Silence
The Stamp Collector
Cocooned In My Private Hell

Silence

In here we suffer
In silence.
Seething undertows,
Individuals

Flung together.

Movements of the eyelid
Seen as provocation.
You learn quickly
to side-step, to avoid
conflict.

At all costs-
to survive.

Downstairs in ward 36
you learn,
It took six staff,
seven policemen with batons,
(and four injections)
to submit the angry young man

Into a dreamless sleep.
Outcast to the street,
He swallowed 12 razor blades
just in order to
get back in.

We don't want to be here
Neither do we want to be
Out there.

In here
We suffer
In silence.

Tony Fisher

[Top Of Page]

The Stamp Collector

When she showed her stamp collection
To a boy of seventeen,
He flicked the corners of the pages,
As though to animate the Queen

‘The album’s worth more than the stamps!’
He drawled beneath a smarmy grin,
And thrust the book into her hands,
As though she was the garbage bin.

But each stamp holds a secret worth,
And all once held some treasured hope,
Or memories that stick to her,
More than sweet gum to envelope.

The first one brought a birthday card,
Her mother long since flown above.
Another soared on wings to her,
A cherished kiss from her true love.

A present for her wedding day,
Was carried by this valued square.
Another’s perforations bore
The locks of her son’s hair.

And though the final page is blank,
Some tiny jewels will stamp their mark,
For how can value be too cheap,
With things so dear to heart?

Rob Houghton

[Top Of Page]

Cocooned In My Private Hell

Just a little cautionary note: This poem may be TRIGGERY for some. Keep yourself safe and please don't read it if you think it'll badly affect you. Take Care, xxx R

Cocooned in my private hell
There is no one who I can tell
How I really feel inside my head
And how I wake every morning filled with dread
Scared of what the day will bring
My mood sat on a giant swing
Not knowing where I am or how I feel
My life never on an even keel
My mind bouncing from coping to crying
I’m always putting on a front and lying
About how I really feel inside
And how my will to live has long since died
Filled with thoughts of self harm and suicide
And how I feel so dead inside
I feel there’s nothing I can do
My mind is tearing me in two
The war inside my head gets worse
Feeling like I’m living under a curse
What the war’s about I just don’t know
I want to cut my arms and let blood flow
To ease the pressure, ease the pain
That’s inside my head making me insane
Don’t know what I think or feel
But trapped in this hell I just want to squeal
I don’t understand myself at all
And I feel always at the beck of suicide’s call
To put myself out of my misery, my hell
I don’t understand myself and so can’t tell
Anyone how I really feel in my head
As I don’t know either, but I wish I was dead
Dead, anything, must be better than this
My life’s so bad it’s taking the piss
Why can’t I be normal, good
Why in hell do I have to be stood
Hating every moment of my life
Hating myself, the pain, trouble and strife
How can I escape from all of it
How can I climb out of this deep, black pit
How can I make any sense of my mind
Where an end to this mess can I find?
My mind a swimming pool of confusion
My mind overtaken by messed up confusion
Has the cat been tangling up my mind?
Like a ball of wool with no end to find
What the hell am I supposed to do?
When everyday the day I was born I rue?
I need to make sense of what’s in my mind
So that an end to this mess I maybe can find
But I won’t hold my breath, nothing good’s happened yet
Depression, pain and living hell is all I ever get
My mind and body both a mess
Feel my life would win a bad life contest
My life is always ruled by pain
Suffering mental and physical pain
Nothing good ever happens to me
No end to the black can I ever see
No end to all the torture in my mind
No end to the torture can I ever find
My life a pointless waste of time
I feel I’ve reached the end of the line
My tolerance levels zeroed out
And I don’t know what the hell all the hell’s about
What on earth am I supposed to do
My mood and outlook black not blue
Stuck in suicidal depression
The scissors the only way to let out the aggression
The torture that’s killing me inside
Can only be conquered by suicide
I just can’t do all this crap any longer
The call towards scissors and suicide getting ever stronger
I feel l like I am gong to explode inside
My only chances scissors or suicide
I feel like I am going insane
The hell, my life, my mind to blame
I need to escape my life and all of its badness
I need to escape my mind and all of its madness.

Elisabeth Emmett © 2001