Three poems for Mental Health Awareness May
Since 1949, Mental Health Awareness Month has been celebrated in May in the U.S. I won’t take the time to share statistics, slam stigma, or convince anyone of how deeply important caring about mental health is to the wholistic witness of the church. I will take time later this month to share a few resources that have personally been helpful in my mental health challenges, but for now, I really want to open a few pages of my journals from 2021 and 2022.
During the most intense and long-lived periods of anxiety, insomnia and unresolved trauma I ever experienced, I wrote over thirty poems that became a glossary of sorts, my creative exploration of vocabulary words I hated knowing. Someday soon they’ll be a chapbook, but editing is slow because the words are still tender.
I’ll share three of my pieces here, giving you a taste of what mental health challenges meant for me and the movements that have taken me forward in hope.
Hypervigilance
if his eyes drop, yours just can’t
if you sleep, the car will crash
if you lay down your weary head
down for a minute, he’ll be dead, you better
watch his tiny chest and read each label, scan
your hands, root out tremors, recheck plans
text your friends, lest they forget you, forget
safety in nakedness, as soon as you sigh,
there’s a sinking.
if you allow your lips a curve to smile or melt
into the couch, even just for a while,
you could lose all this unction,
get preyed upon by fear. you’ve been told it’s best
to keep your enemies near
but your eyes droop.
in dreaming, your finger is numb in the dike
and you beg, there’s nothing you’d like
more than to step back and rest
so you do
and the crash crushes air from your chest.
You gasp accusation until, wait, can it be?
There was no water waiting to flood your fields.
The boats bob in a harbor a league away.
You’re rocked to rest by the sound of a sea
slayed long before you learned to breathe.
Acceptance
Kimberly tells our team to see past
The sounds our students make,
“Accent is set in childhood,
usually by sounds heard before
the age of four. Pronunciation
doesn’t measure their proficiency.”
But what if we heard breaking plates
or bullet cases or “you are not safe”?
Will these words like “peace” and “able”
always catch in the back of my mouth?
Sometimes, I find I like the way I roll
my scars and give you hints of where I’ve been
by the way my tongue bends.
Sometimes I scratch my record like Eliza,
“The rain in Spain, falls
mainly on the plain.
The rain in Spain falls
mainly on the plain.”
Reframe: An Epilogue
There are no profaned places.
You’ll find one day you can
sway on grounded feet where you once
scattered ashes of
guilt that needed no absolution.
Photo albums (de veras) can morph
from memories that immobilize
to monument stones of breaths you kept
taking. You’ll stop
counting doses and weeks and seasons and find
your fight (then, your sight) more
compelling than finish lines.
You’ll spread jam from grapes you crushed
while you were shaking and taste
a little more summer than sorrow (your tongue
will witness). Instead of wishing
to feel like yourself again
you’ll realize, she’s standing
still; her face is lined
but made majestic
by the aching.
