Tag: mental health

To Escape The Neon Hourglass

jackiewrightauthorLeave a comment
Photo by Nikolai Ulltang from Pexels

My feet are carrying me ahead – through the dense forest, down the hill.

Trees squeezing together tightly to keep me from moving, to keep me still.

I know the night is almost over but the branches refuse to let in the sun –

As long as they convince me that the darkness endures, I believe I am the only one.

There is a gleam in the distance, it spins like a disco ball, it blurs my vision.

My boots sink into the moss as I trip over the shrubs trying to escape this gimmick.

But there is nowhere to go, only this evergreen vault crushing my ribs.

I am crawling and panting, the thought of stopping seems sweeter than figs.

No, there must be a path that leads to the other side, there must be some hope.

The woods chuckle at my silliness as a breeze pushes me on a downward slope.

My nails are bloody, fingers so raw they burn, knuckles whiter than snow.

The tentacles of another violent forest creature drag me towards the neon glow.

I stab with all my anger, I bite and snarl until it drops me in the grass.

“Keep your head down,” I repeat to myself, managing to ignore the hourglass.

With the force of a hurricane I grab my hunting knife and hurry away,

Through leaves, cones and pine needles my legs fight the desire to stay.

Even through my frantic breathing I hear the black abyss collapsing behind me.

I stumble closer to the real light, it is darting towards me, lukewarm and shiny.

The forests fail to claim my body yet another time, but they will return.

One day I might gather the courage to let all the twigs and roots burn –

But not today. If I only sprint faster,

I can take a step closer to the point of no return.

-JW

Death’s Wearing Her Perfume Tonight

jackiewrightauthorLeave a comment
Photo by Maria Orlova from Pexels

Balsamic scent floats all over the house, all over the garden,

It dances on the tip of our tongues, it begs for pardon.

It whirls like dust, bright lilac, and it stains our teeth.

Who will be the first to stop drinking it?

Who will realize we are stuck in a heath?

The thick odour keeps attacking the senses in gentle gushes.

Sickly sweet particles contaminate the air and everything it touches.

Our faces are paralyzed, our eyes roll back in the skulls.

Who will be the first to breathe out?

Who will call out death’s tricks and lulls?

It appears there’s no other way out of the swelling fog,

The mist bathes us in sorrow, is this the epilogue?

The fragrant symphony threatens to overpower the sky.

Who will be resilient enough to exile it?

Who will defy another night to stay alive?

-JW

Miss Neon Light

jackiewrightauthorLeave a comment
Photo by Maria Eduarda Tavares from Pexels

The design is perfect but something is leaning off-centre,

Nobody seems to care, they keep preaching so gentle.

I just want to hold your hand one last time, before it goes.

Many elbows in my back pushing towards the midnight show.

Can I cry on the stage and make everyone oblivious

To how I’m barely hanging in there by my resilience?

Will the weight be lifted or will it never let me exhale?

Is this a nightmare turned into a Hollywood fairytale?

My eyes shoot every scene but I can’t make them focus

As I drift away to neon lit graveyards and locals.

The pattern is flawless but the story still sounds offbeat.

No one seems to notice until you’re the one burning alive

While they’re escaping the heat.

-JW

Sicker = “Healthier”

jackiewrightauthorLeave a comment
Photo by Ian Panelo from Pexels

“No one ever imagined. No one ever knew.

Nobody could tell because you weren’t that blue.”

The more you faded, the more it was praised

And everyone saw your illness but believed –

Your standards were raised.

So you became “healthier” when you got sicker.

“The pulsating veins and blood shot eyes will pass

But you will forever look like a sticker.”

A prize. A gift. The golden medal for someone else

Who never notices how pain rots on the shelves

But sex sells.

You never relied on those ideals, but they lived within you.

Too deep rooted to untangle from your truth

So no one ever knew

How the broken version of you was all fiction,

How you begged for mercy to nights

As they created the most friction

To a troublesome concept of worth in a young mind.

Why be kind? Why resist and leave it all behind?

Truth be told –

Almost no one that pushed this onto me so sincerely

Truly made it out, never saw it clearly.

But you don’t owe a single second of illness

To people who believe your existence is a grimness,

And to those still imposing standards on others I can only tell:

Save your self-hate speeches masked as advise for yourself.

Choke as long as needed. I’ve been doing it since I was twelve.

-JW

Purposeful Violence

jackiewrightauthorLeave a comment
Photo by Tyler Lastovich from Pexels

My friends heard you know how frisky I get when I stand by a man like you.

There you are, punching holes in my paper walls after learning that we’re through.

No call backs though, no carton airplanes flying off this cliff I’ve put you on.

Six long months of miseries and resolving your twisted mind – do you even know

How much it hurts? I bet you don’t.

Never have I admitted to liking this game you’re lobbying but I read the rules –

A punch to the gut is a sign of love, a stab in the back is love times two.

Some days I wonder how I got that far, tearing myself up for a taste of passion –

The closest feeling to being cut in pieces with a hot knife and distributed

To everyone I hate in rations.

“Never trust a perfect person,” they say, but then ask you to stop being picky.

Apparently romance is only great if the ice is thin and each step is tricky.

Let’s be truthful – it’s all about how it seems, not how it feels, haven’t you noticed?

The worse your mental state gets with each fight, the more they cheer your passion

And give violence a purpose.

-JW

Fake Funny

jackiewrightauthorLeave a comment
Photo by Engin Akyurt from Pexels

All they do is talk about fake happiness and how it kills the heart.

Are we still uncomfortable to hear that “fake funny” is the superior art?

The joke you let slide about your friend or a rude remark masked as “preference”…

And genuinely – all the funny remarks you make to avoid someone

Pointing out a painful existence.

Sometimes a laughing matter can be turned into a glass container

Hence you keep bottling up your emotions for the sake of a traitor –

Yet your brain will turn to mush to make it all sound like a choking hazard.

So many ears and eyes open to change of pace – but their truths

Remain stiff and plastered.

Another sarcastic comment underneath a discussion about double standards

Or how we’re going backwards too often.

But it’s not facts, it’s just the lack of manners.

The funnier the joke about these crowds, the pain, yourself, your own suffering,

The less you have to worry that anyone will start bothering

With questions that will cause stuttering.

Therefore, you hold onto the laughing matter instead of facing your lesions,

And people will judge you for the consequences, not for the reasons

Because you were the regent,

Not the victim, as per they trends from last seasons.

-JW

A Short History Of Another Working Class Disaster

jackiewrightauthorLeave a comment
Photo by Maria Tyutina from Pexels

I spent the day under covers trying to uncover my own truths about healing

Because I’d spent a decade believing I’d rather be acceptable than breathing

Through my own lungs, with two pink cheeks, with soft skin and mind.

But I couldn’t bear that cost so I erased myself gram by gram,

Until they went blind.

I used to believe I’d rather cut out my own eyeballs than notice an imperfection.

Years wasted thinking that how I look was the reason I got most rejections,

Not because my carcass was barely holding the pale surface together as a trophy,

But don’t call the cops on my stolen years and feel free not to cry

A soft-spoken “sorry”.

I found happiness in truth but I never looked for truth in happiness, I couldn’t.

The pain left in me was a fireproof glass but the joy was short-lived and wooden,

And the streets weren’t welcoming because nothing’s a compliment to a deflector –

Not the classic kind, just another working class disaster repeating itself

Like a broken vector.

-JW

Ten Small Town Commandments For Growing Up Convenient

jackiewrightauthorLeave a comment
Photo by P C from Pexels

“Praise the leaders that weren’t a prey in somebody else’s tale,

Pray for the ladies who never made it out when society failed –

But that’s all you should do, just pray, keep your head down.

For God’s sake, don’t write this down, respect this (filthy) town!

And wasn’t it your mother who started this riot, you legal deviancy?

Look ahead, we’re going to pair you with someone we truly fancy.

Don’t mind the rebels screaming for freedom, it’s a charming farce.

You’ve written too many fantasy tales already, where’s the nurse?

See, lonely ladies like you are going straight to the judgement hearse.

Listen! Be natural, be enough, and don’t be a goddamn curse.”

-JW

Introduction To An Unreliable Narrator

jackiewrightauthorLeave a comment
Photo by Justin Hamilton from Pexels

Did I promise to tell you the truth with all these lines

Or did I promise to lie until each of them rhymes?

I can’t hold an honest conversation about my pain

Not thinking it’s a competition that consumes my brain.

Yes, I’m sick, swallowed by the system and chewed up,

Looking like a normal product of society, maybe, somewhat.

My left foot chained to a curling iron thinning it out,

My right arm drained of its blood by panic and yesterday’s doubt.

But you might pass me in the street wondering how I’m so well –

And truthfully, no one but me could really tell

How a mess of a human presents that well on the front page

Or the Facebook feed of another lover I blocked with rage…

Did I promise to tell you the truth with these lines

Or did I promise to lie until each of them rhymes?

Whatever you heard – must be worth all the energy to get this far,

And if you believe that I’m being honest, you might have a heart.

-JW

A Beautiful Day To Die

jackiewrightauthorLeave a comment

The sun is playing on bare skinned people passing by, not reaching me yet.

I’ve become a mirror to the world’s worst battle cries, the symbol of debt.

Would be a lie if I claimed I’d rather touch the rays instead of reflecting –

It’s a beautiful day to die from overdosing on medals I’ve been collecting.

Never thought of myself as a warrior, cleaning up foreign messes, not my own,

Making sure as a foreigner I hide my own truths and give my illness a loan

To take out later, when I’m crumbling in the concrete walls of another city

Where windows are larger than life and privacy means you must be guilty.

All these second-hand “thank you” notes I’ve gathered now don’t mean a thing –

Loneliness carries itself just royally well until it finds a place to sting.

Then you’re down with the venom tearing your vision apart, installing mirrors.

You feel like it’s a beautiful day to die if you get to see the world any clearer.

But that was then – I continue to walk the streets with my growing reflective hopes.

I’ve become the mirror to the world’s battle cries but I’m no longer a ghost.

***

I shut the neon gates to my city.

The rebels are gone with the winds of fog colored in pity.

The small picture’s gone, replaced with only this memory

Of how I treated the streets I created as an enemy

I know I can’t reach my younger self but I’ll try through this revery:

Love, I hope you remember me.

-JW