DARK POETRY

Darkness is a special place

I thought I'd make this a different section. Those who are not interested in sad poetry may not want to come here. Some people totally love sad things and dark places. I will reveal that this is not me. So I'm not likely to visit this space much. But you are very welcome to hang out here.

Your picture

You passed away.

I have a precious picture of you.

I put it up on the wall.

Where I can see it

always.

I cherish this photo.

I look at it

and think of you.

I get sad.

I take the photo down.

I put it behind a photo I’ve got leaning

on my mantelpiece.

I hide it and now I feel better.

I know its there though.

It makes me sad.

I go to bed.

I even manage to sleep.

Not always.

Only sometimes can I sleep.

I wake up.

I want to see you.

I pull the picture out a little bit

from behind the other photo.

There. That’s better.

That’s perfect.

I’m having a cup of tea.

I suddenly break down.

This picture can’t be visible right now.

It brings me such sadness. I cry.

Another day has passed

I think of you.

I want to see you.

Where did I hide the picture?

I rummage in a drawer and find it.

I put it on the wall and look at it proudly.

There. Now I feel better.

How could I hide you away?

I wake up from a sleepless night.

I look at your picture.

I burst into tears.

The picture goes into the drawer.

I play an endless game.

The picture hangs proudly.

Peaks out from behind.

Lives in a drawer.

There is no answer.

I cry and cry.

Where are you?

I want to see you.

Not a picture of you.

Anxiety

I don’t just feel scared, petrified, terrified.

I feel in despair.

I hate that feeling in my stomach.

I really hate it.

It feels physically unpleasant.

I don’t just feel rubbish, the lowest of the low, unworthy.

I feel I’m a complete failure.

I hate feeling like this.

So inadequate.

It feels like the end of the world.

I’m not just incapable of changing this.

Instead it might get worse.

I might lie on my bed quivering.

Eyes wide open, staring at the ceiling.

Wondering if it will ever pass.

I am counting the days.

How long have I felt like this?

Has it been every day?

There was a day without it, this is my little hope.

I am clutching at straws.

After a few weeks I get a lot worse.

I have this feeling in my stomach

all the time.

It doesn’t go away.

It’s the feeling you have before going down a rollercoaster.

It’s the feeling you have when you’re terrified.

It’s not just a feeling.

It’s a pain.

A pain of fear.

I squirm with pain.

When I have the feeling a little less I go outside.

I try to be like others.

I look at others and I envy them.

They feel normal.

I want to feel normal! My envy of other people is an abyss.

I search for a cause.

I have searched for a cause from the beginning.

When my worries and my anxieties didn’t match anymore.

When I felt fear without reason.

I searched and I found the thyroid.

Butterfly shaped little organ

sitting in my throat.

Pouring out hormones

sometimes too much

sometimes too little.

Why try to ruin my life, little thyroid?

Why not leave this girl alone?

It’s difficult to be angry at an organ.

But I am so frustrated.

Why cause me so much pain, little organ?

My work suffers.

My relationships suffer.

I cancel tours and concerts.

I only live with fear now.

I stop performing altogether.

Years later someone asks,

are you playing again?

I can’t.

The fear settled in my stomach

ready to attack.

Sometimes I get anxieties

but I don’t know

is this normal?

Is it connected to real worry?

Or is the thyroid starting up again?

My life has changed.

My little organ has changed my life.

It controls me,

it punches me in the stomach,

and I have to live with this.

But bit by bit,

little by little,

over days and weeks and years

I am still getting better.

I will live with the hope

that my anxieties

will leave

one day.

I would wave them goodbye

with no tear in my eye.

* Note by the editor: I wrote this in response to a twitter post by the Thyroid Trust looking for poetry connected to the thyroid. The Thyroid Trust retweeted it as 'Powerful poetry about Anxiety and thyroid disease by Vroni' #thyroidstories

Sorrowbye

I am not good

at the goodbye.

I am not suited

to lose a moment

or a person

and be okay with it.

Maybe I am better

at the badbye.

That’s where you throw

a tantrum

and say the things

you feel.

Say ‘I don’t want

you to go

now

or ever

or anywhere.

Where will you go?

Stay here

with me,

today,

tomorrow.’

So no goodbye.

No easybye.

It’s badbye

and sorrowbye

from me.

Even now

as I gracefully

take my hat

to say a crybye

to you

I cannot help

but feel

distraught.

As you are wonderful

and special

and I may never

see you again.

You know I’m waving

and shedding a tear

as I write.

Sadbye to you.

I shall have my memory.

Symptoms of Grief

My father passed away.

I was told there are five phases of grief.

Denial. Anger. Bargaining. Depression. Acceptance.

But those few terms will never describe the complicated sorrow.

There’s a subtleness in feelings.

There’s detail.

It’s personal.

It’s unique.

It’s mine.

So these will have been my feelings between

the last breath and the new life without.

Sadness

Happiness

Anger

Fear

Will I never see him again?

Will this happen to me, too?

Desperation

Frustration

Elation

Relief

Whining

Solidarity

Sensibility

Love

Neediness

Dependence

Independence

Hate

Guilt

Callousness

Calculativeness

You would have gone anyway.

I’ll inherit.

It was better this way.

Sentimentality

Grief

Friendship

Feeling like a small child.

Feeling terrified.

Denial

Defeat

Fighting

Believing

Hoping

Tenderness

Questioning

Remembering

History rewriting.

Going a little crazy.

Reckoning. You just wait and see.

Despair

Lament

Celebration

Fulfillment

Deep sadness.

Regret

Caring

Tenseness

Physical suffering.

Tense muscles.

Strained neck.

Headaches

Fragility

Sensitivity

Irritability

Overreaction

Envy of other people.

The deepest sadness.

Sleeplessness

Exhaustion

Questioning age.

Questioning relative youth.

Being fucked around with.

Nastiness

Panic

Not understanding others.

Pushing away.

Bickering

Making resolutions.

Pain

Guessing what I think I will feel and getting it wrong.

Talking to oneself.

Fantasising

More regret.

Missed moments.

Wrong last moments.

Drowning

Dreaming wildly.

Fucked upness.

Complete insanity.

I wasn’t ready.

You weren’t ready.

Where are you?

Floating

Mood swingy

Grumpy

Simplifying

Complicating

Arguing with fate.

Philosophising

Missing

Sobbing

Naughty thoughts.

Inappropriate thoughts.

It’s better you have gone.

Wanting to see you one more time.

Feeling misunderstood.

Crying inside.

Giving up.

Anger at messages from friends.

Losing friends.

Suffocating

Aching

Feeling small.

Feeling unimportant.

Extremely thin skin.

Anxiety

Feeling sick.

Feeling overruled.

Feeling it’s solved.

Feeling it shouldn’t have happened.

Feeling bad about feeling good.

Having respectless thoughts.

Feeling distracted from the grief.

Feeling the grief distracts from everything else.

Disturbed sleep.

Not sleeping at all.

Sleeping restlessly.

Surprise at feeling good or bad.

Nothing I feel feels right.

Laughing about situations that happened.

Wanting to write down everything that’s connected with you to not lose memories.

Weird time scaling and literally not understanding time.

Having strange reactions to alcohol.

Feeling ill as a reaction to being in the country where I always visited you.

Anger at those around in the last hours.

Anger at communication from family.

Thinking about the body’s disintegration.

Worrying about the body’s whereabouts between service and cremation.

Numbness

Confusion

Loneliness

Capitulation

Bitterness

Aggression

Horror

Feeling I can’t explain my feelings

Feeling I can’t explain the experience.

Carrying a heavy weight.

These are my 140 phases of grief.

And that’s not all of them.

I think it’s thousands, really.

Thousands of tiny, nuanced feelings,

one unlike the other.

Millions of heartfelt, varied thoughts,

one different from the next.

Emotions I can’t explain.

Sometimes I have them all at once.

That’s why it can feel so very confusing.

Large numbers of feelings experienced frequently.

The state of mind constantly changing.

And then sometimes

you feel nothing at all.

Numbed by exhaustion.

Distracted from the pain.

And that’s when the worst crash looms.

When it all comes rushing in again

you will fall into

the deepest abyss.

And you will be

swallowed up

by terrorising

sorrow.

What to do?

Nothing.

Let time pass.

Float in the mess of complicated feelings.

The only thing I try to do

is not to add guilt about my feelings to

how I am feeling.

If I feel guilty, let’s say,

I try not to feel guilty

about feeling guilty.

Forgive yourself.

You will have to go through it.

And you can.

But at what price?

Find out later.

Don’t be concerned with that now.

Breathe.

I didn’t include bargaining as I don’t think I do that.

But you feel free to haggle.

I speak for myself.

Make sure to speak for yourself.

Respect

your

pain.