Tag: mentalhealth

Thin

February 7th, 2025

Photo by Tarah Dane

I feel like the bar of soap when it gets too thin

And you have to scrape it off the ledge in the shower

Crumbling as you spread it over your body

Nearly useless, nearly invisible

The last of it’s life bubbling around you

As you wash the remains of it down the drain

Where your dreams and your joys go to die

When you’ve been backed into the corner

And there is no place left to go except to turn and face the wall

Praying that they won’t find you

Hoping that they will stop looking for you

Once the novelty of your absence has worn away to nothing

Just like the soap when it gets too thin.
The Friend Who Lingers

November 15th, 2024

Photo by Cherry Laithang

I see you standing outside in the yard

Where I sent you after I was tired

Of your stories about me. And the people who love me.

Sometimes I wonder what you are doing

Standing there, waiting for me

As if I wanted to sink back into your bleak embrace.

No, I say to myself

As I make myself eat and shower

Even though the pit in my stomach growls loudly.

No, I will not let you back in

I will not succumb to the soft sound

Of your lies about me. And the people who love me.

Yet

I see you standing out in the yard

When I take out the garbage

Or let out the dog

When I press my face against the cool window at night

And wonder what it would be like to close my eyes forever.

Sometimes if I am not careful

I start to look for you

My friend who lingers

Smiling such a sad, sweet smile

That makes me melt into your darkness.

I kicked you out of here, again and again

And yet you stand in my yard

Waiting.
Lemons

September 22nd, 2023

Photo by Julia Peretiatko

All the little lemons that grow on the tree of life

Can be used for so much more than lemonade.

You can take those lemons and turn them into zest

So you can use it for glaze on your cakes and donuts.

Or you can juice those lemons

And use it for lemon tarts or lemon bars or lemon drizzles or lemon curd.

If you need more imagination

Take the lemons that life has grown on the tree

And make lemon pepper fish or chicken

Lemon sorbet or lemon ice cream.

Slice them up for topping grilled salmon or sushi rolls.

And if you get too full of lemons, thinking you really cannot

Eat one more lemon

Just use them to lighten your hair or freshen your house.

Use the oil as a perfume or a make it into a tincture

Or maybe put it in your water so it tastes nice.

But if all these options cannot reduce the number of lemons

That the tree of life is dropping at your feet

My friend, it really is okay for you to throw those lemons away,

or put them into the composter, and let them rot.

Being overwhelmed does not mean you are not grateful.
Disease

April 26th, 2022

Photo by Reza Hasannia

I have not always had the best self-esteem. I am, at heart, a people pleaser. I want everyone to like me, and when they don’t, a level of self-doubt and even self-loathing starts to infect me. Poor self-image can be just as debilitating as any other mental health issue. The times in my life when I have not liked who I was, most often brought about by trying to be someone else, I wanted to cut out all the parts of me that felt like they didn’t fit. It felt like the person I was trying to become had to kill the person I was pretending to be.

I wish you would penetrate my spirit

This darkness that craves you wants me to become

Something different- something made of you and me.

So force your will on me, violently, so I can’t protest

An overpowering of me so complete that I disappear.

Choke out this darkness that has become me

And devour all my bright, hot parts until

My blood runs down your body and then lick it

Off your teeth.

Slip inside of me so far

Until everything I feel, you feel

One creature, one life, one beating spirit

Push yourself so far into me that I can’t tell

Where you start and I end,

Until I fall out the other side of this disease

This darkness that would let me be consumed.

Tag: mentalhealth

Thin

The Friend Who Lingers

Lemons

Disease