Personal Poem Collection about Mental Health

"Factory Settings"

my hair is red,

my eyes are green,

and my brain is broken.

my mind beyond repair.

things i’ve known to be true,

things that have been obvious since my infantile brain fog cleared and my cognitive thought switched on.

these are my factory settings,

my default code,

my pre-established fate before I got the chance to decide.

There is no recovery,

Only temporary lapses in sadness.

And it will only be so long until my pupils redilate

the fog surrounding my cerebellum returns

and my system reboots yet again.

"Reflection in the Waves"

i am lost at sea in my own body,

the questions of my internal monologue break inches above my forehead:

why am i here? how much longer will i be?

who is staring back at me in the reflection of the waves?

there is no rescuing a girl so far gone.

do i want to be saved?

if not lost, what am i?

i’ve been holding onto a rope tied to a liquid anchor,

eventually destined to fall victim to myself.

but is it really falling overboard if i let myself lose balance?

or is it jumping?

"Back to Square One"

I wake up to sunshine and bird calls and for a second I forget.

Forget I'm broken. Forget I'm undeserving. Forget it's permanent.

I'm surrounded by love and for just a minute I believe them when they tell me it's okay.

I Believe im good enough for them. I Believe im worthy of it all.

Until i remember that my existence is a ticking time bomb and anyone in my life is in the blast zone

I am a leech sucking energy and life out of everyone until we both run dry together.

I say i'm broken, they say i'm becoming

But how long can one keep trying to become until they break everything and everyone?

"The Broken Girl with the Perfect Life"

I wake up in my air conditioned house

In a comfortable bed

With fluffy blankets and pillows.

I walk downstairs to see a full pantry:

Fresh fruit

Fresh milk

Fresh air filtering in through the windows.

I refuse to eat. I struggle to breathe.

I go to my school where I’ve never been bullied.

I get A’s on all of my tests

Everyone smiles at me in the hallway.

I cry on the bathroom floor every other period.

I return home,

My family happy to see me.

They missed me while i miss being asleep.

Unconscious in a land of dreams.

Reality far away.

My beautiful mother cooks me a healthy dinner,

my family makes jokes while passing the salt,

I go upstairs to sob in the shower

Contemplating giving into my urges and taking action to momentarily stop the pain.

But the pain of what? Explain to me what’s wrong?

Because I don’t see it.

"Scientific Anomaly Shaped Teenage Girl"

“She seems happy today”

Whispers follow me from the dinner table.

“Do you think she's finally better?” they’ll ask

But how am I supposed to detach from my disorder when its etched into my skin for everyone to see?

My depression is me and all I am is depression,

My life measured out in breaks in the foggy darkness.

How i’m treated dependent on the fog’s density.

They want me to act “normal”

But when i do, i’m an anomaly.

To sit idly in my bedroom sized petri dish and be observed from afar, scared to get too close

lab rats bite after all.

"Smaller"

I can't remember a time in my life when I wasn't actively trying to be smaller.

Physically and mentally, I was always too much. Taking up too much space.

My heart too heavy and my body following in its path.

A nine year old girl sits in her twin size bed surrounded by stuffed animals looking up on her IPad: “How many calories are in toothpaste?”, “How long can you go without eating?”

At least when I was hungry I felt something.

Like I was working hard when in reality I was dying.

“You look so good” really means “keep going, don't stop until there's nothing left.”

Once the thoughts enter your head there is no getting them out

It's an addiction like any other,

And no matter how long i'm sober, i still can't go a meal without thinking about the high.