”I hate you,”
says a mean inner voice
to my whole being.
I sit with that for a moment.
“Oh really, you hate me?”
responds my Inner Wisdom.
she is unphased,
amused,
and, mostly
filled with compassion:
she knows
the mean voice
only says these things
because it is
so,
so
afraid.
Today,
I can listen to the same songs
about toxic relationships
that used to trigger
an ache of recognition
and only feel
a remembrance of that ache,
a compassion for my past self.
It is in these small moments
(which really aren’t small at all)
that I see how far
I’ve come.
Sometimes,
when I’m feeling angry
that I put so much work
into forgiveness
and still
never got justice,
God whispers in my ear:
“Mercy
is the deepest
Justice.”
My logical mind
is resistant,
and doesn’t know
what the hell that means.
But,
to my soul,
it feels true.
I’m still learning
how not to think I’m wrong
just because I’m different
This poem is a response to/continuation of my last poem 🙂
Then again,
maybe I’d want
to be a mixture
in some ways
and a compound
in others.
I can’t deny
that love
often changes us
fundamentally;
and
depending on
the type of change,
that can be a really
beautiful
thing.
P.S. If there happen to be any grammar nerds reading this who are willing and able to help me…..
Assuming we’re following standard American English rules, how would you structure the last sentence of the poem in terms of commas and semicolons? I was pretty stumped there. 😀
For some reason, I’ve been really into writing poems about relationships using science metaphors lately. This is made more interesting by the fact that I haven’t taken a science class since high school, and only vaguely remember many of the concepts we learned. Let’s hope my Google research of these concepts has not steered me wrong 😛
______________________________
If I ever decide
to commit
to a long-term
romantic partnership,
I’d want our relationship
to be a mixture,
not a compound.
I’d want us to
join together
while still retaining
our individual
properties.
the Truth
is the ground
you will stand on
when
everything else
falls away.
Recently, I watched “Inside a Suicide Prevention Center in Puerto Rico,” a short January 2018 New York Times Youtube documentary done a few months after Hurricane Maria.
The workers said that, since the hurricane, they’d gotten busier. Puerto Rico’s top mental health official said that they were already seeing signs of severe mental health crisis. Over a month in, many were still without electricity, water, and in some cases, a roof over their heads. Three months after Hurricane Maria, more than 1.5 million people, nearly half of Puerto Rico’s population, were still without power. For me, the most jarring and memorable moment of the documentary was near the end, when a crisis line worker said, “Sometimes I can’t find the words. Because how can I tell someone to keep calm when they don’t have a place to sleep?”
I work on a suicide hotline, and have had similar experiences. There are many callers for whom our work is effective. But there are many more who, similar to the callers in Puerto Rico, have fallen through the cracks in our societal systems, have seemingly exhausted all possible options for help, and still can’t get back on their feet. People who are homeless and the shelters are full. People who can’t find jobs and are ineligible for many programs that provide help because of past felonies. What do you say to someone whose mental health problems are created, either partially or totally, by a lack of tangible, physical resources to improve their lives? A lack that can’t be fixed with simply a phone conversation?
I am in school to become a mental health counselor. I believe deeply in the efficacy and importance of mental health work, and I think it’s vital that we fight to make therapy affordable, accessible, and free of stigma for all. But it’s hard to process past trauma when you don’t know where your next meal is coming from. It’s hard to have hope for the future when you don’t have access to resources and opportunities. While watching the video, I remembered that if I truly want to support the mental health of my future clients, I need to be much more than a mental health advocate. I need to be an activist and an advocate in much broader senses of those words.
Ensuring people have a roof over their heads is mental health care. Ensuring people have clean water and food to eat is mental health care. Ensuring people have rights and can be themselves in the world without discrimination is mental health care (#TransRightsAreHumanRights) . Ensuring people can walk, drive, and sit in schools without fear is mental health care (#BlackLivesMatter). Ensuring everyone has access to physical health care is mental health care. Ensuring people are paid a living wage is mental health care. Ensuring we take care of our earth for the generations after us is mental health care. Ensuring people have a ladder to climb back up after they’ve fallen down is mental health care (in the beautiful words of musician Gregory Alan Isakov, “If it weren’t for second chances, we’d all be alone”). Ensuring people can see possibilities and a path forward is mental health care. Ensuring people’s basic needs are met is mental health care. Policy is mental health care.
I finally see the mean inner voices for what they are:
part of the family.
I’m never going to eradicate them.
Fear,
self-doubt,
self-criticism,
and depression
will always be in the car
in the road trip of my life–
a month from now,
a year from now,
ten years from now.
And that’s okay.
They can be here–
as long as they know their place.
They sit in the back.
They sit shotgun.
They are not the driver.
I repeat:
They are not the driver.
*Credit where credit is due: this poem is a paraphrase of a part of Big Magic, by Elizabeth Gilbert.*
You don’t have to
make your art a window
if you don’t want to.
It doesn’t have to be
transparent enough
for others to look through
and see your naked soul.
If you prefer,
you can make your art a mirror:
still honest and clear enough
for folks to look into
and see their own beauty and suffering,
reflected.
But opaque enough
to protect the parts of yourself
that you decide belong to you,
not the world.
You can tell the truth
without revealing everything,
and that is okay.
