Tag: mental health
Strangers at Birth
My mother wasn’t much of one. If you put aside the fact that she abandoned me, in the winter, less than twenty-four hours after I entered the world, then the note she left propped on my thin yellow cotton blanket said it all: Take her. I can’t do this. I Read more
Finding Your Inner Groove with Misty Tripoli
2020/2021 is a difficult time for everyone right now. We are amid the COVID-19 epidemic. It has affected everyone across the globe. However, people are still finding the strength and courage to watch Misty Tripoli and the Body Groove facilitators perform various dance workouts. For most people, especially women, it Read more
lost mail packages
I discover kernels in poems. The shell breaks open to a singed blossom of hair. Before I spit the weirdness out, I savor a reeling storm in my nose and mouth. For a split second, I see a topiary. I awake to dreams; perhaps they are catchers to my middle-aged Read more
FLATLINED
chemically gagged pharmaceutically silenced. swallowing tiny thieves of nuance and vibrancy until depth and hue crumble like damp sawdust into a shallow, timeless grave of monotony nestled by my heart an internal barometer measuring emotional vitality no longer responsive a total obliteration of moods each one simply truncated where stormy Read more
Girls in my head-a bipolar poem
We all had our own talents, ways of coping with the mirror monster, whatever that looked like for you, always mocking gestures and laughing to your face as you wept with the weight of it all. You held yourself together one way, and I another and these are the girls Read more
Black Women’s Acts of Resistance and Resilience to Trauma
Dineen skillfully dug her purple latex-swathed fingers into my bare left shoulder blade, and I yelped, “O-o-o-uch!” “Sor-ry!” Dineen cheerfully apologized. If I didn’t know better, I would think that she enjoyed torturing me. But this wasn’t that kind of relationship. Dineen is a petite, dark-haired, twenty-something Filipina physical therapist Read more
Birdwatcher
Why does our new house always feel dark? Some nights, the darkness steals my sleep, seeping from the corners of my bedroom. Is the house gloomy, or the people inside? The backyard looks so light, so bright, but it’s merely the snow’s reflection. My mother has a new bird book, Read more