'Just small moments in time'- a poem about my mental illness

[Repeat]

I wanted to write something for the Our Experiences raffle as I think it's a lovely event... but the thought of writing the whole story of my struggle with mental illness is just too much for me. So I wrote down a few snippets, memories and made a sort of free verse poem instead.

 

 

 

  Just small moments in time

 

I remember watching Wall-e at the movies listening to people react around me

and feeling nothing myself...looking at the screen and thinking

'what if I'm a robot too?'

 

 

I remember being halfway to work. The feeling of my lungs compressing, squeezing so

tight within my rib cage that I picture them turning completely white. My vision blurring,

gasping for air as the panic seizes me. I can't do this but the thought of ringing my boss,

trying to speak, trying to explain, it's overwhelming.... so I just go to work anyway.

I try not to let anyone on the train see that I'm crying.... 

I'm still shaking.

 

 

I remember my thoughts spiraling around me like a cyclone, spinning so fast they're

blurring into each other, tangling and mutating and everything is connected.

EVERYTHING

I have to tell someone, I have to tell

EVERYONE 

...but I can't speak slow enough to be understood. 

 

 

I remember the day after you died collecting all the pills you had before

the home nurses could come back and throw them away. 

Boxes and boxes of them.

A painless death in little blister packs, a release.

I don't remember how I justified stealing them even to myself,

but I do remember the day that I threw them all away. 

Every last one unopened. 

You would have been so proud.

[Kunn]

this is so emotional