Stewart Elliott

You see him lying in the street

A broken man with dirty feet

An empty bottle smashed on the ground

You walk on by and act astound

A dirty man with blacken feet

His life in a bag stashed under the seat

You pass judgment on him you call him a bum

You move his things because you think it’s fun

He’s use to it by now, no compassion from you

You’d have a change of heart if you really knew

Why this broken man drinks to forget

And lives like he does and stinks of old sweat

You say get a job and stop bothering me

That I work for my money and nothing is free

How dare you ask me for some change

You’ll only drink it and act all deranged

Did you know this bum you condone

Was a Medic with a family and a happy home

Till one fateful night when a drunk made a stupid decision

And got in his car and caused a collision

That killed this man’s wife and two little girls

He still thinks of their smiles and blonde golden curls

He talks to himself and he’s miles away

But you call him insane while you go out to play

He served his country with honour and pride

The horrors of war and the comrades who died

Now they taken his family and reason for living

As the hipsters walk by and don’t feel like giving

While you stare at the menu thinking the red or the white

He’s wondering where he’ll sleep tonight

Your designer shoes with the oh so cool heel

He hopes tonight he can get a hot meal

He doesn’t wear his medals, he feels to ashamed

He sold them so he could numb away the pain

The few photos he has bring back memories of home

A warrior wounded, in the gutter alone

His daughters use to sing, laugh and dance

And in the quiet times his wife romance

And dream of the day when he would give them away

Proudly walking down the aisle on their wedding day

But the light is now broken and he’s lifestyle is thrifty

And prays to god daily he’ll be dead when his 50

Reunited with his family and happier times

But god isn’t listening as his covered in grime

Maybe if he wore a suit and tie

You’d say hello as you walked on by

Or a trendy haircut and designer clothes

You’d be less inclined, your morals imposed

Perhaps if one person said you really do matter

He could try to rebuild a life that was shattered

But it won’t be tonight as he drinks to forget

He’s eaten alive with the guilt and regret

To you he’s a bum but he once was healer

As lies their passed out drunk from tequila

A broken man with dirty feet

This lonely soul on a dead end street

Stewart Elliott

The black dog sits on his shoulder today

Same as tomorrow and day after day

He works hard and with ethics to keep it at bay

But sometimes he loses and the dog gets its way

Yet somehow he manages to tame this beast

It savages the weaker who are now deceased

To take their own life in a chance to find peace

This dog doesn’t care who you are when it feasts

It temps you with alcohol and other releases

But without your support depression increases

You wanted to talk but you can’t find a voice

So you bottle it up as you don’t have a choice

Till one day you snap and the beast bears its claws

Your options are limited behind the closed doors

Life is a choice and Time is a healer

Never bet on the dog or you’ll lose to the dealer

See he’s vicious and evil and he never lets up

And he’s been this way since he was a pup

A mythical dog versus a compassionate man

The dog can’t ever win because I have a plan

You need to step back and take baby steps

Hour by hour or the gym with its reps

Eat the damn elephant one spoonful at a time

Make progress no matter how small you still make the climb

Like a ladder without rungs, or a boat without sails

Without a direction you’re destined to fail

Make a plan and stick to it and remember there’s hope

One day at a time and you’ll learn to cope

Life can be fun, filled with laughter and caring

You may even find that it’s even worth sharing

And tell the black dog that you can fight his rage

You’re not to be messed with and get back to his cage

He’ll always be there and he’s cunning and evil

Ready to pounce and cause an upheaval

But he’s not my keeper and he’s not my master

Cause I keen and I’m eager and I learned to run faster

Tell that black dog I’ve had enough of your pain

You may have won this round but I’m in for the game

Get help if you need it but you must take a stand

Just Swallow your pride and ask for a hand

Every dog has his day and he may think he’s winning

But it ain’t over till it’s over and I’m still grinning

I have passion and am loved by those I do care

And with this kind of love you don’t have a pray.

Stewart Elliott

He’s work hard nearly all of his life

Now he stays at home and annoys his wife

If he doesn’t get out soon she’ll kill him dead

Why not go join the Buderim menshed

You could try welding, woodwork, painting, leatherwork or art

Or learn how to make that damn mower start

Have a cup of tea and a bikky and a bit of a chat

And free cake has no calories so you won’t get fat

Learn to fix bikes or do some gardening

Beats sitting home and listen to arteries hardening

Be a toymaker or learn some computer

Just ask the boys and get a skilled tutor

They got ex tradies, old bosses and military

With a lifetime of skills and talents that vary

They would love to share with you what they know

All you need to do is turn up have a go

So if want to go out and meet some new mates

And feel good about yourself and things you create

And mental health is good for your head

You owe it to yourself to join the menshed.

Stewart Elliott

Life is a risk and we all wanted to gamble

The eternal bucket list, better to hold the handle

But sometimes we just have to face the facts

The house always wins and we just all roll craps

Distracted by bright lights, media and noise

We chase to impress and gather our toys

House and cars, prestige and money

We get dealt the joker and man he ain’t funny

But what if there was another way

When fun and compassion filled your day

To be able to look in the mirror and see yourself smile

And be one with the universe, if only for a while

We idealise the rich and we laugh at the hippy

Wearing strange clothes and acting all trippy

The musicians and artists fighting to be heard

No guns or violence, just a message in their words

Instead of being nasty what if we supported each other

A kind word or gesture isn’t really a bother

But we’d rather spend the time tearing each other down

To stroke our own false ego and wear a false crown

Our morals and ethics are so far gone

Bombarded by advertising and internet porn

We think this is normal and how to behave

Unattainable goals we all become slaves

The media celebrate and reward bad behaviour

And ostracize the Soldier at times, our saviour

Just so they can sell some ads

Weekend warriors hiding behind keypads

Whatever happen to chivalry and opening the door

And manners still counted and not keeping a score

Of who did you wrong or those who did right

Can’t learn to forgive you worry all night

Where empathy and honour we strived to achieve

And family mattered and our rights to just be

You stood by your mates in good times and bad

And shared the wins and commiserated the sad

But we get up and grind out our right to survive

Addicted to phones, we’re barely alive

Yes sir, no ma’am and do what your told

Till they cast you aside because you got old

Maybe it’s time to step back and have fun

The beaches, forests , exercising in the sun

Say hi to your neighbours, and perhaps volunteer

Re-join your community and stop living in fear

We’re born and we die, you can’t change the rules

No matter how much they mislead the fools

With promises of eternal youth and Instagram chatter

It’s what you do in between that’s all that really matters

the house hands you the dice so what do you do

succumb to your ego to impress those you knew

or put down the dice and say not for me

I choose to be happy, I choose to be free

Stewart Elliott

That quiet old guy, who keeps to himself

Ignored by the young hipsters arranging the shelf

Because he’s not cool and he gets in the way

He just wants a quick chat, it would make his day

But you’ll never know what he did in his prime

As you ignore him and won’t give him your time

He’s slow in his movements, his old jumper is torn

He bores you with stories, off when he was born

In times long ago when he was young, strong and keen

He spent his whole life out chasing his dream

With honour and integrity and learning his trade

He’s sorry that he’s wasted your time and your day

The girl that he married was his childhood sweetheart

She passed long ago and it tore him apart

He comes to your shop in the hope that one day

You’ll give him some time and he’ll be on his way

He feels so alone and counts down the days

When he’ll see his dear sweetheart and the memories they made

Did he mention that his dream was interrupted by war?

That he did his duty and answered the call

Of trenches and death and blood and lost mates

Surrounded by men who were brainwashed to hate

He’s too modest to mention that he saved his platoon

They gave him some medals along with his wounds

Of killing and dying and flies and disease

The calls from the trenches and ignoring their pleas

He’ll never tell you how he got that scar

Why loud noises scare him and you think he’s bizarre

Why he walks with a limp and uses a cane

Why he gathers each year to honour the slain

His mates are all gone now; he’s out lived them all

Each April they gathered to work at the stalls

To sell badges and poppies and to honour the dead

You stare and you wonder, what’s wrong with his head

On two days a year he finally belongs

To a tribe of brave men, not forgotten but long gone

A chest full of medals and a day with the lads

A beer and some two up and a toast to comrades

Yeah his footsteps are shuffled and unsure in his ways

He potters around and wears his beret

The faces get fewer and fewer each year

But right now he matters, he enjoys all the cheers

He sits alone in his home, his joints now inflamed

He was Special Forces and as tough as they came

The horrors he saw and the actions he did

In the name of the queen and country to just earn a quid

Would make most men cry and pray for love ones

While the young play war games and we still send our sons

But you’ll never know what he did in his prime

As you ignore him, no compassion or time

That quiet old guy, who keeps to himself

Ignored by the young hipsters arranging the shelf

Stewart Elliott

The poor old dear was bothered and flustered

She’s misplaced her purse and her shopping bags busted

The check-out chick say’s “no rush darl, take your time”

But she still looks worried at the people in line

It’s the last of her money and she’s on the DVA pension

She wonders if it worth a mention

Would anyone help or be bothered to care

These days when no one has a dollar to spare

Behind her standing patiently was a digger in cammo’s

Thinking this is still better than the desert, counting rounds of spent ammo

He looked around with his thoughts to himself

When he spotted the purse over on the shelf

A battered old purse full of memories and cash

And old battered photo of a handsome young lad

Dressed in fatigues, standing proud, holding a gun

Her long lost husband from a Great War rerun

The digger notes she a Legacy widow

Her long ago sweetheart had died a hero

He gave of himself so that we might learn to be

Able to live our life safe, happy and free

The digger gets his phone out of his pack

And calls his buddies all waiting outback

He tells them the story and they don’t even blink

They hatch a plan quicker than you or I think

They give the purse back to the lovely old duck

She thanks them all, god bless them and they wish her good luck

She pays for her groceries and go’s on her way

Those lovely handsome young men had just made her day

As she sit quietly waiting at the bus stop

She goes through her list from the bottom to the top

She has all the basics but the money is tight

So no extras this week but I’ll be alright

Eventually it comes and she jumps on the bus

A call to the girls with much to discuss

When she notices something that will change her luck

There’s a note in her bag and 500 bucks

The diggers had slipped it when she was distracted

Some people are talk but these guys acted

She wonder who put it there, it must be the cashier

But she reads the note and it becomes all crystal clear

The notes simply says” thankyou for your sacrifice, we know you’re alone

But your part of our family and we look after our own

So we hope this will help you, we wish we had seven

And know that your ol boys smiling down on you up in heaven”

She looks around quickly and stashes the money away

Perhaps I should save it for a rainy day

The girls at bingo will never believe me

This can’t really be true are my eyes just deceiving

Maybe I’ll by that new party dress

And some flowers for my beloved who’s peaceful at rest

And she’ll tell him the story of the lovely young digger

Who said nothing much but whose actions were bigger

The war to end all and she believed it was true

And it cost her sweetheart in world war two

And she hopes that the young will never have to regret

What her generation went through and to live under threat

And she’ll pray for his safety if he’s ever deployed

To faraway lands where he’s only a boy

And she wonders why still after all these years

Why we still haven’t learnt to live with our peers

Stewart Elliott

What is toughness, what do you see

When you pass your judgement onto me

Where is it written that I must conform

Why is it so important that I be the norm

Life can be hard and not all will survive

So many broken souls we wish where alive

A Big, hairy bloke with a few tattoos

Your stereotyping gaze is nothing new

You think I want to hurt your son

But you don’t know the things I’ve done

Like protecting those who could not defend

And a healthcare worker till I reached my end

And where were you when your mum said goodbye

I held her hand, watched her wither and die

Lying in bed she waited afraid and alone

Wondering why you didn't bother to visit or phone

Or how I worked all night surrounded by strangers

As ever shift put my life in danger

While drunks and the young party all night

Of the predators and perverts, wanting to fight

Flexing their egos, no idea what they’re doing

Then one punch can kill, and two lives are ruined

It is not you who had to physically intervene

You think my job is chat up girls and just to look mean

It isn’t you threatened with a gun or a knife

For just wanting to help, you wanted my life

For denying you entry on a Saturday night

While you hide behind mates and challenge to fight

And eventually it broke me, my minds no longer free

As I succumbed to the horrors of PTSD

Fifteen years of hurting and the same of healing

Has left my soul broken, without any meaning

I’m sitting in front of you, but you’d never know it

This big tough bikers an artist, musician and warrior poet

Of stories and yarns that get you to thinking

But for me it all helps and better then drinking

A wife and a family were put on the shelf

You can’t love another if you can’t love yourself

A jaded daily struggle to either destruct or to mend

And honestly days where you just want it all to end

So while you sit there and judge me over my right to live free

You might be looking but you definitely don’t see

The armour is up for this kind hearted man

A teddy bear wrapped in barb wire was never my plan

You see me on my Harley and think I’m up to no good

While your old man is secretly wishing he could

Brainwashed by the media you comment and glare

But I know who I am and I no longer care

I’ve travelled the world from China to Mississippi

The look of a hard man with the heart of a hippy

Decades of martial arts, metal and beers

Lost a few mates and shed a few tears

I can hurt you some days' or I can also heal

And some day soon maybe I’ll learn to feel

So am I tough, I guess that I am

I lived through it all and I’d do I again

My friends and my family have given me life

I owe it to them to stay out of strife

To stick around for a few years to come

The rides not over till I say it’s done.

Katongo Chanda

Called from afar

To a journey unknown

They stepped into the boat

The ocean was calm,not a cloud in sight

They asked "where are we going"

He said "into the storm" ,to reveal what lies within

They did not understand

For they could not see

Three days into the journey

They were hungry and weak

Dark clouds surrounded them

The waves grew higher, the wind more fierce

The little boat was battered

Yet not broken

Still, it stayed afloat

They wondered, how that could be

The thurnder roared, they seized with fear

As their lives flashes before them

"what have we done" they cried out

He said "you have forgotten me...

Yet i have not forgotten you"

"who are you" they asked

In a gentle voice he answered

"the one who hold the keys... I am he"

Sudenly the wind died down

And the ocean was calm

They stood in silence,as a ray of sun appeared

It shone into their souls

As they turned to look for the stranger

He was gone

They found themselves alone

New, they understood for the first time

The effect mystery of the storm

Katongo Chanda

When they said he is losing his mind, I was awakening.

When they said he segregating oneself, I was healing.

When they said he is behaving comic, I was growing.

When they said I have changed, I was evolving.

When they said I don't care any more, eventually I was understanding that, my peace lives within.

Katongo Chanda

I am that patient in the behavioral health units, who as entered into the mental world of the unknown..!

I am that prisoner behind the bars who committed heinous crime..

I am the judge who passed the sentence on that criminal who was hanged yesterday..

I am that might lion walking in the savanna Land of Africa..

I am that meandering river down the mountains until I reach the sea..

I am that prostitute standing on the corner of the 7th Street waiting for you...

I am that black man who was killed by the police in the 7th Street last night..

I am the one you are searching for in the mosque, in the church and in the temples ...

But who are you, I am God....!!!!

Katongo Chanda

I want to be a flower,

Beautiful to behold, more beautiful than the others, that in my garden grew,

I want to be a flower,

I want the sun to shine, I want to feed the gentle rain, upon this heart of mine,

I want to be a flower I want to grow, grow, grow, I want to keep on blooming, Even when it snows,

I want to be a flower, Do you want to be one too, we can both grow in my garden, side by side, me and you.

Zoe Dunkinson

DISCLAIMER

Suicidally me is exactly that. When your suicidal you’re thought are distorted, your reality doesn't align with everyone else. I know that yet I am still overcome by the distortions, the thoughts that inhibit my mind are beliefs and feelings caused by mental illness. This book is not meant to offend or blame. Although a lot of it details the frustrations I have with my interactions as a suicidal person. I know that often people are doing the best they can and what they think is right. This book is meant to help inform people on how it feels to be suicidal, what helps and what doesn’t at least for me, and maybe some others.

I appreciate everyone in my life who tries to help me and who supports me, it’s hard to explain how you can appreciate someone who is trying to keep you alive when all you want is to die. Essentially they are working against your wishes but you appreciate the thought, and you can feel that they care.

HOW IT FEELS

I feel heavy, it’s an effort to move. I can barely lift my head off the pillow and I wonder why I should even bother trying? I question every action, every movement, how is this helping me? What good can possibly come from me lifting my head from this pillow? I feel so empty, but my mind is full; full of reasons not to live, full of ways to end my life, full of all the mistakes I’ve ever made and the potentials I’ll never for fill.

There is so much logic to ending my life, it’s the one clear path to making this stop, the pain, the hurt, the endless depression. It’s the most intense yearning I’ve ever felt, nothing can compare to how strongly I feel that I want this. It’s beyond a want, it’s a need. Because I need an end, I need a way to stop these feelings and there are no other options. No one can save me, I’m beyond help, how can someone possibly take away these feelings? These feelings are an entity, they’ve taken control of my mind and they can’t be stopped by medication or therapy or mindfulness, nothing so insignificant. I have to make a bigger gesture, I have to offer my life, because these feelings are a part of me, they’ve intertwined with my very being, and therefore to end them I must ultimately end myself.

I no longer see the world for what it is, I can’t enjoy its subtleties. My vision is clouded with death, what if I jumped off that bridge, stood in front of that train, took those pills, hung myself from that beam, or cut myself with that knife. I can’t see what you see, I don’t see those flowers. I can’t see the sunshine over me. All I can see is my escape, I’m constantly assessing the viable options. Which one will be a guaranteed escape? I just need to escape, I need an end, total darkness. I can’t go on, they don’t know how it feels. I don’t understand why they’re telling me it will be ok and that things will get better, because it’s just not true, they’re lying to me and I can’t let those thoughts seep in, I can’t let them convince me to stop. I need the intense thoughts of suffering and depression, I need them because they’re driving

me to my death. My end. My escape. My freedom. Let me be free.

I kick, scream and fight back anyone who holds me down, I tell them how much I hate them because they’re taking away the one thing I really need and in that moment I really do feel like I hate them for taking this from me. The feeling of dying takes over me, and I don’t care who I hurt anymore, emotionally or physically because I’m living so deep within the need to die.

CREDIBILITY

I know that you genuinely believe there is a better life out there waiting for me, that everything will fall into place and the pain will go away. But how can you know?

How can you know that the depression will ease and the anguish will stop? How do you know that I won’t be stuck neck deep in my suicidal ideation barely keeping a float?

You can’t know, because you don’t know what it feels like to be suicidal like me. I know you don’t understand, because you ask how many times a day do I have these thoughts. You don’t understand that this thought never stops, it’s constantly there; inhabiting my mind. That yes I can have conversations, and talk to my friends; but the thought will keep appearing and infecting my brain, showing me all of the ways I can die in this room. It’s there and it’s nagging it just doesn’t stop.

You can’t predict the future and neither can I, but I know it will all end if I make myself die. It’s hard to believe you when in reality I know, there is no way for you to predict the future and see all the hurt and the pain eradicated from my life.

I can’t hold on to a possibility.

SMILING THROUGH SUICIDE

I can still laugh and smile when I’m with people, but only for so long. When I’m on my own it hits, and it hits hard. I feel so depressed and I just want it to be over. I smile because I appreciate you, and I do enjoy your company. I smile because I don’t want you to see how hurt I really am. I smile and isn’t fake, but the complexities of the emotions in my mind mean that my depression still drives me, and the thoughts of death won’t go away.

It’s hard to explain how I love you and care for you, but yes I still want to die. It’s not because of you or anything you’ve done, and you are definitely enough. I’m just plagued with the thoughts of death and nothing takes it away, only fleetingly if at all.

BURDENED BY ME

I just want someone to tell me I’m not a burden and that I’m not too much. I don’t want to feel like a burden right now. How can I live knowing that all the people around me have this huge weight to carry purely because I’m in their life? That’s not fair. I keep so much to myself, there is so much I don’t say yet I’m still too much?

What would happen if I told people what I really thought; what was really going on in my brain?

I just want someone to say “it’s not true,” but they can’t, they can’t take it away. I am beyond too much for people, it’s demonstrated by their actions. There’s nothing anyone can say that can make me feel better, they can’t fix it. The problem isn’t with them, it’s with me. I’m the problem. It can only be fixed when I’m gone.

GET TO THE POINT

I don’t feel needed. There is nothing that I can offer to anyone around me that someone else can’t already do. I’ve got nothing to give. I’m absolutely useless. Am I just a problem for people to “fix”? I don’t offer anything into the world that isn't already there. Why do I exist? I seem to cause more problems by being here than I solve.

I’m not a mum, I don’t have a job, I’m not a partner, why am I here? What purpose do I serve? I feel like I need a purpose, a role in this world, a reason to exist, because without it I just don’t know why I’m even living. I want a reason, I want to feel necessary in this world, I want my existence to serve a purpose.

It’s not that I’m so full of my own self-importance that I think I should have some big role in society that is widely recognised. I just want a reason to be alive. I know that if I die there won’t be any gaps to fill, it just won’t matter when I’m gone because I wasn't doing anything purposeful with my life to begin with.

MAYBE I’M ACTUALLY DOING SOMETHING

Maybe when you think I’m doing nothing I’m actually doing more than you think. I’m still getting out of bed, I’m going to my appointments, and I’m trying to interact with my friends. I could have given up all of that. At times I do try, but you never seem to see what I am doing, only what I’m not.

Maybe my reasons are not good, maybe I go because having appointments gets me through the monotony of each day and having someone to talk to makes it a little bit more bearable. Maybe for me I just want the days I have left to be bearable. All I see in my future is a bunch of bearable days followed by death, but isn’t that better than nothing?

I am making the best of what I see as my future. I could go through those same days bored out of my mind, absolutely miserable for every single second. Yet I’m choosing to make a difference in the days I do have, and isn’t that doing something? Aren’t I helping myself in some way, or is it all just selfish and I’m wasting everybody’s time? Should I leave the appointment spaces for people who want to get better? People who have futures ahead of them. Then again, if I was terminally ill would you stop me having the appointments/treatments that are helping me feel more comfortable? Instead give them to someone who needs a script for antibiotics because they’re going to recover? Wouldn’t you continue my care until I died? I feel guilty that

I’m wasting everyone’s time but I don’t know what to do without them.

NO TURNING BACK

Everyone tells me death is final, and there is no coming back. What they don’t understand is that everything else I’ve tried is superficial, medication, hospital, therapy; if it even helps at all it is for a short period of time. I want something final, I want an option where there’s no turning back, I’m sick of feeling like this. I want to end this feeling for good.

“But what if you stopped feeling suicidal?” Quite frankly that scares me. What would my life be like? Would it be the same life but I just wouldn't feel the need to die? If that’s the case I don’t want that. My personality was formed around experiences I have had throughout my life, everyone’s is. I love animals because I grew up with them, I hate loud noises because my dad would yell and it scared me. I’m never going to enjoy being in a room full of noise, it makes me anxious and I just want to leave. It’s engrained within my personality. I will still have these preconceived reactions to situations in my life; I will still have an illness that limits me. However I will be stuck, there won’t be a way out like there is when I’m suicidal. How am I meant to live that life? How is that better?

I won’t know about the things that I’m missing by being dead, I won’t know that I could have potentially become an aunty. I won’t be having feelings of regret or wishing I could take it back, because I’ll be dead.

I know its permanent and permanent is what I’m looking for, a perpetual solution to a gruelling emotion.

RESPECT PLEASE

I want privacy and respect. I feel like I’m losing myself, my being and my identity. I don’t feel like me, I feel as though I am the property of everyone else. What’s mine? What do I have that’s just for me? Where is my integrity? How can I form an identity as an individual being when everything I have is up for discussion and there is nothing left for me? I’m a very private and reserved person, I’m not open and out there, by discussing me I feel you’re taking away from who I am. Who is Zoe? I don’t know anymore. Just a problem, something to be fixed, a concern, a worry, a stressor. It’s like I don’t even exist, so what’s the point in living.

I know I’m a walking red flag and a lot of what comes out of my mouth is reason to hospitalize, but I feel like I am just a pawn in a game of Chinese whispers. I’m handed on from community, to hospital, to CATT team, to GP back to community, and if I’m really lucky they’ll call my family as well. The most private fragile aspects of my brain are being passed around like a hot potato. I don’t want everyone to know those details. I don’t work, I don’t live on my own, I don’t have a partner, the only things that are solely mine are my thoughts and I can’t even preserve them.

I know that to receive adequate care it’s necessary for my treating team to be open about my current state of mind, and to keep me safe they need complete candour. Nevertheless I still feel overwhelmed by the amount of people that have a sudden insight into the privacy of my inner thoughts.

CRISIS OF A MUNDANE TASK

I’m lying on the floor crying about yoghurt. I have to get up to go get it, and walking is hard, walking sucks, walking makes my heart rate go up, and standing makes me dizzy. I’m not even hungry, I don’t want food. I don’t want to eat because I’m depressed, frustrated and I just want to lie here forever. Still I have to eat because I have to take my medication and if I don’t I’ll have side effects. I have to eat because I’m taking my medication; if I don’t eat I throw up. I have to take medication because I’m depressed and my body doesn’t function properly. None of these medications adequately fix anything, so why am I even going to the effort of doing all this in the first place?

It’s the simplest thing but right now it’s so hard, it seems pointless, it’s tiring and I don’t want to do it. So I’m lying on the floor crying about yoghurt.

I don’t cry about yoghurt every day, today was particularly hard; this week has been stressful and I’ve just had enough. A lot of the time these thoughts go through my mind, how I don’t feel hungry and I don’t want to eat, but I have to because I need to take my inadequate medication without throwing up.

I’m sure you can relate because everyone has those days, where you get upset over the smallest of things. Maybe it’s not even the reason that you’re upset but it’s been a difficult week and this has tipped the iceberg. These moments occur so much more often in my suicidal mind. It’s relentless and exhausting. Sometimes those moments where you’re crying about yoghurt because everything is just too much and you can’t take anymore. They’re no longer the moments where you’re crying about yoghurt, they become the

moments where you attempt to take your life. That feeling of being so overwhelmed and upset that your emotions are out of control. The feeling of being consumed by irrational anxiety. That is the diluted feeling of being acutely suicidal.

CRISIS OF AN INANIMATE OBJECT

I’m angry at this mirror because it’s sat here since I bought it and I need my brother to put it up. It’s been at least 6 months and it’s still right here on the floor with me, I don’t even see the point of it. It’s not doing anything on the floor, just like me, I want to smash it. I know that I could, because I smashed my last mirror and I wreck things when I’m sad, but I don’t want to draw attention to myself right now.

So I have to sit with the feeling that this is useless and not doing what I want, it’s going to sit here doing nothing on the floor, just like me. I’m angry at the world because people are frustrating, disappointing, upsetting and annoying. It feels like it’s all a reaction to having to deal with me as a suicidal being. But I can’t stop thinking about this mirror, how I could smash it and it would be gone. The fact that it’s doing nothing, it’s on the floor and its useless will all be gone, just like me.

When I die I’ll be destroyed too and the frustration that I am to everyone, the burden, the uselessness will all be gone. So maybe I should smash this mirror right now and it all will be over already.

FORGET-ME-KNOT

Before attempting to take my life I have destroyed things, smashed them, ripped them, torn them to shreds. I destroy things because I want to get rid of anything that could be kept as a memory of me. I wouldn't get rid of everything because I think that would be cruel to wreck everything and leave my mum with nothing. But the big things, the things that could not be easily stored without preserving my room as a shrine of me. Mirrors, canvases, doonas. I wreck them because I don’t want my mum to be left with a room full of my belongings. I don’t want her to be in a constant state of mourning with the sight of my room.

I am aware that it would upset people if I died, I can understand that, but I feel that they have the ability to move on. I discussed this exact scenario with my lovely GP. She asked me if I was ok with that. Would I be ok for people to move on? I am, I want people to move on with their lives. I guess I don’t have any strong feelings about what people do when I’m gone, other than not wanting them to continuously mourn. I want them to be able to move on.

I don’t mind if you forget me or not. I don’t feel significant now, I don’t see why that would change when I’m gone.

I DON”T WANT YOU TO “FIX” ME

People try to ‘fix’ me but it never works, they give up or get frustrated. I never asked anyone to fix me but it hurts when they pack it in, because I can’t. I can’t walk away, I’m stuck here on my own. You always end it by saying that I need to drive the recovery, or it’s my fault that I feel this way. You don’t get it, I’m not going to drive it, I don’t want it, I want to die, and I need to die. Why can’t you hear me?

It’s not my fault, I didn’t choose to feel like this, including the desire to die and not get better. That’s not a choice it’s a symptom of an illness. Would you say to a cancer patient that you need to stop growing tumours? It’s your fault that you’re sick because you keep growing tumours. No you would look at the bigger picture, you investigate why the tumours are growing, you medicate and you support them. They didn’t choose to grow a tumour, they didn’t choose to be terminal. I didn’t choose to be suicidal, and I didn’t choose to not want help. But you can’t see that.

You think I can flick a switch and become recovery focussed, but it just doesn’t work like that. Maybe society is somewhat to blame, because we don’t take action until someone tries to end their life. We don’t take it seriously until they end up in hospital. I wanted help, I asked for help, but by the time I was ‘bad’ enough to get it, I’d felt this way too long, I couldn’t fight anymore, I couldn’t see a way out. Do you know what? I got closer to dying and therefore stopping these feelings, than I ever got asking for help. Asking for help never got me close to putting an end to feeling like this.

TOO TABOO

You’re making it so hard, why are you making it so hard? I feel like no one cares, I feel like a burden, I feel like my treating team is absolutely sick of me and have had enough. So every time you give me an option to leave I can’t help but think that’s what you want. I should be taking the hint, leaving you alone and stop wasting your time.

I can’t talk about death? As though it’s something I choose, something I like, something I enjoy, a hobby. You don’t want to talk about it so we don’t, I don’t want to think about it but do I get that option? Can I choose to make the thoughts of dying go away? If I can’t talk to you, who do I talk to? I can’t tell anyone else, you’re the mental health professional and you don’t want to hear it, so who does?

I’ve spent a long time filtering what I say, hiding my emotions, lying to people about how I feel. The one time I connected with someone straight away and felt like I could actually express how I really feel you shut me down. I don’t get it. I can’t even do therapy right. I don’t say enough, I say too much. What am I meant to say? Who am I meant to say it to? I don’t even want you to ‘fix’ me, I just want someone to listen, to acknowledge how I feel.

ASSUMPTIONS

I’m sick of people acting like they know me, telling me I what I will or won’t do as though they’ve worked me out. Yes maybe I am desensitised to death, I do say things that concern people and regret saying them due to the ramifications. But the real things, the things that matter, they’re deep inside me, and they’re not coming out. So go ahead make your judgments and assumptions about me and my level of risk, but know you are ignorant and you are wrong. I am not a book you can’t read me, I am a human being.

I thought about going out and lying in the middle of the road but mum would notice. We’ll fight while she tells me to stop being stupid, perhaps it will even lead to hospital, and I don’t want that. I need something that’s guaranteed, because I’ve done it wrong so many times and I can’t keep going on like that. In the past I would feel suicidal and do anything I possibly could to try and end my life. In hospital I put medicine cups in my mouth to try and cause myself to suffocate, over that I put a vomit bag to create even less air, and if that wasn’t enough I lay face down on my pillow. It was one of the most ineffective desperate attempts I have ever made. I still have those intense feelings, the thoughts of needing to die right now. However I can’t keep making unsuccessful attempts and ending up in hospital. So people think that because I’m not making attempts that it’s ok. It’s not ok! ‘1 year ago Zoe’ would have attempted last night, and probably many times over the last few weeks, but ‘present Zoe’ is waiting for something guaranteed.

I am not ok. I am struggling. It is not all about attempts.

DO MY FEELINGS MATTER?

Why is it that I have these feelings? It’s my life but we always have to think about everyone else and justify their actions. It’s difficult seeing me like this, it will be distressing when I’m dead, and it’s upsetting trying to help me. Therefore every, and any actions people decide to make are reasonable and understood. No one can even begin to understand how I feel, how it feels to hear that I’m too much and have someone walk away.

Why don’t my feelings matter? Why do people always tell me I need to change the way I think and act, but it’s completely fine for everyone else? How are any of you even helping me? There are the people that try but find it too much, then there are the people who refuse to recognise how this could impact me and are only there to support the people who have to deal with me. Why can’t you acknowledge me? I don’t want you to fix me I just want you to understand. I want you to know why I died, I don’t want you to think I could have done more or why didn't I do this. I just want you to know there was nothing you could have done, and know the reason why I’m gone. I want you to listen to me tell you the reasons why I’m not going to keep living, so that when I’m dead, you never look back.

DREAMING OF AN ESCAPE

I’m sick of dreaming, why do I need to live out my thoughts at night? Why can’t I just experience some blackness, a little bit of nothing? I don’t want to relive moments from my past over and over again in my sleep. I don’t want to relive variations of those moments, and I don’t want to live completely new moments that I’ve never experienced before, but are just as stressful.

It feels tiring and it feels long. I wake up exhausted from battling my thoughts all night. I just don’t want to dream. It’s just another form of life that I don’t want to have. I can’t even sleep without wanting to die because I’m so sick of dealing with the thoughts in my head. You think that you couldn't possibly want to die any more than you already do, then you have dreams about pursuing the act of ending your life, it just never stops! When do I get a break from these thoughts? The depression, the anxiety, the overwhelming need to die.

These dreams have ramifications, they fool my brain. I wake up and I am angry. I am sad, lonely, and terrified. I am absolutely overcome by emotion. I can’t shake the thoughts from this dream. Is it real? Is it a figure of my imagination? It just doesn't matter because it’s already occupied the space in my mind that makes living so unquestionably insufferable.

FACE VALUE

Maybe it’s my fault because I don’t open up, I often shrug and say I don’t know. On the other hand, how is it that you can believe that I can have such a severe mental illness yet there is nothing going on in my head? I know that I completely shut down and don’t let you in, I won’t tell you how I feel or what emotion I’m experiencing. There is something manifesting in my mind. Can you understand that? That even though I’m not telling you what is happening, there is a wildly complex scenario at play in my head. I don’t always want to talk, but I always want your understanding.

I’ve never understood the question “are you safe tonight?” When I’m really intent on dying I’m going to lie, I just am. I don’t want the help and I don’t want you to stop me. I’m forever denying people insight into my plans because I know what will happen. How can you ever really know if someone is suicidal and whether they’re going to take their life? You just can’t, there are no guarantees in life.

Mental illness isn't like a broken leg, you can’t just get an x-ray and know, and you can’t just ask a question and know. It’s just not that simple. I’m sorry that maybe I lead you astray and I made it seem like I was actually ok. It’s not me trying to deceive you, it’s not malicious, it’s just an illness exhibiting in my brain.

A JUSTIFIABLE DEATH

My family isn't home yet and I thought they’d only be gone an hour, my friend hasn't responded and it’s after the time she should be home from work My automatic thought is that they’re dead. Of course there are the more reasonable options such as traffic, stopped at the shops or even that they’re just busy. But my first thought is always that they have died.

How am I supposed to live without them? I can barely survive when they’re here, let alone on my own. I start bargaining with myself, telling myself that it’s ok to die now. I’ve suffered a horrible tragedy and lost the people dearest to me, so it’s only fair that I go too. If everything else going on in my life wasn’t a good enough reason for people to let me go, surely they’d understand now?

Being dead means they’re also not here to stop me from taking my life anymore. There’s no one preventing me from following through with my plan, no one here to safe guard the house. I finally have an opportunity to actually take my life.

It’s not that I want my family and closest friends to die, because I definitely do not. It’s just at that moment, when the thought of their passing enters my mind, I can’t help but justify my own death.

I WON”T GO DOWN WITHOUT A FIGHT

I kick and I scream because I undoubtedly need to die and you’re stopping me. Why are you stopping me? Can’t you see my pain; the tears rolling down my face, the words from my mouth, don’t they signify to you my level of distress and anguish? Why do you have to save me? You don’t care about me, this is just a job to you.

There’s no connection between us, I don’t know you. You have no idea about my history, my diagnoses, and my trauma, absolutely none of it. But you are here and you are holding me down while I try to launch myself off the bed, and suddenly there are more of you and you’re restraining me to the gurney. You tell me it’s all going to be ok as you inject me with something to calm me down.

I’m not mad about the sedation because if you are going to stop me from dying, the least you can do is make these feelings go away. However sedation is such a superficial fix, when I wake up nothing has changed, my thoughts are the same and my intentions haven't waivered. I need to die.

I hate confrontation and I’m fairly agreeable, but my times of acute suicidality change me. I can’t think of anything but dying and how much I need everything to come to an end. Distress has engulfed me, anxiety consumes me. I’m suffering and I cannot bare it any longer.

CAN YOU GIVE ME A REASON?

I understand that you have a duty of care and you have to keep me safe as a part of your job, but I just don’t see why I have to live. Why is there a job where you are expected to act against someone’s will? Why do I have to live? Why is that something that is expected of me? There are very little other things in life that I absolutely have to do. It’s quite a foreign concept.

If you are married to someone and being in that relationship is making you terribly miserable and you wake up day after day feeling depressed, you have the option to end it. It’s not the same with life. There are no options to end your life even though you wake up every day plagued with depression and thoughts of wanting to die. Why am I stuck feeling like this with no way out?

You don’t have to keep your phone for its projected 5 year life span, if you want another one you can cease use of your old one whenever you’d like. But I have to try and live out my life expectancy of 85 years? Why?

Why are we making people do this? Why are you making me live a life of distress and suffering? Because it might get better? I’ve been going through this for 12 years and I can tell you its only ever gotten worse.

I can see that if we let everyone who ever felt suicidal end their life, a lot of people would no longer exist and there would be a lot of missed opportunities. What about people like me who have chronic suicidality, why can’t we die? We aren't offering euthanasia to every patient with cancer but it’s an op

tion for those who prognosis looks bleak. I don’t have the kind of depression where you think you want to die. What you really want is to just not feel this way anymore, so you think your only option is death. My depression is the kind where you lose all your aspirations, no matter how hard you try you just can’t imagine a life where you will be happy. It’s the kind where you really just want an end to life, not just an end to the depression.

ACKNOWLEGED

You realised in our last session together that your approach wasn't helping, that trying to give me coping strategies when I was acutely suicidal was not benefiting me at all. If anything it was making me worse, but that’s everyone’s first instinct. Give her strategies to help her through, remind her of her safety plan. For me that is counterproductive, I would take these suggestions emotionally and saw it as people dismissing the way I felt, not acknowledging my distress. My symptoms were so severe that I couldn’t cope with that approach and in retrospect maybe you should have just listened to what I was feeling and acknowledged me. Giving me coping strategies just upset me further and increased my distress, I felt as though you were just saying things to get me to shut up.

The most helpful conversations during acute suicidality aren’t the ones where people are trying to instil hope, suggesting you take a walk or have a bath. They are the ones where people listen, acknowledge and understand. I don’t want you to tell me what to do or to try and fix me, I just want you to listen to how I feel.

I want you to tell me in depth about your hobby making sausages, how you aspire to make an apricot chicken sausage. Out of all the conversations I had between 2 sets of paramedics, psychiatric triage as well as all the doctors and nurses from my admission, the most beneficial conversation I had was that one.

Months have passed and I still think about that conversation, I think about how it distracted and calmed me. It took my mind off trying to run away so I could go and die. I think about how there really was nothing anyone else could have said that would have helped me more in that moment than you

did.

QUOTES

Sometimes you hear something, and it may not be the revelation that makes life better, but it’s something to hold on to when you’re struggling to hold on to yourself. I found these quotes at varies times in my life when I was acutely suicidal, and no they didn’t take away the intensity of wanting to die, but they resonated with me, gave acknowledgment that how I felt was valid, and provided me with advice amongst my struggles.

“Don’t judge the depths of your life on the surface of others.”

- Anonymous

“Do whatever you’d like and people will respond as they choose to. We can only do our best in any given situation.”

-Belinda Herrington

“It’s a disorder, Not a decision”

-Unknown

“Let it hurt, then let it go“

-R.H. Sin

Jodi Adams

Mum to Cosette

Take time to pause

Remain still

Connect

Remember

Give yourself permission

Allow sensations to surface

Find beauty, wonder, and joy In new growth

Kimberly Hetherington

“If love could have saved you,

You would have lived forever.”

It was October 13, 2013. Thanksgiving morning.

I was getting ready to go to work. Normally my dad got ready before me but this morning he was still in his room. I thought he’d slept in accidentally but as I got closer to his door I could hear a muffled voice; he was on the phone. I knocked, “I’ll be out soon” he said abruptly. I felt a knot in my stomach, something didn’t feel right. I waited in the kitchen impatiently. Several minutes passed. Eventually he came out pale as a ghost. I asked him what’s wrong. He told me to sit down. I started to become lightheaded. In a shaky, restrained voice he said: “Elizabeth died.”

Within a few hours, we were on a plane to Vancouver to sit through my sister’s funeral. A slideshow of Elizabeth’s short life played as my mum’s hysterical cries echoed loudly throughout the church.

Early autumn used to be my favourite time of year. It’s the perfect temperature with a breeze that still holds the warmth of summer. The trees put on a beautiful display of deep reds, bright oranges and golden yellows as if an artist plucked the trees out of the ground and carefully dipped them in paint. Piles of leaves are gathered on front lawns, and everyone is wrapped in warm, cosy sweaters.

It is of no coincidence that I write this from my sunny apartment in Sydney, Australia where the season is currently spring, not autumn, and Thanksgiving does not exist. I hoped this day would pass without notice. But moving to Australia did not absolve me of suffering. Now I know this time of year will always be painful for me, no matter where I am in the world.

I wrote this to bring more awareness and understanding to the ambiguous and murky subject of “mental illness.” Because the truth is, my sister did not die of cancer or in a car accident. She died of suicide.

It’s so hard to write that, let alone say it out loud. I quickly deflect questions about how she died because I am so scared of how people will judge my family. But here’s the thing: losing my sister is painful enough as it is. We do not deserve the added weight of shame and guilt on top of the searing pain of grief. There is only so much a human being can endure. So before forming an opinion on my sister’s character or upbringing, let me explain.

This did not happen because she was not loved enough. My sister was, still is and always will be, loved immensely. It was not an act of selfishness; in fact, it was very much the opposite. She did not end her life to cause us pain, she did it to end her own. It did not happen because she was not strong enough. My sister is stronger and braver than anyone I have ever known. To go through life weighed down by severe depression is incomprehensible to someone who is lucky enough to have never experienced it. She fought hard for many, many years – literally for her life. Her decision was acted out by the voice of depression; a voice of absolute hopelessness, of believing that death was more bearable than living another day. We as human beings instinctively want to live. Depression is so powerful that it engulfs our most primitive and strongest human instincts with an effortless, crushing force. Clinical depression grows, like a disease. It starts out benign, then it slowly consumes your whole entire being, leaving you with only a shell of the person you once were.

During university, I studied psychology and spent most of my time trying to find different ways to pull my sister out of depression. Elizabeth’s illness and everything around it consumed so much of my mental energy, I barely had room for anything else. I felt like I was in an almost constant state of worry and dread. I remember running home after learning something new and feeling like maybe I found a way that just might make her happy again. It breaks my heart because I can picture her sitting so keenly on the edge of her bed listening to me and taking notes, saying “talk a bit slower I didn’t get that last part.” Then faking enthusiasm and telling me she feels “happier already” and me leaving her room feeling so proud of myself for finally getting through. But I never got through. I used to get so mad at her for being lazy and unproductive, not realising the effects of her depression combined with her prescribed medications caused severe exhaustion. The very aspect of getting out of bed was excruciating for her. After she died, I was prescribed one of the exact same medications she was on to numb my own sadness. I remember standing there in the pharmacy and staring at the bottle for a few minutes before swallowing a pill and entering a state of dreamy numbness; a feeling of a complete disconnection from reality and fighting through exhaustion. I finally, only then, could understand.

When my sister was depressed, it felt like watching her drown and not being able to do anything to help. It felt like no matter what me or my parents did, she’d just keep getting sucked under. I’d literally try everything and anything I could think of, eventually collapsing in tears. I would get so angry that I would take my anger out on Elizabeth. I’d scream and yell and tell her I wanted nothing to do with her or the family anymore. I would storm out of the house and retreat to my friend’s place for a few days. Eventually, I’d return home late at night, slowly open the front door and catch eyes with her sitting on the couch eating pickles, watching Cold Case Files, and looking at me like ‘can we stop fighting now?’

I just love my sister so much. I could never give up on her. So, I would just sit down on the couch, ask her about the TV show and she’d look at me with a big smile and continue to explain every detail to me.

Elizabeth’s brain chemistry was different to that of someone who isn’t depressed. When her depression hit it was like throwing a bucket of black paint on a beautifully vivid, colourful painting. It took the core of who she was away. It stole her creativity and smothered her spark. Growing up we used to have fiery arguments with each other, it would be over something small like who got the front seat. Hair would be pulled; tears would be shed and my parents would roll their eyes and beg us to please grow up. But as we got older and her depression set in, she just didn’t have the energy. I remember instigating fights and she would simply shrug her shoulders and walk away. It hurt me more than a fight ever could to see her like that. Looking back now, this was a clear sign that a real problem was developing, I kept thinking it would fade. But it didn’t.

If you believe this happened because of faulty parenting, please know that my sister and I were raised in the same family and were together every step of the way. I have bad days just like everyone else, but I have never been clinically depressed, nor have I ever felt suicidal. My parents did everything to provide us with the best life they could. I really don’t know how or why her depression developed. It just did. Similarly, I don’t know why my grandma developed Alzheimer’s disease when she spent her life as an accountant and kept her mind active by doing crossword puzzles every night before bed. When my grandma struggles to remember things, no one would dare blame her because we know that it’s out of her control. Depression falls into the same category in that it is uncontrollable and sometimes develops completely randomly. Both deserve equal amounts of empathy.

I know in my heart that my family and I did everything we could to save my sister. I know that my sister did not want to die, she just wanted the pain to end. I wish I could’ve taken her pain away, I never wished for anything more desperately than that. But it didn’t work, my love for my sister was not enough to save her from depression.

However, I do not want my sister to be defined by her depression. I want those who knew her to remember her for the energy she brought to them before depression took it away. I want her to be remembered for her pure kind-hearted generosity. For those Christmas’ when she’d send us a large, wrapped box written in a decorative calligraphic font “~ The Hetherington’s ~” even though we told her repeatedly we didn’t want anything. Or for those times when she literally had homeless people over to her place for dinner. I want her to be remembered for her sense of humour and that infectious laughter that made everyone smile.

I think because I lost my big sister that I feel an instinctual need to stand up for her. I can’t allow her legacy to be one of pain and sadness. I can’t allow whispers and judgements to be made when no one understands the whole story. I want Elizabeth’s legacy to be filled with hope and joy because hers ended in the opposite. I hope it inspires people to be supportive and encouraging to others. To listen when someone is hurting, even if you can’t understand why. Just listen. Never minimise a person’s suffering by comparing it to another’s. What hurts one may not be a concern to another; we all feel and interpret things differently.

I am forever grateful to have a sister like Elizabeth. My amazing big sister, who washed the wheels of my stroller as a baby, protected me from the boys who bullied me in high school and created the kind of art I could only dream of replicating. I watched the person I idolised the most get taken down by depression. My time with her has opened my eyes and my heart in so many ways. It made me more empathetic, understanding, and open-minded.

I hope anyone out there suffering from a mental illness knows that they are not alone; that those negative, poisonous, self-defeating thought patterns are not facts. I want them to know that they deserve to be here just as much as anyone else.

I hope we can find effective ways to save people suffering from a mental illness. I hope they receive the kind of medical help that fell short on my sister. I hope that no one else will ever have to endure the pain of losing someone they love to suicide. I hope that one day mental illness will be treated in just the same way as any other fatal illness. Each time we share our own stories of mental illness we are slowly breaking down previously held beliefs and coming towards acceptance and understanding. I know things are changing for the better and I hope this story this adds to that.

Since she has passed, I have been overcome by emotions that I never experienced so intensely before. I don’t know why, but when I experience joy now, I feel absolutely immersed in every particle of it. I think it’s my body’s way of creating balance within itself. The pain from my sister’s death was like a pendulum that crashed through walls within me I’d never even knew existed. But it also swung back with such force it has allowed me to experience a level of happiness that is so potent it feels almost euphoric.

And when I feel that kind of pure euphoria, I hope that wherever Elizabeth is, she feels it too. I hope she feels it every single day.

Jackie Mepstead

Started when I was a young girl,

And stayed when I grew,

Sad and alone, as I kept it within,

It always had a hold, when I wanted it to go,

It always had a hold, when I wanted it to go,

I’d cry, please hold my hand,

I’d cry, please give me hope,

All I wanted was to be free,

All I wanted was to be strong,

It always had a hold, when I wanted it to go,

It always had a hold, when I wanted it to go,

When a lesson, gave me hope,

That this can be broken,

It taught me to feel, and see what was real,

It always had a hold, when I wanted it to go,

It always had a hold, when I wanted it to go,

Kayla Willson

The ringing fades in

A precursor to this new track in my mind

A playlist of white noise

That fills my head

While I wait

For something

Good

Like the memories of past

That click a key in place

Turn a cog

Tooth in comb

Of a rickety core

Good

Once a chatter at the table

Surrounded by scratched records

Spinning

Spinning

Speeds that twirl me

From the hands of one

To those of another

Perhaps

I wait

For there is nothing else to do

When the bad

Isn’t there

But could be

Should be

Would be

He sits there

And when I turn to look

He hides

A perpetrator of the peripheral

I know he’s there

A book in hand

Using the remnants of a chewed pencil

To scratch them down

Markings of a concept

Simple

Yet unfathomable in its infinity

So

I wait

For what?

I’m still not quite sure.

Sallie Egglestone

Weary to the bone, glazy stares

Endless days of mindless tasks

Trapped trapped

No escaping and nowhere to hide

Tortuous monotony, can’t plan, can’t dream

My mask sits firmly, dont waiver, dont show weakness or fear

Steely resolve steely resolve

The walls beyond my fortress show nothing of the inner war behind it

Bright smile, dark heart

Conversations wash over me like a wave on a rock

I walk the walk and talk the talk

Before the chains of doom beckon

Life force where are you, leaving me bare, empty and angry

To fight you, I need a well of calm, and something small to hang on to

I need softness, compassion, but strength to believe, dare to hope and fight for a life

You will not beat me you picked the wrong mother

You haven’t seen me fight like a lion and fight I will

You, my girl deserve a life of happiness, ease and joy like everyone else

I will fight the fight until I know you can share in the joys of living

I will find the golden nugget, the cruelty of this disease can not be for nothing

We, you and I will be stronger, wiser, kinder and create something amazing

You will have greatness this is not a monster for nothing

My armour is unbreakable and we will live to see many sunrises, moments of stunning beauty and laughter

And together we will be grateful for life just that little bit more.