Ode to Psychological Indigestion

When I am sad I do not eat;

My stomach twists and twirls.

I feel as though the smallest bite will make me want to hurl.

My friends were worried for my health,

They saw me getting thinner,

They fed me, watched me choke it down; breakfast, lunch and dinner.

So now I’m eating every meal,

And still my stomach’s groaning.

I’m starting to think that it is not for sustenance it’s moaning.

Yes, I am starved, but not for food.

The thing that I most crave

Is one boy’s love to fill me up, my lonely heart to save.

I woke up today

I woke up today and my very first thought

Was of sunshiny freedom.  I laughed aloud

And in that pleasant glow my happy mind sought

Further rays of light, but my smile was cowed

As my mood snagged on a jagged piece of hate.

Some idiot girl.  How did she catch him?

And he, he lied through his teeth, laid out the bait,

Watched me lunge for it once more.  Just a whim

Of his, it seems.  He didn’t want to keep me.

He just threw me back with the hook caught deep.

He knows where to find me if he wants to be

Amused by a silly girl who will keep

            Trying until she is broken and bruised,

            Her heart unaware that it’s being used.

Pan and Psyche by Edward Burne Jones

When I was small

When I was small, I used to think that sadness
Was a silly, senseless feeling. To be
Sighing and crying, wasting tears, was madness.
Fears were brief and fate’s forgiveness easy.
I grew and learned that I could fall much harder
When reaching for the higher joys of life.
The pain could last for days, and gloom might linger,
But pride said I could always outlast strife.
Now that pride is just a word, and hope the boy
Who left my life in pieces on the ground.
I’ve forgotten how it feels to wake with joy;
Feelings are not so silly, I have found.
           Turns out sadness is a nightmare of the
           Type you cannot wake from, heart hell-bound

"The World Above" by Brooke Shaden

You never said that you were sorry

You never said that you were sorry even

    When I told you, tried to tell you, my hurt.

    You didn’t understand, couldn’t believe in

What I said were my emotions.  The curt

Way you asked me, “Why does that make you feel mad?”

    Left no room for my answer, and your smile

    Patronized me when I expressed how I had

Daydreamed lonely and often.  Well then, I’ll

Take my daydreams elsewhere, proclaim them loudly.

    I won’t apologize for being real.

    You may chuckle all you like and then proudly

Stand aloof, but I, I will truly feel.

"Uplifted" by Shira Sela

The wind

For some time, now, I’ve sat becalmed at sea,

Rocked by tiny ripples from who-knows-where.

No matter; tiny ripples are naught to me.

The sea might as well be glass.  Unmoved, I stare

Out straight ahead at the pale-washed line of blue

That signifies a place to be, hints of

A destination, somewhere a harbor new.  

But the storm is over; the winds thereof

Have blown themselves out and left me floating here.

I just read a book today.  The hero,

Who faces demons and evil and death and near

Dies himself, gets his peace in the end.  Though

            Who’s to say he doesn’t now and then feel

            He’s lost his wind and, with it, something real.

Empty Boat Color Study IX by N Poucher

Let me have my sweet imaginings today

Let me have my sweet imaginings today.
Yesterday did leave me with such a store
Of dear looks and whispers, things he used to say,
I cannot help but hope there will be more.
It is no use, my mind rails upon my heart,
Such foolish dreamings cannot hold up love.
If you build upon the wreckage of that start,
You build alone; but I, alone, won’t move.
I have not strength to bear another passage
Through that gate which lately closed behind me,
The dark is warm, the dark is full of whispers
Sweet and soothing, so, though I cannot see,
            I stay, wrapped in the foolish hope of night:
            Tomorrow he’ll be here to prove me right.

Picasso

Imagine for a moment

Imagine for a moment the blackest dark;
A deep gulf of cloying noxious liquid
In a space the size of China in my heart.
Imagine the darkness burns like acid,
Oily goo clings to the walls of that vast pit
And lays in heavy stillness all around.
This is my own vat of pain.  I can feel it
Sticking between my ribs; a swelling mound,
A sinking swamp daring me to try a taste
Of its putrid emotions, hot as hate.
Mornings I wake sunk to my waist in the waste.
I go for swims, dangle my toes, tempt fate.
            But always by bedtime I’m perched up high,
            One eye on the pit, one eye on the sky.

"Stars" by Maxfield Parrish