mental issues
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The Walls Are Deaf, But They Know What You’re Thinking
The one thing you have in abundance in a mental hospital is time. Time to think. An omnipresent clock in the common room to remind you of all of the time left until the next group activity for you to sit and think. Always time to think, which isn’t good for nearly every single beaten…
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Mom
I tried my best. I really did. But things fall apart. My mother was bipolar and wouldn’t take her meds, so the highs were too high and too dangerous and then the lows were dark, prolonged and scary. She fought going into the hospital, but it wasn’t safe-she wasn’t safe. We had no alternative. She’s…
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Crackling
There is a crackling sound, over there, don’t you hear it? The cars scream by, but it’s still there. A consistent noise I can no longer run away from, then it fades out to silence with the dusk. I have to know what it is. Why it follows me all day long © 2022 Jeff…
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More Than Blue
Grandmother called it the bluesBecause she didn’t want to giveIt any more weight.She thought she could contain it.But it rolls down the generations,Gathering dark energy all the while.It got you at the umbilical, child, andNow you’ve grown and it’s got you whole.Every day a version downgrade fromThe last. The last. © 2022 Jeff E. Brown.…
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Long Way Back
Inside the endless nightI’m prisoner to the poisonous waysDepression has to take rootAnd blackout your days. Insidious and random,The victims are too many to count.Discovering at some dreadful pointThis disorder, this jail, won’t let you out. Giving in to the immense black hollowIs easy and sometimes we do.I’ll try to come back,To be the person…
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What is Left to Prove?
You can remove the bars,But you’re still nowhere else but down.A pathetic state of affairs not evenWorthy of the tears of a clown. A life you never asked forIn a world with no boundaries.You’ve carried on, through towering fearsAnd rolling waves of anxieties. Others succeed and rise and rise.It’s never mattered how much you gaveOr…
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Tidal
Must you admit the jet-black thoughtsAnd the dreadful anxiety to anyone?Does it make anything better? You don’t need to confess.You own your toxic mélangeAnd if you bottle it up,You think you get to choose to uncork it. I know only this: It will come out.Seeping through the fissuresOr exploding like a suppressed volcano.Tell loved ones…
Writing and Photography by Jeff E. Brown 