Tag: Depression

Melt Down

She drifted down Main Street,
shrunken and exposed
to the gaze of lacy twitchers.

She maintained a regal air,
head high, Liberty scarf fluttering.
Think panache, she thought.

Her expression was composed,
eyes cool as anthracite
and mouth dead as diamanté.

But sunbeams melted her frozen
cockles, dissolved her moody blues.
So why the tremor in her guts?

When she reached the Post Office
her feet puddled like jellyfish
and she slumped against the wall.

Her reflection in the window
was pale as January. Her face
had slipped to her waist.

With failing heart she understood.
The next day all that remained
was a dark stain and a scrap of Liberty.

 

FB4DE6BF-C14A-46D9-8D0D-AA996D56B173
Photograph by the author

Survivor

Naked before the mirror, her limbs bent in wilful
directions. She was a misshapen tree, bent

by a bomb blast in some forgotten war, misshapen
but surviving in the ruins of a bombed out town

in a ruined land with a name impossible to spell.
Like the victim of a witch’s spell one leg pointed

left, the other pointed right pulling her opposite
ways. Her life was a circle, a gravitational pull

to wayward rotation. Men caught by her centrifugal
spin queued in rotation to see her flicker matchstick

shadows on the bedroom ceiling, flickering
like the wings of a bird in a locked room.

 

AE821F21-C235-4A14-99B5-9783D567D39D
Photo by the author

The Winter Break

The blizzard began, cherry blossom from a flame sky. The road home
vanished. Pink ice floes shape-shifted in the river, bumping
and grinding like clubbed seals. We tended the fire
and played strip poker. In bed you wore lipstick and a balaclava.

On the third day we tracked through the crystal forest. The valley
was a fandango of silence. I clawed at it with my bare hands.
You held your phone up high, immobile as the Statue of Liberty.
We returned to the cabin and played Scrabble with four letter words.

The windows became peepholes. I saw no footprints in the virgin drift,
only the farmer’s wife floating silver between the tree tops.
She was wearing a wolf jacket, her face upturned to the falling snow.
That night you thought you heard singing in the wind.

On your last day, you stopped speaking, stayed in bed, a tender huddle
of bones. I roasted meat on the log fire and drank Jack Daniels. I recited
the tale of our first New Year’s Eve, kissing in Times Square
while rockets fell. I could still remember the neon taste of your flesh.

 

140EAFA1-4ABF-4AED-9F69-9F6E3C636CBD
Photograph created by the author

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Moth Dance

Alone in my hospital room at night I watch tiny particles of dust and fluff swirl beneath the reading lamp.  They say dust comprises of dead skin cells, we sweep them away when we clean, removing all trace of our former selves.  Our cells are constantly reproducing and every seven years our bodies regenerate anew.  Your body is repeatedly recycling itself but not your mind.  Your mind is an entirely different story.  Our brains become less active, neural pathways die, our memories fade and disappear, we lose skills and alertness,  sometimes we even lose our sense of self.

But back in my mean small room, Ward 3A.  I’ve been here fourteen weeks now.  A reluctant patient, more like prisoner. So every night I sit, sleepless and thoughtless watching the dust  and wondering if these are particles of the old me, a shedding of  my past life. Occasionally moths enter through the open window and dance wildly in the pool of light, their fragile wings clinking against the electric bulb. Blinded and bewildered they circle.  In the morning I find their wispy bodies spent and shrivelled on my sheets.

 

25E0AED1-8CB9-44F2-948A-11AC682F05A6
Self portrait by the author

 

 

 

The Hole

One morning, when you are least expecting you
wake up a hole
in your abdomen, a salivating
red circle, slap bang middle of the soft
flesh beneath your ribs,
big enough to fit two fingers.
You feel no pain, just uncomfortably numb.
There’s a hole and you can’t recall
what was there before. You try not to look,
put a sock in it and Elastoplast over the top.
After fruitless Googling you
ring in sick and visit the doctor.
She’s wearing lipstick and a feather boa.
She advises vitamin D and camomile tea.
Just one of those things, she smiles and hands you
a free whale music CD on your way out.
Next day, you wake feeling cold.
The ceiling is scabbed with mould.
There’s a strange smell in the room, like geraniums.
When you study the hole, it’s become a tunnel
and you cannot see the end.
You shine a torch and for a moment
glimpse the white shriek of an eyeball.
On the last day
you wake before dawn.
The cornflakes taste stale and you’re out of bread.
You worry about office dead
-lines and the state
of the carpet where the cat is digging for gold.
You take a hot bath and try not to look.
Through the opening you
hear the trill of bird song.

 

63D40C85-3FD8-4DBA-9F7C-7CC4193A21A9
Photo created by the author

Selling Sanctuary

I’m in a small cold place
perched on the edge, the solo late

night representative of Shell.
I’m researching the after

-life, heaven or hell, really can’t tell.
Muffled shadows shift beyond bullet

-proof glass, reveal inner
shit. Look away, look away.

Unleaded or diesel, Red Bull or Rizla,
Twix or a bit of smut, reformed

cheese sarnies, sausage rolls, Golden
Wonder or a pint full cream.

I don’t give a damn, all pie in the sky.
Make sure you buy before you die.

Dive in from the black
well into my bright, where pumped up

demons and angels self
-service, sniff hydro-carbon light.

It is the hour of the wolf,
and we are all overdue.

 

924A3177-2CA2-4523-92BD-7994954BE0C2
Photo created by the author