Depression
The stereo
has put on some headphones,
complaining that my constant talking
makes it feel sad,
And I find myself propped on my pillows
fighting bed sheets
as they attempt to hold me down.
This one particular bed sheet
keeps tying up my heart beat, invasively
answering in metaphors,
(this could get ugly)
Beauty stumbles along
smelling of lilac flowers
and fresh spring water,
wearing mascara
that has bled down the sides
of her lovely cheeks
and in her hand a mirror that talks
like the voice of God.
I have begun to bottle my silence,
in time it will serve
as my new song
and all the melody
of my emotion
are now rainbows
on my horizon
Graciously I wait
for the clouds to clear
So I can sing
Once more.
Panic Attack
This is you as seen by them,
Undone, forsaken, broken, in tiny pieces
scattered amidst the graves of insanity.
Time, god's own nakedness, has revealed
the truth.
There is a quiet noise that screams
inside my head ,but I am asleep.
Comatose, Catatonic, confused
I wonder about the stones as the
darkness hides in mid afternoon.
My smile, plastic, painted like a portrait
on a face of glass. I vent openly,
sobbing as harrowing flashbacks invade
the tiny spaces in limbo. In my hands
I hold the stethoscope of terror, taunting
suffocating, inside unable to breathe
the memories in.
Panic seizes the night as shards of words
pierce the secrets, packaged in beautiful
boxes with colorful bows, deception, as
the unquestionable odor of death escapes.
The darkness has become a forest of words
in which I lose myself. I stutter and advance
in slow motion as I miss an o clock passing,
and miss now.
Me, my friend, my foe, and my opposite
all emerge as one in a bottomless black
hole. The way out is lost, hidden, covered
by madness.
By Jennifer Smith
Lupus
Wolf, your image is graceful stealth, but
my fatigue settles like darkness at winter dusk,
clumsy as wet wool weighting my limbs.
It sifts through my brain -
like soot from a damp chimney,
massing in spongy drifts.
Cast from the pack –
you den beneath my skin and
eat my sleep – marking
your passage with marrow-ache.
My mornings trail the scent of my exhaustion.
Defective beast, you still have teeth enough to chew fresh bone.
Sick-sweet pain of exile, tasting death.
Asleep
I was asleep, when garbed in green, he entered me.
I was not awake to share his intimacies, and
I shall never have his knowledge of me.
To his gloved hand, you were not unique.
Diseased under your burden of aberrant tissue –
a routine nuisance to be studied and discarded.
But to me, you were the engine of my purpose -
mystical reservoir of feminine essence.
Programmed to create, you turned upon yourself
to yield unstifled growth.
If I had held you, it would have been with tenderness and
elegiac regret for my deliberate disuse of you.
If awake, I would have marveled at your generosity –
the grantor of my only child,
the roller of dice for my immortality.
To him, you were a useless part of an aging woman.
To me, you were a dynasty of children never born.
He touched me as no lover ever could.
With skillful hands, he removed you
and sent you to a lab where
many hands would touch you,
many eyes would see you.
Only never mine.
By Kerry Holjes
Life
this is a life
expressed in words,
a lifetime of words,
visual words
of soft red sunrises,
happy words
of sunny spring days,
filled with laughing children at play,
sad words
of death's indignities,
the debasement of a man,
once vital as a boxing contender,
a potent pugilist
now horrified and helpless
hooked to a hospital machine
giving his every breath,
yet taking his life away,
sorrowful words
inadequate to express
the pain of loss,
the finality of the granite slab
glistening in the last rays of a distant sun.
by
Jacqueline Seewald