The Mountains still Weep

3 poems on mental health (severe trigger warning for suicide, schizophrenia, and anorexia)

The Impossible Girl Sitting Impossibly 

how does she sit?
she doesn't have the weight
she is light like a bird 
her ribs are the skeleton of wings 
they catch the air 

her breasts, drops of water 
landed tears, 
she has the teeth of a horse 

her furry face guzzles luxuriously
crushed ice, she knows cold, 
shivers happily, 

flutters 

sitting is too difficult,  
shiver shakes her to pace 
shakes her to run 
infinite bloody running 

her wings heave with the effort 
she never sits, only alights 
like a swallow migrating 
toward a deep winter
  
- if only she would swallow
something warmer than ice
I would see her glow, I'm sure!
a coal in the grate


(first published in The Mountains We Cannot See (love that title!) an anthology of poetry on mental health by Slice of the Moon Press)

(a painting I did when caring for a young woman with anorexia)

This poem is about a lovely, troubled girl at the peak of her disorder. She was the daughter of my boyfriend at the time. A complex person with much to give the world but so overcome by anorexia and bulimia it was often very hard to see the bright girl behind the illness. She died very tragically after coming-out of hospital and finding her determination to manage this terrible disorder, she was run over by a lorry whilst out cycling. A painful reminder we never know how much time we have.

The Mountains Still Weep for Him
 
His moon-wife readies to grieve,
eventually
she shapes for him, in chalk-words
a big barn, a stand of oak, the dark,
dark pines their needles echo and oppose
his luminous hands.
 
Roots entwine themselves
like we all are, like being human is,
like loving and like mycelium
or, the tangled mysteries
of cancer.
 
He hovered over them, slender
as willow leaf, trembled, shook a
labyrinth, from the inside out
like something ancient.
 
Acorns are tumescent and inverse
some cup rainwater and
as saliva pooled under his tongue
he saw the ants drink
(while his throat remained dry).
 
His wife was the cold moon
far above, looking down from
behind the small mountains.
She wore mint satin poetry,
dug into him with it, leaving a warren
unfilled by her full fresh words.
 
When she spoke with that voice
more of his crumbling earth fell out.

It was a small height,
just to the waist of his daughter,
at a guess, maybe just above his knees.
 
He saw her in the roots, his daughter
as if she were made of oak.
A wooden girl with spiral scimitar curls,
her sister a changeling,
knotted twigs with acorns for eyes
in a shrunken apple face.
 
That small height was meaningless,
until he jumped.

Then the height became meaning-full.

He could hear her speaking. 
He could see the stag in the sunset.
Woodpecker hammered his name into an oak.

His moon-wife wore her wedding dress
the veil reached all the way to the floor.


(first published in As Above so Below)

(in the mountains where my lovely friend took his own life)

I have sadly lost 5 friends to suicide, it's a pain that never really leaves. This story is a particularly painful one as this friend was an incredible man, and incredible eco-psychologist. We used to do yoga together every week and I laugh when I remember him hefting himself up into headstand! He spent so many months trying to 'work through' his depression. After several suicide attempts he finally succeeded in taking his own life. After that, during the process of donating organs they found he had pancreatic cancer - one of the primary symptoms for pancreatic cancer is depression. A reminder to look at the whole person not just the mind and not just the body. 

He hadn't failed in caring for himself as he had believed - he actually saved himself some extra suffering. A small comfort to his lovely family and friends who lost a superb man.

Ode to Susan 

She stitched wombs that looked like blanched pears.

Babies began as a knot of thread, that, 
as you tried to untangle, only grew, 
until an umbilicus, like a vine, 
wrapped around her fingers then wrist. 
A quick tug and out it all comes.
A perfect replica of life. 

The pear tree hatches buds. 
Their globe pelvis and top knot mimic a time past 
and a time ahead, where fruit ripens, desirable. 
A quick tug and off it comes. But now,
in this moment, if she were to suck them 
they would taste of the first flush 
- strawberries and cream sap. 

Magnolia´s womb flowers fall open 
where their seams should be. 
Silk tongues have licked at the lollipop sun, 
stained themselves at the root. 
The Eve of flowers replicates the first fall each spring,
and her petals land like cupped hands.

A woman lays down in her kitchen, 
her womb un-stitched. 
How her wrinkles are like threads, 
her eyes have long since become buttons. 
She has sun shaped slits at her wrists 
and her hands are fallen stained flowers. 


(first published in The Mountains We Cannot See an anthology of poetry on mental health by Slice of the Moon Press)

(photo of a magnolia flower by Rachel Basham my very talented friend!)

An agonising story. This woman was the mother of one of my best friends growing up. She was schizophrenic and we were often as kids confused by her expectations and demands. She attempted suicide several times following her second child dying of cot death (the pain she must have been feeling!). She then attempted suicide and tried to kill her first daughter, my friend, with an overdose when she was about 9. It was normal to us to see her scarred wrists and hear her talking inappropriately about sex and stuff. It was clear she suffered greatly during the course of her too short life. she had a wonderful magnolia tree in her garden that she loved,  and I have used this as a metaphor through out this poem. 

She died by overdose several years ago. Needless to say my friend suffers with her own mental health now too and has been diagnosed bipolar, she is currently in hospital. 

Mental illness is a very real very painful part out our human experience. After I graduated as an acupuncturist I set up a free clinic for women with mental health problems. It was only after working with service users regularly I could look back on this relationship and see how much 'Susan' suffered with her schizophrenia and the loss of her child, how support was severely lacking for her and her family. 

I wish for peace for these people and for my other friends who saw no other way out of their pain. If mental health struggles are real for you - don't be alone. People love you - even old friends you may not have seen or spoken to for years - reach out and they will be there or try to help. If you have no one, consider calling someone like Samaritans in the uk the number is: 116 123 and you can call anytime from any phone for free. if speaking isn't your thing you can also email them or write. 


To ALL of you: You are sacred, you are special, you are loved.

I promise to run 3km if you drop a tip in my jar! I will be so elated I will have to!!!