May is Mental Health Awareness Month!!

May is Mental Health Awareness Month. As you may or may not know, poetry can be very healing especially for those who are mentally ill. As Anne Sexton stated-- "Poetry led me by the hand out of madness." Mental illness can also be a source of brilliance and creativity. Edgar Allan Poe reminds of this in his quote about himself -- "Men have called me mad but the question is not yet settled, whether madness is or is not the loftiest intelligence". Many poets' writing has been shaped by their mental illness.  Let us honor those pioneers --Sylvia Plath, Lord Byron, Edgar Allan Poe, John Keats and Emily Dickinson -- as we read this piece below, "Alone" by Poe.  I've also included one of my own, "Why?" behind it. Don't forget to remember those who are suffering and honor them with your time and effort this month!

Alone

By Edgar Allan Poe

From childhood's hour I have not been
As others were; I have not seen
As others saw; I could not bring
My passions from a common spring.
From the same source I have not taken
My sorrow; I could not awaken
My heart to joy at the same tone;
And all I loved, I loved alone.
Then- in my childhood, in the dawn
Of a most stormy life- was drawn
From every depth of good and ill
The mystery which binds me still:
From the torrent, or the fountain,
From the red cliff of the mountain,
From the sun that round me rolled
In its autumn tint of gold,
From the lightning in the sky
As it passed me flying by,
From the thunder and the storm,
And the cloud that took the form
(When the rest of Heaven was blue)
Of a demon in my view.

Why?

By Safiya Stewart

When will I see what you can see?

When will I be what you can be?

You have become my obsession
My never-ending lesson
My thoughts are your possession
My soul you have enslaved
As I drift closer to an early grave
I ask myself “is this a life worth it to save?”
I close my eyes and shut the door
And whisper “love don’t live here no more”
Or want
Or care
Or desire
Should I put a sign on myself that says “Emotions for hire”?
I don’t want to talk
I just want to cry
And continue to tell myself lie after lie
That reality is just a figment of my imagination
And the pain I feel is not of my own creation
That can’t end at my command
And still I do not understand
Why I cannot love without you asking me why
And not a day goes by without a reason to cry
That I cannot dream
I will not dream
Because the fear of humiliation
Is enough to kill any and all motivation that was to guide me to my success
I just continue to settle for less and less and less
As I remember who I used to be
Tears cloud my eyes on what is now left of me
I was blind
But now I see
With tunnel vision
As struggle to make each and every decision
My own
I drag myself out of bed
And wipe the tears from my eyes
And I scream out to Satan “I won’t hear anymore of your lies!”
And I shout out to God
“Why Me?”