing until the whispers contaminate my whole Being
I rip and tear at my skin to make the whispers Leave
But all that follows is crimson pooling at my feet
The whispers will always be there 
Everywhere I am
Controlling my every move 
They will turn me into darkness until all I leave is A path of ash following closely behind me
They will make sure everyone knows the scars They left on my mind
They will make it known that they own me
I will never be who I want to be

Not Sleep World

Not anything. 
It’s not a sleeping face in me. 
Just gradual nothingness. 
As if I’m being stewed, and stirred for hours. 
But that’s just-
The Not Sleep World. 

Dreading being locked up. 
Feeling fascinated in a Not Sleep way. 
Like there’s a bowl of ice cream under my bed. 
Being devoured by dust bunnies. 

It’s a ‘haha, panicked, wait a minute, ok’ way. 
Not anything good or cozy. 
Eyes blinking like corn on the cob. 

The Not Sleep World. 
Makes it into morning. 
Like breakfast, or being. 
Crazy corn on the cob feeling. 
Just unbrushed my teeth and scattered. 
I have work in a wavering, squinting way. 
In a slapping the wall way. 
Not good and cozy. 

I hear them clapping. 
Because I slept an hour at some point. 
Now I can entertain the waking world.


My Mind

I loved to draw stick figures and also, 
Nightmares eating up the page, and
Disintegrating emotions, and also 
A willingness. 

Dancing is one of those disgraceful emotions. 
I eat it like sandpaper. 
With no ending, grasping. 
There is a presence, calculating. 

He is like a phone call, all haunting and hovering.
And like a shower, it disrupts my power lines. 
I have to escape, like wires, alive.
I tried again and accumulated more gold in me. 

When I lost my mind, it wasn’t just blades. 
It was cold-waiting, and electricity in my teeth. 
Nothing of the phone made sense to me. 
Because it’s all stick figures on the other side of nothing. 

When I lost my mind, it was midnight. 
And more, pouring, sensations, non-sensations, 
Just caressing like a snowy figure. 
When it was midnight, I was really supposed to sleep!

Which is the most important thing: sleep, sleepiness,
The jungle, the tundra. 
Other places where I could teleport to. 
And still, no sleep.

Premium Member Woes Of A Borderline

I consume to fill a painful, aching emptiness,
My spirit residing in a dark void of an abyss.
I long to be my man's revered empress.
I love harder, more than need to impress.

I despair in my own world full of aether.
Many ways in which I can fall and falter.
I rather be nothing like my mother or father,
But truth is I'm a mix of their worst together.

I silently stay forever at war with ego within,
Hoping for one to give me a different spin.
I rather be better than whom I have been,
But I struggle to be one who'll always win.

I love deeply, madly, truly, so never forget
Once my heart sets on you, I'll never regret
The way I risked my life without any fret,
To find you, and for you, my life I will bet.

Premium Member A Crash Through the Gates of Parental Trust

Laval Daycare • Feb. 8, 2023

The world had come into being
four years and 17 days ago — for Jacob,
it would implode in a few seconds,
time enough for five-year-old Maeve
to play with Jacob and his toy fire engine —
sirens brought the real emergency vehicles.

Maeve’s candle had been blown out,
her eyes, never to open —
her wish never to be granted.
Only questions relight the candle,
wishing for a different outcome.

Jacob just wanted to play,
surrounded in an aura of innocence.
Unaware —
his fire engine,
the last toy
he touched.
Maeve,
his last friend,
sharing his fate.

Found not criminally responsible.
Unable to tell right from wrong.
A psychosis, we were told.
The judgement didn’t acquit or absolve.
The bus took it upon itself to drive into the daycare—
we are to assume.


Premium Member Existential Depression

Sometimes I feel none love me for my soul.
Everyone only loves me based on each role.
For a long time I am only but an empty shell.
I only play pretend that I am here and well.

Every time I was close to finally leaving,
My soul is brought back like lightning.
But I feel so hollow, with little to no reason
To hold on to as I go through every season.

Sometimes I feel if I do go, it won't matter.
They would only care if I were to splatter.
I am only so ordinary, no destiny awaits me.
For years I only want my soul to be set free.

Every time I nearly left this diseased body,
There was a fleeting peace, no more misery.
I fight my demon of depression every day,
But someday, it may finally have its way.

From The Ashes

I've finally found my path again,
    Feeling inspired with paper and pen.
Building a future, a community,
    Seizing newfound opportunity.


Lost precious moments to darkness and depression,
    Feelings of worthlessness and acts of aggression.
I hit my rock bottom with significant force,
    Then spiraled so much further than I should have, of course.


But like the Phoenix, I rise from the ashes,
    I rebuild myself, I heal these gashes.
With what I create, I will make my boys proud,
    They will know that I love them, they'll know the field I have ploughed.


* 'Me In Three' Poetry Contest
* Sponsored by: Julianne Williams
* Entered on: 11/23/2025

Premium Member HOMELESS

Homeless ones feel invisible,
Daily, they feel this way.
Because people, hundreds, pass by,
but never … a word say.

What makes me sad is knowing they’re
some Mother’s, dear lost child.
Missing years, why seldom seen these
Moms ever really ... smile.

Homeless have their own fears; some are
afraid to strangers speak.
Fear what could happen cause they’ve seen
too many … act like freaks.

Police know of rare 'brotherhood,'
among homeless exist.
Approach homeless wrong way,
what feel … will be their fist.

True, some want to be left alone, 
But what about others?
In sidewalk "Tent Neighborhoods," some
act as … Dads and Mothers.

Homeless protecting each other’s
tents, and few belongings.
They’re ‘GOD SENDS”, til God’s Kingdom comes,
blessings … to all folks bring.

When God’s will is done on earth, all
Homelessness will cease.
Mental illness won’t plague mankind,
Moms' hearts … at last at peace!

Sept.15, 2023

The Storm

A storm is coming

The sun is shining 
The birds are singing
The grass is green
That's when you know
A storm is coming 

You can feel it
The tension in the air
You can sense it 
The anxiety it brings

Nothing lasts forever
The high of happiness 
Always brings a storm

You start to notice
The shaking in your hands
The race running through your mind
The loss of your appetite 
The mess in your room
The self-isolation 
A storm is coming

Darkness clouds your every thought
Everything comes raining down
As your tears flood your home
Your life thundering with anger
Hoping soon the lightning strikes you 
The storm is here

Everything is destroyed 
The damage is permanent 
But no one seems to notice
The pain of what you’ve lost 

You call for help
No one answers 
Your alone
You search for safety 
But you can’t escape yourself

The storm is never-ending 
Until you decide to end it all

Premium Member In a Land of Robotics

    
    No wonder Fred’s a bit neurotic
        living in a land of robotics

    Good thing the robots are fully psychotic
        rendering Fred’s neuroses
           ~ downright patriotic

Spiraling unfinished

picking up the bottle 
putting it to my lips.
, its empty
start packing a bowl
getting higher and higher 
losing touch with my soul
hearing voices that won't cease
constantly disrupting my thoughts
mumbles and murmurs 
drive me insane
hearing thousands of people whisper my name
I'm losing touch with it all
I'm not sure what's left

Premium Member A Carefree Poem, But It Ends On A Sad Note

Love things sweet and easy:
Porridge, coffee, good ol' me.
Most of all every day really
I love how he treats me sweetly.

Love things sort of nasty:
Booze, cigarettes, how he's sexy.
Sometimes so wasted, I go crazy.
But nothing will change how he loves me.

Love things to be fun and free:
Music, media, reading are what I do daily.
Walks, lazing, enjoying life indulgently.
This freedom all I ever wanted to be.

Love things just as they are for me:
Neighbors for friends, socializing easily.
All I ever wanted was to live this simply.
Sadly, I'll never live up to what I could be.

Premium Member Madness Cannot Sing

Your head is a living forest 
          full of songbirds.
               ~E.E. Cummings

The songbirds in my head
are chirping melodically,
and unlike the voices
the birds make no demands.

The voices want me dead
chanting evil plans rhapsodically,
but trilling birds notate a different choice
toward a path to other lands.

Lands where voices can be shed,
lands wherein I dwell harmonically,
lands where psyche can rejoice
without annoying ampersands!

Premium Member Naught but a Fume

_______________________________________________


             mind-sear,

                    a cold dark in -
                                bone-crushing, frigid doom;

        mind-bending, searing and unending -

                                             a fume


_______________________________________________

Related Poems

Definition | What is Mental Illness in Poetry?

Get a Premium Membership
Get more exposure for your poetry and more features with a Premium Membership.
Book: Reflection on the Important Things