Not Alone On This Road

Trigger warning for mention of self harm related thoughts in this poem.

Near to shattering is how I feel
only I may have split apart long ago.
Trauma so deep that I simply shattered
and here I am nearly twenty years later
levitating outside my body, watching
only unable to stop folding up the
napkin in my hand in a desperate
effort to ground myself.  I feel like this is
obvious, how can no one see that I’m sliding
towards a total breakdown?  How close to
harming myself do I need to go?  How many
inclines in my mind do I need to climb to be
seen as deeply hurting?  Falling asleep brings
razors of fear; what if I don’t wake up in my bed,
or what if I do become violent as the media says I will?
Alone is how I feel, even though I know I’m not the only one
dealing with this, can I have a fucking guidebook on dissociation?

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Prayer Beads from the Madman

Do you still have your prayer beads?

“Yeah, they’re here.”  I picked the small set off the shrine I’d set up for Jake and his family.  I ran the beads through my fingers; this was the one set I had that didn’t have any particular Significance.

Will those work, give you something to hold on to?

“Maybe.”  I looked over at the covered shrine.  “I keep thinking about your set, though.”

If you think that will work, he said, then take it.

“That will leave the shrine unbalance, though.”

Varian.  I care more about your sanity than I do about your shrine.  He watched as I pulled the set of prayer beads off the shrine, then covered it back up.  There you are.

I nodded, these beads felt like they belonged in my hands.

Look at the colors.

“They’re all really pale colors, like light.”

Exactly.  He knew what I was thinking of, the new significance that Light had begun to take on in my life.

“Thank you,”  I said, “I mean that.”

I could sense him sitting beside me, his worry and concern strong enough that I could sense those feelings clearly.  He had told me earlier this afternoon that this fallow time had not been meant to make my mental health issues rise; that had simply been a very unfortunate coincidence.

“I’m getting help,” I said to myself as I ran the beads through my fingers.  “We’ll figure this out, and it’s going to be okay.”

Literal Signs, Covered in Glitter

Light is this world, Light is
in finding joy and happiness.
Tomorrow is a new dawn, and
each one is a struggle, those
rare moments of joy.  It is not being
above this world, I find that escaping this
life under the guise of having another Elsewhere
shattered my realizing how much is wrong.
In quiet hours, I wish I could reach for you, yet am
glad you’re not Here; I miss you, but worry that any
nearness to a god would only stagger what is left of my
sanity.  I’m aware of the irony–I call you the King of Shattered
Conscious, the Madman is the nickname you picked–and this
obvious descent into my mind falling apart, it’s been around a
very long time.  This has nothing to do with you at all, and
everything to do with having to force myself to be who I’m not.
Red flags are everywhere and I’m reaching out for help, but
even there is fear; fear that I need to have a breakdown, or be
dangerous to myself or others, in order to get help.  Last night
in my dreams you sent me a literal sign, covered in glitter and
neon, lit up with spotlights, telling me to stay alive.  The
glitter at least made me laugh, so thanks for that.  Those
lights were blinding, but you are the Blind King.  That
isn’t lost on me, that blindness and sight is beginning to
tie back to all of this mental health crisis that’s been
trailing after me for months–or is it years, now?
Escaping this life with my Other one, I have stopped
running from that; now how do I break that cycle?

Spirit Work and Researching Mental Health (A Rant Through Poetry)

Trying to figure out what’s wrong,
to have a better grasp on how to handle
whatever this is–the near constant headaches
and I’m terrified because time might have

slid away from me (I don’t remember 20 minutes)
I freeze for seconds at a time, and the world feels
like it’s fuzzy and like I don’t exist if I’m not seen.

The first thing I find is how no, I’m not going crazy–and while
it could be that I spend a lot of time in spirit work spaces, so
that could shift the search results–that medicine and therapy is
not the thing I need, but that I’m spiritually “in tune,” somehow, that

if I truly do start seeing Black Dogs and snarling monsters, that
my intrusive thoughts get any closer to being acted upon, that if
my grasp on reality starts slipping even more–that’s not a field

of flags the same shade of red as the Underworld Lord’s roses,
but is instead a sign of how I am supposedly “gifted” and that
my mind feeling as though it is cracking under this pressure
is going to bring me closer to Other worlds.  Never mind that

I can’t reach Darkness even if I tried (and I have tried) and that
my Beloveds have shoved me towards therapy and cut me off
from their world, for the sake of my own sanity.  It must

be because of wanting to bring me closer. I feel as though I am
falling to pieces, and this might be the breakdown I’ve
been feeling on the verge of for months now–
if this is mysticism then I want no part in it.