I Needed a Guide by Mad Preschool Teacher
Still feels like yesterday
16 alone with this unrecognized gift
I can touch God
I can feel everything
Way too much pain though too much beauty
I needed a...
I WON by Atara Schimmel
i attended your funeral today
in fact i was
the
one
yes, won
that organized it
Khepri by Michael Hudson
O give me in a shrink the god who rolled Ra
across the heavenly sky each day from dawn,
making everything seem so fresh and young
beneath...
VAMPIRE RACEHORSE by Erica Loberg
When I think about a
24-hour day
I know I am going to have ongoing
obsessional thoughts
coupled with
observations that constantly spring forth
in my mind
all throughout
the daylight.
It’s like...
I Mistook Myself for a Scientific Label by Dr. Peter Gordon
This is neither fact, nor expert advice: I am an artist, a poet, and all that may be in-between.
This is neither fact, nor expert advice: Specialisms are making nonsense of sense.
Satan’s Shadow by Adam Slosberg
It is a beautiful day. The Sun is out; not a cloud in the sky. Yet I am in the Depths of Darkness where...
poem by ElizaM
Jonesing
You can say it's for drugs and think what you want, but drugs are no substitute for love.
Think what you will and say what...
Let’s Talk by Howard Kaplan
I'm right there with you
so, let's talk, in a way.
We can start by talking to the air,
since you and I can’t be here or...
Blossom by Ashleigh
To be beautiful.
What is that?
What does that mean?
Size two, toned, tan, and ready and waiting
Ready for what?
Waiting for who?
The prince charming promised in all...
Numb by ElizaM
Dissociation feels like my head is stuffed with cotton and I can't hear right.
Like trying to have a conversation under water.
Muffled. Blurry. Both heavy...
The labels… by Clare-Star Knighton
I’m peeling off the labels, The adjustment disorders, the bipolar disorder,
I’m peeling off the labels, the borderline - the avoidant - the emotionally unstable personality disorders.
I’m peeling off the labels, to find ME, MEEEE that’s hidden.under.all.these.labels!
tents in the park by Dan Lenart
tents in the park
In the city without a soul
When misfits and outcasts were kicked out,
Banished to exile, even the ancients historically
Understood this sentence, this...
I Am Not Your Pejorative Label by Rebecca Donaldson
I wish you had tried to understand what had happened to me, but in the end, you lacked empathy.
I tried to convey to you...
metamorphosis by Lazlo Taboli
development is hardly accurate for what has happened to me
no, it's more of a transformation
and there is still something in me that needs to...
Antichrist Priest by David Penner
“You are sick. You are unwell,” said the man in the white coat.
“No rational person believes 9/11 was an inside job. Alas,
You are a very sick man, and we are going to make you well.
We can cure you. We used to burn witches, yet we’ve grown more
Sophisticated in our methods. Now we leave the body intact - but not
The mind. Look at what we did to Julian. No one can escape us.”
A Poem for Lovers of the DSM by Rebecca Donaldson
And what is healing?
Chiseling.
Chipping.
Picking.
Smearing and rubbing off the grime.
The gunk.
The graffiti I no longer wish to wear.
To hear.
To feel in my left foot.
Raised shoulder.
Waist...
Bazooka Joe at the Shoe Store by Zak Mucha
Walking past a construction site and through
the creosote cloud of a childhood
shoe store, a kid embarrassed by the clerk’s
gift of a hard square of...
Fifty Shades of Days by Alec Stanza
triggers are slashing my mind
I process the memories of one strange
summer ;
Where was I ? How long did I wander ?
I walked a lot
nowhere...
Black Dog by Tel S.
I keep seeing a black dog next to me.
Will this chase me all my life?
The dog, the needles, the pills, the razors, the knives?
The...
Vacant House by Tara Rae Behr
I never knew what it was like—-to inhabit my body.
I was always
inhabiting
others bodies in my body
since the cave opened and my heart beheld the...
Insulin Shock Therapy by Dana Henry Martin
I hear the music again. It’s my mother
singing through the clay earth
from her grave the way she sang
from her bed at the asylum
until they...
Death Valley Dreaming by Laura Smith-Riva
The wind howls across the spine of shale and abraded rock ridgelines where Sentinels stand tall in the twilight, Gods watching the story of the desert night unfold.
The Greatest Pain of All by Sandy Lunøe
It hurts, the medicine,
which turns you into a robot,
taking away your power
to question,
bringing you to silence
But the greatest pain of all
is not to be...
Dark Shadow by David Penner
And it befell on one mundane Monday morn
That trainee Hailey Meersheimer (rank M3)
Began her first shift in the psych ward; the pall
Was looming in...
Dear Doctor (Unsent Letters) by Rose Y.
Dear Doctor,
Can we please rewind,
slip back in time?
To the first time that we spoke.
You say you don’t remember me
It’s no trouble,
Let’s refresh your memory
I’m...
