Many of the poems that I write here come out of my struggles with mental illness. This poem, I hope, is a testament to the power of writing to help us order our inner turmoil and offer it up as a kind of prayer, refined by the process of writing.

Safety

The threats you cannot see are real:

Hold my hand and know the beat,

The syncopation of my heart

And how it pounds at thoughts

 

Unknown to you, while I am caught

Amidst these firing neural darts,

These sounds of permanent repeat

And all the fear I feel.

 

It seems so easy; then you peel

Away my layers in the street,

As I navigate the parts

I cannot comprehend or sort.

 

I’ve not chosen, nor have bought

This life of anxious fits and starts;

I have learnt it, like my feet

Have learnt to strike my heels.

 

Yet my knees can learn to kneel

While the battle rages past.

Learn with me love’s soft retreat

Where grace shall be our fort.