Tag: mental health poetry

Strait Jacket

Published on by Sarah DruryLeave a comment

I am not an exceptional human being
for we all wear clothes
Slobbing around in PJ’s when
our tranquilized, minuscule world
is encapsulated
in a space called home
Killer heels when we’re facing the
fucked up world and we remember
who we are, and we straighten
our crowns
Perchance a smidgeon of warpaint
as our battle cries holler into
societal combat
Cherry lips and spider lashes
spun with purest L’Oreal

But I?
I wear a white strait jacket
White as in hospital issue
boiled to death grey
Sanitised and purity leeched
It looks rather smart with
my lithium eyes and my
lunacy smirk
I don’t wear it for ladies’ luncheons
as padded cells are lonesome bistros
And all that cutlery is contraband
And I’m not fucking Houdini

When my couture isn’t a
hospital inspired affair
I am living one
Valium junkie
Lithium chick
Watching the wall for
the clock tock ticks
which govern the drugs
which make me well
But make me sick
Don’t go high, you’ll crash
Don’t go low, you’ll crash
Can anyone tell me
how to score
a gram of sanity?

Does anyone want to
hold my strait jacket for me?
Try it on?
Wear it with me?

©2020 Sarah Drury

Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay

To the Misogynists

Published on by Sarah DruryLeave a comment

When I had a lengthy spell in hospital, many years ago, I was very poorly. I was on what is known as a ‘one to one’, which meant I had to have a nurse with me at all times. One evening, whilst sitting in my room watching TV with the staff nurse, he turned around and said to me, “you know that people like you should never have children, right??” Those words really hurt me and he should never have said that. I am now, many years later, mother to a son with Autism, and although i have times when I struggle with my mental health, my son has helped me stay as sane as I possibly can because I am all he’s got after his father died. He keeps me strong, and was a turning point in my life after many years in psychiatric hospitals.

I wrote this poem about the nurse’s cruel words.

Just because
Mental illness blights
My fragile mind
Just because
My soul travels
In divergent dimensions
Gives you
no fucking right
To play God
Or Hitler
With my right to
Bear child

Casting aspersions
Of prejudice
You broke me
May as well
Rip out my womb
And gift my ovaries
To the mentally stable
Yet barren

Mothers are born
Not made
Merciless are your
Arrogant aspersions
As callous words
Plummet in placentas
Of castigation
Blood staining
Your misogynist shoes

My right to
Bear child
Never smashed by
The patriarchy
Will be

I pray the vitriolic men
Within whose care
Rest women vulnerable
And broken
Embrace humanity
Whilst the tongues
Of those ridiculing
My maternal potential
Are bound in
Repentance
Regret
and
Retribution

©2020 Sarah Drury

Broken Wings

Published on by Sarah Drury2 Comments

This poem is dedicated to anyone who has ever suffered with a mental illness.

I have two tattered wings
That sit like prayers
Upon my broken back
I thought I was an angel
But angels’ wings are usually white
I don’t know if they come
In shades of black
And I know I lack faith
I try to keep my eyes
To heaven in the sky
But my wings are too heavy
I try to help myself
To lift my soul, to fly
But each cloud is a traitor
Selling my sins for my lies
God tell me why
I am always falling
At the first demon?
Am I faithless?

I have two tattered wings
That sit like heavy burdens
Upon my fragile heart of gold
I’ve been trying
Not to sell my cut price soul
To the devil
Since losing my virginity
At seventeen sordid years old
I waited for Armageddon
But you pay for Heaven
In pieces of silver
Not in counterfeit gold
And my wings
Aren’t worth shit

I have two tattered wings
That sit like curses
Upon a mind of paranoia
And madness
I’ve been conversing
With the saints
If I say a prayer for a sick child
Will they take away this
Summertime sadness
It’s a bit late for me
For my shattered wings
To be made anew
There’re only so many things
These days
I can possibly do
Without going fucking
INSANE

But I’ll keep flying
Broken angel
Navigating those crazy skies
And I’ll keep peddling those
Happiness lies
Swallowing the pills I despise
And I’ll survive
On a wing
And a
prayer

©2020 Sarah Drury

Lithium Chick

Published on by Sarah DruryLeave a comment

I have a mental illness called Bipolar Disorder and one of the medications I have to take is lithium. My illness has taken me to some very dark places but lithium has been a wonder drug for me. I wrote this poem at myself, a sort of dark commentary of my illness. I must stipulate it is not aimed at other sufferers, for i have great respect for anyone who deals with a mental health condition day in, day out.

Pop them pills lithium chick
Pop them pills lithium chick
They’ll soothe your pain nice and quick
They’ll make you sane, they’ll make you sick
Make your daydreams milkshake thick
So, pop them pills lithium chick
Pop them pills lithium chick

You know you’ve no job, no money, no hope
No esteem, no confidence, no dreams
You mope, you mope, you mope, you mope
You think of life on the end of a rope
But that’d be like if you tried to elope
So you car crash along, you do your best,
You swallow the shit that is life, you cope.

Pop them pills lithium gal
Pop them pills lithium gal
Don’t want you jumping in no canal
Don’t want death being your penpal
Keep up yer pecker, keep up yer morale
So pop them pills lithium gal
Pop them pills lithium gal

You know love hasn’t found you yet
You cling to a heart that was struck by a dart
When the doctor delivered his black diagnosis
You’ve spent your adulthood swinging between
Being celibate like a nun and being fucked like a tart
And wondering when your fantasies would fall apart
When your roses and hearts romance would start.

Pop them pills lithium dame
Pop them pills lithium dame
We don’t want you fucking insane
These drugs fucking with your pendulum brain
No free prescriptions down the drain
A faulty gene on the family chain
A train of crazy you couldn’t feign
Never mind the fucking pain
The psycho strain, the trash mind sprain
The shameful mental illness stain
Don’t have the complacency to complain
Don’t blame me for the bloodstain train
So pop them pills lithium dame
Pop them pills lithium dame

You know you’re not like the other girls
You’re not thin as a lath nor dripping in pearls
Your hair doesn’t fall in locks of sanity or wellness curls
You don’t walk with the sheep
For their wool isn’t hoodwinked over your eyes
And their normal ways are not ones you can keep
The mountains are too steep and the valleys are too fucking deep.

Pop them pills lithium bitch
Pop them pills lithium bitch
A female in the sanity glitch
A loony machine without a switch
A girl the other girls want to ditch
A girl to shag but never to hitch
A monster, a demon, an unhinged witch
So pop them pills lithium bitch
Pop them pills lithium bitch
Pop them pills…

©2019 Sarah Drury