Tag: mental health

The Archivist

jackiewrightauthorLeave a comment

The diary of your latest test object.

Close-up photo of black and white journal
Photo by Min An

What a curse, what a privilege,

Looking through the director’s cuts in my memory,

Playing videos on my phone in an infinite loop

Until I’m sure of your covert treachery.

Context.

Clues.

Abuse.

Proof.

I dig through the pages until my fingers bleed.

Your gags come back to me in waves until I choke,

Spiraling deeper, sinking toward the ocean floor.

They said it was a joke.

The panic attacks,

Sleepless nights,

Nosebleeds,

Fights,

Rashes,

Emotional downfalls,

Mascara dripping off my lashes.

…a JOKE?

My eyes were soulless, my skin bruised and ashen.

My friends told me we could outrun the death wish,

But we don’t talk about the winter of 2024 anymore,

At least not since demise herself told me to perish.

Humor.

Revenge.

Picking sides.

Dead ends.

I’m not sure how I found my way to the lighthouse.

The fog lifted one day, yet I waited for the waves to return.

Waited for your words to serve as the anchor.

Even silence scared me, quiet made my stomach churn.

Nothing.

Peace.

Sunrise.

Sunset.

Routines kept me alive, ink kept me sane.

The grapevine was quiet until a message came through.

A broken sea creature dropped on my doormat,

And I almost stepped on it before realizing it was you.

Obsessed.

Paralyzed.

Greedy.

Antagonized.

I lock the door to keep you out,

Hoping you don’t turn into a sea monster,

But nothing’s promised.

I’ve escaped dozens of nooses,

Even mine,

But yours was the only one that called me alarmist.

Until the day that you rot,

Until my stomach’s in knots,

We will watch each other in perfect symmetry,

Crowds wondering who deserves the penalty.

Keep wondering.

Guess.

I kept the records.

Kept the mess.

Context.

Clues.

Abuse.

Proof.

-Jackie

My Wake, circa October 2024

jackiewrightauthorLeave a comment
Photo of a foggy forest
Photo by Anton Atanasov

Remain quiet behind the old graveyard gate.
The handles and locks make you think that you’re late,
Yet you’re just in time for the freshest slate—
Resurrection of a girl in the gilded crate.

Approach with caution, beware the emerald flame.
Don’t stare at the cryptids, the beast, the dame.
When the clock strikes midnight, shout out your name.
Watch the shallow grave shake from ancestral shame.

Watch it deepen and widen in quiet rage.
The priests will get butchered with a single page,
But don’t you run—wait for the gilded cage.
Observe her blood-red hair, observe that stunning mage.

A man will ask who put her to early death.
She’ll raise a single brow like it’s a cunning threat,
Then say, “Every captain I’ve ever met,”
Leaving you high and dry, stealing your mind and breath.

The mage will stand up only to fall on her knees.
Never trust your instinct to help the weak.
She’s a traitor tailored for devils and greed.
Someone who knew her said she was the Queen of Peace,

But rising tides filled her lungs with salt water,
Drowned her homes and hopes along with her own father.
As you watch her limbs stiffen up, growing harder,
You’ll question whether she’s a lion or a martyr.

The candles spin in thin air as chants come to be hectic.
Were her eyes made by gods to birth heretics?
Her frame levitates, killing your inner skeptic,
And curses bleach your soul like an antiseptic.

The first rays of sun peek through sacred trees.
Wet ground starts swallowing her bones and dreams,
Until her skin turns to dust, until the fingers freeze.
Some spit on her grave, some tremble like leaves.

The crowds disappear until only two souls remain—
A woman in green, a creature with your own name.
The lines on her face are carved from sheer pain.
Your eyes meet, and her voice spills out like champagne:

“She was forged from stone, rubies, silver, and heat.
Resurrections only haunt those who refuse to leave.
I’m yet to learn that lesson—should’ve let her become me,
Should’ve let her slash throats that claimed to be holy.

I tortured her to entertain the cruel and divine,
Until her name became the butt of a victor’s rhyme.
Here she lies, drowned in words that were never mine.
Here she dies, knowing she was buried alive.”

-Jackie

A Misprinted Poem (The Author Got The Story Wrong)

jackiewrightauthorLeave a comment

When did you know you’ve lost my pen entirely?

Did the snake hiss gently,

Swallow the tail in its entirety,

Or glance with a thousand mile stare like it’s tired of me?

The tiniest acts of defiance were punished.

Yet, my trust knew no bounds.

I told you how the stories of my other villains got published.

So I have to wonder—is that how you got the idea?

You decorated my walls in white ink,

Pushed aside my hope and will and slipped right in,

And when I told the others, they said—it’s all blank.

I was looking for hints as my soul sank,

But I couldn’t find them.

My tongue froze over like the Inferno, one in a billion chance,

As the diary pages lost saturation.

Death was reaching out its coldest hands…

You set the books in my mind on fire,

The library was gone in a heartbeat.

The firefighters were calling me a liar,

A child looking for a hint of some heat.

Stop!

A pause, a breath, and I’m out of the door.

Not sure who dragged me, but there are only my footprints on the floor.

Each day I dive into the blues,

Each day I become paler and fainter, and more unmoored.

Your grasp on my neck is so tight it almost feels real.

Then, a day comes where I don’t hear you.

I look forward to a meal.

Healing, growing, almost healed.

I stay close, yet never too near.

The axe drops on your neck, at least that’s what they say.

Maybe my lips twisted into a smile, don’t quote me though.

I get another good day.

Then another.

If I stay really silent on starry nights, I can hear you pray,

But you know I won’t answer until you do.

When did you lose me entirely?

Did you think I had it in me to go quietly?

-Jackie

The Great Freeze-Out

jackiewrightauthorLeave a comment

A chunk of my heel has been missing for a while now,

And I bleed in the snow like a doomed ingénue

When the winter breeze told me a year ago

You took it when I stepped out of the lines you drew.

No way to excuse carnivores who eat for greed,

No way to romanticize cannibals like you.

My blood has slowed due to the freezing weather,

But once the spring comes, my pulse will fade too.

The leg might heal nicely until the next winter

Or it might as well rot to the bone like your smiles.

The pessimism in your voice was cut to the gut,

The only taste on my tongue for a month was bile.

I used to dream some doctor reached me in time.

I used to bite my tongue to protect you from swords.

What a fool I once was, what a shiny trophy.

Chew me up, spit me out.

Tell the crew when I’m no more.

-Jackie

Burnout

jackiewrightauthorLeave a comment

The skin under my eyes grows older each evening

Yet I cannot grow up unless my heart stops beating.

My potential screams at me for being and breathing,

My mascara runs away in streams as I’m kneeling.

The only breeze on my bones is the ghostly face

Who haunts my dreams and leaves a bloody trace.

I store my dark thoughts in the lousiest maze

But once they find the weak point,

I will be buried in haste.

-Jackie

The Sickness

jackiewrightauthorLeave a comment
Photo by Ibraim Leonardo

The sickness I feel when I see my own reflection haunts me.

Some days I check if the mirror isn’t shattered,

But it seems like even the shards don’t want me.

Devastation is a simple poison –

It only kicks those already on the ground.

Each time I stand up with broken ribs there is nobody around.

Still, I’m no martyr, so hold your pity applause.

The storms keep finding new ways to shake me.

I get no breathing space, no break, no pause.

But the sickness, it sticks with me like a faithful dog,

Not letting me forget the past slip ups,

Not allowing me to know what I did wrong.

-Jackie

My Loneliness

jackiewrightauthorLeave a comment
Photo by Sonya Borovaya

Paramours could not sweep me off my feet.

I was too busy chasing empty love.

Too busy to see what was hidden underneath,

Too proud to admit what I didn’t know.

Nothing has changed, I still stand tall,

And my heels are agents of disarray.

My loneliness burns down churches and malls,

Leaving devotees there to sulk and pray.

-Jackie

No Recollection

jackiewrightauthorLeave a comment
Photo by Alexey Demidov

I wish I could tell you a tale, but now it is all just a blur.

Finding my old self was much harder than losing her.

The roads I took still wait for me to pay them back.

I wonder if they will curse my spite and my hidden tracks.

Months pass and I stay glued to a screen at midnight,

Trying to overrule my thoughts, so tranquil and benign.

I know that she is still out there dripping paint on paper,

And I wish I could remember,

But my memory wavers.

-Jackie

Desert Island

jackiewrightauthorLeave a comment
Photo by Christina Chekhomova

I wonder if all this emptiness I carry serves as my armor.

Am I saving myself or am I following the recipe for disaster?

Is there more to me than the nothingness and the roaring rage?

I feel like if I take a single step, they will burn this stage.

Therefore, I stay in place and wait for the waves to pass.

Some voices tell me that I am plastic, but I smell like grass.

These memories buried deep in my chest, they want out,

But the whispers are getting louder, so they avoid the crowds.

I wonder if all this loneliness will ever pay off my debts.

Will life come to collect or will it let love trap me in nets?

Everyone promised to warn me when the first cloud formed.

I feel like a desert island caught in the middle of a storm.

-Jackie

The Voiceless

jackiewrightauthorLeave a comment
Photo by Nina M

Gasping for air,

It’s such a faithless affair.

You’re trying not to drown

As they drag you down.

You talk to yourself

Because no one can help.

The water is quiet,

Breath doesn’t defy it.

And nobody hears

As they break your spears.

Your throat is gone,

Ripped out by a swan.

-Jackie