mental health poems

Matters

No amount of influence, number of
Titles, material riches, or
Adulation from the connected
Matters to those who don’t
First feel important inside.

Conquering the highest peaks,
Mastering the most arduous disciplines,
Vanquishing the most threatening foes,
None of it matters to those who don’t
First feel adequate inside.

Overcome the most formidable
Opponent possible, the one creating the
Waves of insecurity and trepidation,
The only entity who can tend to
These matters, you.

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He Has All the Answers

He’s sure he has
All the answers,
At least the facile
Ones that don’t require
Much thought or introspection.

It’s been this way
For a long time,
The result of being told
He’s not good enough and
Shouldn’t think for himself.

He vaguely remembers
The time period when
His mind closed,
Leaving only a small opening
For nonsense to get in.

Where You Always Have Been

No matter what anyone says or how many
Facts are revealed or how much
Evidence is available or how painfully
Obvious the truth becomes or how dire
The consequences are or how strongly the
Tide of history pulls or how much
Discomfort ensues or how soundly invalidated
Your position becomes or how many opportunities
To shift direction arise or how the voice inside
You reminds you of your folly, don’t budge,
Don’t move, you’re right where you always
Have been, and may always be.

Empires Could Fall

He was adept at
Saying anything he
Needed to in order
To get whatever it
Was he felt he needed
At that particular moment.

People could perish,
Empires could fall,
But at least he
Was feeling great
At the expense of
Other human beings.

Your Love

Stop getting
Your love
All over me.
It doesn’t feel great to
Have layers of
Pain thrust upon me,
Expectant eyes
Imploring that I
Return the favor.

Dwell

During all the
Traumatic events
That year,
He tried to assert
Himself, let his
Opinion be known,
Ameliorate the terrible
Pain permeating everything,
Suggest a soft place
Instead of ragged hardness,
But all his efforts
Ended at the same dead end,
An impenetrable wall
Of hurt that no sentient
Being could surmount,
A place where the
Unconscious dwell.

Shouldn’t

The words that can’t
Be said because someone
Said we shouldn’t say them.

The feelings that can’t
Be felt because someone
Said we shouldn’t feel them.

The life we don’t live
Because someone said
We shouldn’t live it.

Distant

They eagerly await
The family’s arrival.

How he loves his tousled,
Rambunctious grandchildren.

Looking out the window,
He thinks of his boyhood.

Pain and want become
Wealth and comfort.

Such distant images,
Times never to be relived.

He pauses by his study,
One small bit of business to do.

Distant decisions spawning
Unseen consequences.

Yet another family struggles
To pay the bills.

Cinching

It’s easy and spectacularly
Unrewarding to live steeped in
Superficial understanding and
Suppression of underlying meaning.
Issues pending, dangling,
Perpetually postponed review.

Submerged in disorienting darkness,
Perspective bends under the weight of
Expanding delusion, self-congratulation,
Cinching of possibility,
Imagination stifled by fictional reality,
Robust defense of fabricated truth.