That Person – R.W.

I’m trying so hard
Not to be the person
Everyone insists I’m not
Defending me blindly
In error

I’m not all that
I’m not the person
I’m idolised to be
Pro me
Team me

I didn’t ask to be put
Up here on this pedestal
I don’t deserve

Words On Their Own – R.W.

There’s poems that sit
Alone in my notes
Their loneliness
A reminder that sometimes it’s okay
To not tell everyone everything
I can keep secrets of my own

Sat Alone
They tell a story
Of my darkest moments
The ones I’m not sure
Wether to share would be worse

When I’ve written for myself
Words on a page
To help my busy brain
Extract the feelings
Make sense of them

Doesn’t mean anyone else needs to see them
They are mine
And mine alone

Away Days – R.W.

Sat on my own in a spoons
A few years ago, I could think of nothing worse
A few months ago, I’d have been terrified of the idea
But faced with interacting with strangers
That aren’t even strange
People I know on the off hand
Not well enough to keep up
Not well enough to fill in
On the dramatic swings my life takes
At every given turn
I’d rather sit on my own
In a crowded bar
Alone with my own thoughts
Surrounded by strangers’ conversations to keep
My busy brain from running circles round itself

Where To Turn? – R.W.

I’m not sober but I’m awake so that’s a win.

I stopped having feelings or opinions a couple of weeks ago
Around the time when things got super weird. 
Out of control
Out of my control
Never thought I’d see the day
I stopped fighting
I stopped fighting for the guys.
I can’t even advocate for me right now let alone them.
How am I supposed to lead when I’m losing ?
Everything, every day

They ask me where I go when I don’t know the answers
To stuff knowing I don’t get on with the people I’m supposed to trust.
And I don’t have an answer because its technically them
They don’t want to go to them, and I’d normally just ask you.
You’re so far away
You’ve got your whole own life
And I’m just here
Not fighting anymore

Awareness Breeds Recovery – R.W.

‘I’m worried about my drinking’
It’s quite an honest conversation
Held in the calm of the office
Away from the chaos of the bar
‘Why’ ‘you’re doing okay’
That’s not how I feel
The pull of the numbing solution
To the way things have changed
Away from dealing with

Anything

Big Scary – R.W.

Writing for myself again
Became the big scary
Thinking about how everything that passed
Everything that made me stop
Stopped
Me from carrying on
From processing what was passing
Now I sit
Not quite stopped
Ticking by in minimal speed
Sorting through
Feelings and experience
Writing the ones I can fathom
Shelving the more complex
For when I am ready

Sifting – R.W.

I don’t know what words
I want to commit to page
I don’t know where I am
What my head thinks
At this stage

I’m settling out
Mood equalising
On the pills prescribed to me
Fortnightly check ins
Chatting with my GP

Something New Looking Back – R.W.

I left a piece of my heart there
I don’t know why
And I wasn’t planning it when I chose to go
There’s a piece of my heart on that tiny town in the cornish coast
A place full of my people
Get the good and the bad
But it’s all good fun
There’s a piece of my heart there
Tugging like an elastic band,
Pulling me back
I don’t know if I’ll make it
But I really wish I could

Hospital 2 – R.W.

I want to start unpacking my trip
The baggage I bought home
From my unexpected hospital stay
I wasn’t trying to get admitted
Just a quick trip to the out of hours doctors
Who passed me on
Unexpected unprepared and with no belongings

I’m home now and I don’t know where to start
Processing how this changed me
The time spent wrapped up in myself
While forcibly in the company of other people
Comradory growing between the unlikeliest of pals
Cultivated by circumstance

All out on the table
In our worst states
No one gives a shit what you look like
On your Unexpected hospital stay

Something New During – R.W.

I was scares of going
Stepping into the unknown

The reality
Once forced upon me
Was an awakening

About what I am missing
What I used to have

Slotting into
A group of people
I’ve never met

They know everyone I do
And gossip about ones I don’t

A week that could of
Should of
Been so lonely

Passing easily,
With the passage of new friends

Ones I didn’t ask for
But in reality
I can’t help but adore