Is there anything left on this carrion to pick off?
My blackbird eye?
Why don’t you take my eye?
The eye that pierces smoke and sky
sees who you are. The smoke,
the smoke.
You throw my head
to rest amongst scarlet camellias.
They root inside till petals said…
In the beginning, neurons and flotsam
orbit granite head, not
inside me, all about me
myriad bees, winged keys
guarding a heart stone.
Stretch out,
soft stroke. I number my bees.
They are all here: Happy,
Sad,
Anxious,
Rainbow,
Reproach,
Hope,
Fear,
Freedom,
God.
Strike out, steal and pin.
Pin by the sting, mount like a brooch.
I am she, Queen Bee,
whoever I want to be for the day.
I can even act. I, Marco Polo, not afraid to travel,
Jesus sleeping storms. Someone
dismissive of life’s pricks?
Whose thunder chariot to ride scared
scarred sky? Serene’s magnetic moon pull
to glistening dark? Helios’
hard piston thrust to
dazzling sabre light?
I am the centre. I am free. I
finger each deliciously.
Compelled to my hard iron core they
nitrite kiss my shoulders. If I’m tiger enough
I can repel them.
Jetsam spin,
fly sly,
sneak close.
I hook a cloak of comfort: of
Blackness.
Bored with stars: silver eyes
roll to the hem, weight it from wild
wind, angry air that strangles the vortex.
Where junk spun: familiar worries,
pain, ash, a dead body- I drape
as fox fur.
Curls lily neck. Hooded
solace purrs when Dark smothers Deep’s old face.
Can be reborn tomorrow if I wish.
Pluck a basket of cherries, press
to starved lucky lips,
sweet stroll to shops,
post a letter
or backcomb honey hair.
Rip a raw poem from my guts.
Tight bandage it around the world.
How about I plait a crown of thorns
and with red dove hands
hammer it into the temple?
I am,
I am not.
Am I?
I think.
Therefore
I am
tired.
In
the end…
"A diagnosis of bi-polar disorder and borderline personality disorder and anxiety has led to lots of therapy 'insight.' The poem explores how Cognitive Behaviour Therapy (CBT) and Mentalisation therapy try to help establish control over brain neurology.
The poem explores how I viewed myself, and how I felt emotionally empty with huge self identity issues. I visualised myself as an empty vessel who could choose identity each morning like an actor, or even a child who may visit a dressing up box and 'put on' a persona. I practiced these feelings and states of being until they felt real.
I also explore the swing of feelings in the poem and how the depression, the black cloak, felt comforting and safe, a protection from life. To try the therapies requires a lot of energy and was utterly exhausting and at many times was rejected. I was always trying to be someone else. Dual therapies, one with a biological view of disability and a social view conflicted 'til the psychoanalyst said
'They are just labels Angela, they do not define you. Wear the labels, do not let them wear you. Forget about being ill, embrace who you are. Culturally we say these behaviours are 'strange.' yet try to just be who you are at any moment and exploit the swings and use them to enhance your life.'
It was a refreshingly different slant on approaching my issues around identity and illness and symptoms."