DR V AND ME

By Jean Antonello 

So, how are you?

A common cue

Its meaning light

Normally trite

I’m fine

He wants a list

My psychiatrist

My sleep my mood

Symptoms accrued

Here goes

Rushing thoughts

Scattered and fraught

With much distress

No gentleness

I’m tense

Then I slow down

Collapse in a frown

The pain inside

One can’t abide

So sad

Next urgency

Captures me

Get things done

No time for fun

Look out

A darkness glares

No one cares

The curse is back

A heart attack

So what?

Seesaw life

Both sides strife

Dead or crazed

Dr V unphased

That’s me

This week

FAULT IN THE ROAD

By Emily Astey

My life had stopped abruptly

even before I hit the ground.

After years of deafening chaos,

there suddenly was no sound.

A brief respite from turmoil

birthed a single revelation.

And when my eyes had stirred again

I felt no hesitation.

But what I couldn’t calculate

were the figures soon exposed.

How they lured me to a roseate end

that I often thought was closed.

Cliché, but now I understand

what precedes a prescribed doom.

Images I once had buried

resurrected from their tomb.

Like album pages neatly arranged

for my viewing pleasure.

The pictures revealing only truth

leaving something to discover.

I hated everything I saw.

It turned my stomach sickly.

I figured I must enact a plan,

and had to do it quickly.

I know that I was thinking

because my brain indeed engaged.

But the deluge of emotion

encouraged me to come enraged.

My body shocked to silence

Even my heart was rendered mute.

It all assumed a swift retreat

as I commenced this deep pursuit.

This now inspires retrospection

since my efforts disappoint.

No ashes gathered from the flame.

No body to anoint.

So, in sum it was a failure.

Even I shocked by results.

Instead of once clear resolution,

I just now see all my faults.

But was it I to blame for error?

My plan of quick design.

Excitement shattered contemplation

like a chalice full of wine.

And what I rendered to be blood

could then not be contained.

What was released upon the scene 

left more than just a stain.

THE ARSONIST

By Erin McCluskey

Guilt is a brush fire, 

charring her tissue paper skin.

The burn of blame,

the scorch of shame,

like gasoline, 

stokes the flames.

From somewhere beyond the abyss,

a silvery voice,

like snow,

arrives quietly on a whisper,

abruptly evaporating into the embers.

The sound of grace often visits the self-imprisoned. 

Hawking up the ash that had made a home in her lungs,

she wipes the toxins from her lips.

“I am good,” she utters through hot tears,

at long last, drinking in clean air.

The truth had risen up.

The smoke, dissipating.

Deliverance had been there all along,

waiting patiently.

An old friend buried in the marrow of her bones.

ABOUT THE POEM: “The Arsonist” illustrates how shame can fester like a contaminant in our bodies. Yet, because shame is self-inflicted, so is our ability to set ourselves free.

ABOUT ERIN: Erin is a writer, actor, and filmmaker based in New Orleans, USA.



Share your poetry for mental health ...