Category: Mental Health
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The Algorithm
How do you beat the algorithm?How do you fight a reflection that’s been distorted?Pixelated by cyber forces that convince our daughters that they’re not enough?How do you deflect the million voices that affect their choices and drown out us telling them it’s too much?My daughter tells me she’s ugly,Doesn’t hear me when I tell her…
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Broken Toy
I accidentally introduced my colleagues to the real me, and now, apparently, they’re scared of me. I have become a monster in their eyes, and I suppose it should come as no surprise, When I’ve been wearing a disguise for the past five years, They were scared by the raised voice and puffed chest, And…
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Be.
I was at Liverpool Street last week and I saw a TFL sign that said “slow down and walk” and it actually made me stop in my tracks because I realised I was actually rushing. But why? I wasn’t on my way to work, or to an appointment, I was just going to see my…
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To the Syndrome in my Head
You don’t belong here She said She said You are in the wrong place You are a disgrace A face that doesn’t fit You don’t belong here and you need to quit She said QUIT!! Let me be clear You aren’t even meant to be near this table Let alone sat here at this table…
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Confetti
Taken in.Scattered vim,Like confetti to the wind,Empty palmof sallow skin,Cold and thinfrom a tiredness that’s hunkered inthe very core of everything.What is this thing?Ephemera.Magician’s sin.No hint of paper left withinthis hollow tin.This wraith in skinand boneand two-bit grinis spirallingwhile the tricksy djinnwith Keyser Söze’s tricksy limbdances inthe coloursdancingonthewind.
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Mike Hotel – World Mental Health Day and Black History Month
I was diagnosed with Clinical Depression when I was 11 years old. I was then diagnosed with General Anxiety Disorder aged 35 years, but really I had been living with it for many, many years. Looking back, all the signs were all there, but my friends and family just put them down to moodiness, quirkiness,…
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Hollow
In a clearing stands a hollow treethat has long since lost its crown of leaves,Its bark is cracked from weathered storms,Its brittle branches – gnarled, forlorn –lay battered, scattered all around,And when they fell they made no sound,For this broken tree stands all alone,Splintered, fractured, stripped to bone,No more birds to nest, nor squirrels to…
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Battery Pack
As I sit on the top floor of my work building, back nestled against the safety door that leads to the roof, I try to ignore the pulse in my forehead, the result of a morning of pretending. Pretending is hard. It’s like turning one of those new-fangled cordless vacuum cleaners up to maximum and…
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Insomniac
Night sweats, Sheets wet as cruel scenes stretch across my inner eyes, A gnarled and fetid pantomime of phantom frets ties silken binds across my neck and chokes me to the brink of life, Splits my mind; Half is here and half is on the other side, I’m both alive and not alive in this…
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Knots
Anxiety. It’s never a mere stomach knot. It’s like a coarse frayed entanglement of rope that’s devoured as it sinks into a molten metal mire deep deep deep inside, Fires fly and gases rise, Beastly belching bubbles that swell and explode like fireworks of fury, All the while an angry tremor bellows through the scalloped…
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Disconnected
What’s this that falls before my eyes, With blistered sores and weary sighs? A shell, a corpse that’s mummified in the bloodied gauze of her demise, She is my spirit, Mauled, maligned, Her salted tears have scored and dried. Malevolence poured from callous minds, Like tiny swords that beat and bind ’til they’ve pilfered thoughts…
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Dysmorphic
It’s a dark, dark road that you venture down when you can’t even look yourself in the eye, When the words ‘fat’ and ‘ugly’ explode like landmines in your mind every time you look in the mirror, When you’d rather rip your flesh and gouge out your eyes than have to look a second more…
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Bullies
It’s Blue Monday so this poem is dedicated to all the organisations, bosses, colleagues, and other individuals who never quite graduated from playground bullying. Remember your words and behaviour have consequences…… There is a strange peace In knowing the day; The day that the pain will be going away, When the bullies will stop their…
Serena Malcolm 