I can measure the state of my mental health
By the lines left in ny skin
Some scarlet and bumpy
Some pale and thin
I can measure my relationship with food
By the gap between the waistband
Of my jeans And the hips poking through
Like the knuckles in my hand
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
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
‘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
Side note , this is why I stopped writing for a few months. The few things I did write may never see the light of day
My dad’s got cancer
I feel like I should be writing about it
Processing
Using the words to sooth the pain
But all I can do is cry
Everyone deals with cancer differently
My only friend who’s had a parent go through the same thing
Reassures me
As my mum says she wants us to keep going as normal
Everyone else is asking questions
So many questions
What stage? How do they know?
Is it treatable?
I don’t have any of these answers
And if i did
I don’t know if I’d share
So many questions
Everytime my phone buzzes
Someone else asking something else
I don’t know
All I want to do is
Cry
The end result is switching my phone off
I’ve told you
Now leave me alone
I’m crying in the car again
Tears rolling down my face again
Sadness creeping over me
Again
Not sad about any particular thing
Just the collective sadness
Of my existence at the moment
Overwhelming
Seeping out
Crawling down my face
In these times I’m on my own
Sat in the solitude
Of my commute
Be gentle
Be gentle
Little things are still things
Today I did my washing
One of 5 things on my list
But that means tomorrow’s list
Starts with 4
I’m already further through
A little bit at a time
Gentle with myself
As I do what I can
Anything I tick off today
Is one less thing for tomorrow
Change
Big change
Breaking change
Changing change
Everything’s going to be different change
Good change
Bad change
It’s all different
All this change
Sleepless tonight
I’m not stressed
Or worked up
I guess this is what you’d call mania
Always on the go
Racing round my head at a million miles an hour
But never getting anywhere
Or taking anything with you
It’s not like there’s bad thoughts
Or even really good ones
Just thoughts
Constantly switched on
The kind I take my medication
So I can sleep
You know one when you meet them
See them, know them
Troubled teens they called us
What happens when you’re no longer a teen
And all your troubles are in your head anyway
Not fixable by anyone else
Only diluted by pills
Growing through our twenties
Not even early any more
Conversations had
From the clubrooms bathroom floor
Your energy
Makes me believe auras
The way I can feel what kind of person you are
Friend or foe
From the moment I meet you
The same intuition, half a conversation In
I know you were called it too
A Troubled Teen
Keeping pets, the same creatures in your dark corners
That I do
One of us might hide them better
Lock them far enough away to not surface
Or another way to not let them over come you
Lean in
Work with them
The creatures in your head
Rhiannon Writes 
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