Writing As A Form Of Therapy

...and here is a silly little poem that I wrote whilst under the happy trippy influence of the green. Perhaps not my best work, but it was a bit of fun to write...

Egyptian Dessert

Choc ices:
An Egyptian goddess rolling nowhere.
How would Horus cope?
Perhaps the answer’s in the stars.
But only a Nut would believe
In answers from the sky.
Anubis has been set up downstairs,
Aken take you there on the ferry.
I got my Hapi on,
Eating ice cream with chocolate Thoth.

This poem attempts to describe the conflicts and opposing forces that exist within my bipolar brain, of my hypomanias and depressions. Often, especially when I am rapid cycling or in a mixed episode, the conflicting thoughts, moods, emotions and energy levels can be very intense.

The poem uses the "Classical Elements" of Earth, Air, Fire and Water to help describe the conflicts and connections between various elements...

Ultimately, the poem comes to a place of peace to balance the conflict, accepting that both highs and lows are an important part of the greater whole...

Elemental Opposites

I am fired by the air and grounded by the ocean,
Caught between that moment of standing still and motion,
Burnt by the flow of icy magma in my veins,
Holding on to my breath as I navigate my pains.

My moods soar free up in the air, riding a rising thermal,
Quicksilver, changing, and the colour of purest vermeil,
Lusty thoughts a-bubbling, with infinity in my eye,
Don’t get too close to me, for fear that you might fry.

At any time a crashing wave can breach the earthen wall,
And oxygen is no defence for fire’s inevitable fall,
Dull thoughts now are struggling, reaching ever lower,
Where once my heart was racing, now it beats much slower.

Elemental opposites, contained within my mind,
Bipolar rhythms to which I am resigned,
I embrace the air and fire for the soaring that they give,
I embrace the earth and water for helping me to live.

Love this one @Silenus. It really speaks to me at many levels, mental and spiritual, past and present.

This poem... hurts. A lot. I thought long and hard about whether I felt up to sharing it with you all. I have deep feelings about it, and very complex ones that still remain unresolved in a lot of ways...

My mother was an alcoholic. I discovered this at the age of 12 or 13 (I think - my memory of exactly when is a little hazy). I discovered hidden bottles of rotgut in plastic water bottles one day when mum and dad were at work. This put me, a child, in a very difficult adult position. Would I tell my mother of my discovery? Even worse, would I tell my father? What was I to do?

I had noticed my mother's behaviour had been "off" for a while. Little "tells" that I picked up on. I was a very observant and sensitive child, and could pick that my mother would say certain phrases only when she was stonkered.

For several years, I kept the secret hidden within my heart, and watched helplessly as my mother continued to drink. Then, it all came to a head one morning as my mother was driving to work. She was stopped by a random breath test unit and blew 0.208. At 8:15 in the morning...

Obviously with the loss of her licence, the truth came out, and I no longer had the burden of this terrible secret. What I did have, though, was much worse...

I had strong feelings of anger that my mother had abandoned me for the bottle. She had semi-regularly been driving me to school, risking both our lives on many occasions.

My father and I nursed her through the cold turkey withdrawal - a weekend of bedbound vomitting, cold sweats, shakes, DTs, screams and pain.

Then the rest of our lives played out thusly - my father held the purse strings tight - if mother had no money, she couldn't buy grog, right? Wrong. There were always ways to sneak money, and addicts are very good at sneaking and lying to get at their poison of choice.

Again and again, my mother would fall back to the bottle. Again and again, we would... well... yeah... you get the picture...

Every 2 or 3 years, she would go back to Denmark for 3 months to see the family. She would return each time, totally addicted to alcohol once more. Her own younger brother had died from multiple organ failure as a result of being an alcoholic. Her father had died from kidney failure as a result of being an alcoholic. But this doesn't stop a person who is too weak to fight their addictions.

I wrote this poem on the occasion of her 65th birthday. There was hardly anything left of her, after a hard alcoholic's life. At the time I didn't know it, but less than 4 months later, she would be dead. As it turned out, it was a lifetime of smoking that got her before the lifetime of drinking did - she died of pulmonary fibrosis - a terrible way to go...

I feel bad for the anger towards her that I had in my heart. That is why this poem, and the next one I am going to share with you all, hurts so much. It's complicated...

Alcoholics Unanonymous

Like a bedouin has sand
An alcoholic needs a hand;
Mine got slapped away
As they walked their stuporous sway;
Meandering from spirit oasis to spirit oasis,
Sinking whatever they can of piss,
A bleary-eyed camel filling their humps
Heading inevitably down in the dumps.

My name is (Silenus) and my mother is an alcoholic;
Not much left of her – she’s drunk herself sick.
Forty-something k.i.l.o.s and a badly shaking head,
These days she spends most of her time in bed.
I was there for her birthday to help her celebrate,
I think I may just be a couple of decades late.
The celebration’s over, and I could see only regret
For life and potential wasted on an alcoholic’s debt.

I was born a month premature, addicted to alcohol and nicotine. My mother was an alcoholic. There is a strong thread of alcoholism that runs through my family...

I self-medicate with alcohol. The depressant quality of it helps to keep my runaway hypomania under control. I know that I drink too much for my own good. I also know that I walk a fine line, with such a big threat of becoming an alcoholic.

So far, I have stayed on the right side of it. I have had some significant success lately, cutting down on my consumption. This poem deals with my Glass Demon...

The Glass Demon

The demon stands tall in his armour of glass,
Scowls at me and dips an ichorous claw
Into a bowl of clearest liquid,
Bends over me and forces me to lick.

The liquid passes through the meaty curtain
Of my lips, burning down to my belly.
I hate it and I love it, fear it and am thrilled;
I feel the hot glow of it, coursing through my veins.

It is both cause and cure for my many pains,
Through the heat of it, paradoxically I am chilled,
It whispers lies to me – “You are strong” – and yet I’m jelly;
Wobbling so disgustingly, full of self hate and so uncertain.

I know that this liquid is making me so very sick,
And I despise the inner weakness of my id,
That learned, established fatal character flaw;
I lick the claw once more and descend into drunken farce.

Brave sharing @Silenus. Very moving poems.

This poem was the third poem I wrote in the space of 2 days, dealing with alcohol. I was trying to work through my complex feelings regarding my alcoholic mother, and my own difficult relationship that I had with alcohol...

The second to last section of this poem is very intense for me, as I once tried to do myself in by swimming out to sea past the "point of no return", thereby ensuring I would not be able to make it back. Thankfully, something made me turn around and swim back to shore...

Musings on Alcohol

My evil Spirits haunt me
Sometimes I Wine
A Scotch mist surrounds me
Absinthe makes the heart grow fonder
I have a little drink to cure what Ales me
Any Port in a storm
The Schooner sets sail
The Pot calling the kettle black
A Shot in the dark
Dutch courage
A straight shooter
Skull and cross bones
Clinkies.

* * *

Kidneys and liver, please play nice,
Don’t stop me from enjoying my particular vice;
Don’t swell with pride inside my body,
As I delicately sip this fine hot toddy.

* * *

I used to drink to let go
Of the pain and thoughts inside;
Nectar of the gods
To calm the angry buzzing bees.

But I’m learning it keeps me low
When I should embrace my pain with pride;
Alcohol is not to be used as internal Mods
Because it makes my heart freeze.

* * *

Alas this topic is way too close to my heart,
But I will liver to drink another day.

* * *

My sorrows flail their arms, inevitably drowning
Like a dive team lost to the limitless sea;
I think about the lack of grace of that imagery, frowning,
Searching for a more suitable simile.

Drowning my sorrows, my lungs figuratively filled with fluid,
I wonder whether I will swim or dive;
I think again about drowning and hope I’ll get through it,
Floating somewhere between dead and alive.

* * *

Liar
Cheat
Sneak
Fink
Help yourself to another drink;
Someone I thought that I once knew
Sits and boils in her own stew;
A ship in a bottle on the shelf,
Sailing nowhere, by itself;
Lies in a bottle washed up on shore
From someone that I abhor and adore.

Thank you @eth... 🙂

Phew... even for me with all of that Mindfulness and stuff, this is a tough ride...

But it's an important one. We either face our demons, or we get torn apart by them.

Really glad you made it back to shore @Silenus. I am a survivor too.

Breathe, Si...

Of course, it's the close proximity of Mother's Day that is doing this - stirring up all of these past hurts again.

Grief is a path travelled more than once... sometimes it is a labyrinth, and we pass our own chalk marks on the wall many times before we find our way out into the light...

It will wash over me, and I will stand there, blinking, in the light again, wondering what just happened...