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The Disturbed Mind: Living With Mental Illness

By: Cynthia Pitman

i. The Predator and the Prey: Severe Depression

Agony prowls the streets tonight,
seeking easy prey.
My gnawing hopelessness
puts me at risk.
I have sought refuge,
but all doors have slammed tight.
Thus I, too, crawl the night.
From bin to bin,
I hide in the back streets,
but it detects my scent.
I know it is but a matter of time.
I howl at the moon. but she is cold
and does not answer.
I cry to the stars,
but they just blink indifferently.
The darkness that surrounds them
fears the light
just as I fear this night.
Without hope, I crouch
in an alley corner.
The cats resent my intrusion
and hiss a hiss of fierceness,
arching their backs
and baring their teeth.
Stray dogs growl.
Rats scurry.
At last, I surrender to agony.
At least it is familiar,
so it is my only hope
for some kind of peace.

ii. The Watcher: Paranoid Anxiety

She’s a Peeping Tom of the soul,
an original voyeuse seeking evidence
of inner peace and happiness.
Those she meets toss her a smile
and she tosses back another smile –
but with a sneak peek deep into their eyes.
She surreptitiously struggles
to see if a light shines within,
illuminating contentment.
She has heard of such a thing,
but it is a stranger to her.
She wants just a quick look
to see if it is true –
that we can really live
without constant inner erosion
by dark fear and misery.
Or do we all wear a mask of lies?
She longs to lift her hand
and run her fingertips over the braille
of each new face, dig her nails in,
and see if she can peel back a mask
or maybe, happily, real skin.
But she dare not.
She must maintain the mundane custom
of instead extending her hand.
But just a quick peek would be harmless,
and might someday reveal
that the face, in fact, is real.

iii. The Lacemaker: Psychotic Break

Over the steel door
of the cinderblock building
hangs a sign:
“Lacemakers Only.”
Eyes ahead, without a sound,
we file in.
We take our seats.
The lock clicks.
All is silent.
But soon that blesséd silence
will be cracked by the incessant
clicking-clack, clickity-clack
of the carved ebony handles
of our spinning sticks.
The clock ticks.
We begin.
I wrap my hands around
the wooden handles and start to spin.
click
clack
clickity-clack
clicking-clack, clickity-clack
Scottish heathers begin to bloom
in the growing lace.
First comes the burst
of the soft lavender of Glencoe.
Then comes the sweet pink of the Highlands.
The last of the pattern
is the lime-green and gold of Arran Gold.
The beautiful heathers bloom in the lace
as the handles spin.
clicking-clack, clickity-clack
The pattern repeats.
clicking-clack, clickity-clack.
clicking-clack, clickity-clack.
The heathers bloom.
clicking-clack, clickity-clack
clicking-clack, clickity-clack.
With the beat of the clicks
of the spinning sticks,
I am soon spun into a trance. . .

I look down.
No longer are my hands spinning
the wooden handles.
Instead the thread comes from my palms,
sticky and thick, without need of a click.
I begin to spin the sinister thread.
No heather blooms from lace.
Now a deadly web appears.
I continue to spin again and again.
My web grows bigger and bigger,
menacing and thick.
I look around.
No one has noticed.
They all continue to spin.
clicking-clack, clickity-clack
One by one, I ensnare
each of the other lacemakers.
When captured, they struggle,
twisting and writhing,
only trapping themselves
tighter and tighter.
But the curséd clicking-clack, clickity-clack
of the wooden handles has finally stopped.
I can finally have peace
and rest my mind in blesséd silence.
Now if only the screams would stop.

iv. The Party Guest: Psychosis

Spirals of copper wire
hang from the front porch eaves
of the old clapboard house in the woods.
Hanging from each are small bones –
of squirrels, rats, mice, birds,
whatever can be found loose in the woods –
painted different shades of blue.
On the porch floor
brushstrokes of red and yellow paint
trace the shadows made
by the full moon at midnight.
From the door hangs a wreath
made of honeysuckle vines.
Brown now, brittle and sharp,
they somehow still retain
the intoxicating scent of the flowers.

Inside, placed on straight-backed chairs,
sit store mannequins dressed in their finest:
jewel-colored satins and velvets,
draped in feathers and pearls.
This is where I go when
finally left deeply alone.
A chair is there for me.
I sit tall in it, straight-backed, like they do,
and listen quietly to the conversation.
Soon I begin to join in – slowly at first,
then stronger and quicker.
Faster and faster and louder and louder,
my words turn into screams
until I stand up, seize up, then fall.
Quiet now, covered in sweat,
I am lifted from the floor
and politely escorted to the door.

v. Old Sorrows: Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder Flashbacks


Here, downriver, in this hidden ossuary,
lie the bones of my old sorrows.
They used to walk with me
through my broken life.
I would care for them,
caress them, comfort them,
assure them I would never leave them.
But they covered themselves
with sharp skin, woven from nettles.
Their thorns pierced my palms
until they bled, a symbiotic stigmata.
I wept,
but I could not let them go.
Once, though, when I crossed
this river of Living Water,
my old sorrows were washed away
downriver, and I was made new.
My palms healed.
I could breathe free.
But once in a while, when I am weary
and feel so all alone,
I come here and I stare
at the bones of my old sorrows.
I try to find peace here.
I must become reconciled
to the hard truth:
I will always bear
the scars of their wounds.

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