Tag: Anxiety

Mental Health, Poetry, Writing8 Comments

Cel. A poem.

Laidback DM

Each day in this cell passes like a film cel, a moment captured in acetate, rinsed and repeated, on perpetual loop. The subtle changes in aspect of each textured frame, a motion blur of constituent parts, every event a cinch mark. If only we could edit our dailies, to make sense of the narrative, to remove the chaff that haunts like a dime-store critic in the background of every shot. The emulsion soon grows thin, the script is pure melodrama and the cues are overly-theatrical. It can’t be saved in post-production. This life, winding in 35mm, fed through perfs before … Continue reading Cel. A poem.

Mental Health, Poetry, Writing14 Comments

Finish Line. A poem.

Laidback DM

Down again, in November showers that wash the sin from my crown. Out walking my black dog in the rain, skirting hills and wither deep. Just another day in here, Under my skin Under the hood Where the engine strains and groans as it drags my weary chassis to the finish line. Where I’m content to lose again, to choose again. And choose life this time. Even with its witless overtures and empty virtue, it holds the one thing that burns like fire and wakes me from my bitter sleep. Continue reading Finish Line. A poem.

Love, Mental Health, Poetry, Writing34 Comments

All Because Of You. A poem.

Laidback DM

That overbearing, all pervasive dark matter, the swollen river that floods my heart and breaks my banks, chokes my throat and pierces my brain stem, that sticks it’s bamboo needles under mental fingernails, creates tattered meat from perilous fortune, twists my will until my spine shatters like crystal and leaves me a pointless fool. All because of you. Continue reading All Because Of You. A poem.

Love, Mental Health, Poetry, Writing10 Comments

The Sadness. A poem.

Laidback DM

The sadness creeps over, a ponderous behemoth, encompassing my lands and being. It seeps into my streams, polluting them with its murky ill-will, making a mockery and a mire. It kills off my grass and trees, turning my greens to blight, leaving animals once proud and determined now abject and homeless; caricature mascots. It crawls over my buildings, infesting every room and board, making inhabitants into castaways with the shore so near, so far. And everything collapses under the weight of its load, a gravity far too serious for this light head(ed) over heels, a Hercules turned weakling, bent knee … Continue reading The Sadness. A poem.

Mental Health, Poetry, Writing20 Comments

Frost. A poem.

Laidback DM

I live in surreality, not quite alive, not quite dead. I wander from one point to the next, a confused and weary traveller, conspicuously without intent. The pleasures of the material and the impractical align in tacit disapproval. I am a wanderer in confusion, lost in the blizzard of bodies, grabbing myself for warmth like a frost-bitten seeker faced with his last insurmountable peak. Someday this journey will be done, and the last thing I see, may be the first I ever saw. As if all that mattered was the concentric circle I travelled in and the hoarfrost patina on … Continue reading Frost. A poem.

Love, Poetry, Writing27 Comments

Game Over. A poem.

Laidback DM

I’ve tried to forget you (I don’t want to forget you). My emotions lay on the table like spilt wine; I tried to lick them up in a desperate alcoholic binge, without a care for my fellow patrons’ regard. Why are you fading from my mind, like an Alzheimer memory, like the seaside whispers of a shell, broken to pieces. I’ve betrayed me, so. I’ve let you go. I should let slip the dogs of war to chew on my weary bones, to remind me that I’m just a lonely man, that you’re just a lonely woman and that soon … Continue reading Game Over. A poem.

Dating, Mental Health, Poetry, Writing14 Comments

Peak. A poem.

Laidback DM

You conquered me like a mountain (or a molehill). Climbed me and then left me here, another spire to aspire to. Was I just a rocky crag used as a monument to your success? What was my reward, just a wanton moment, better to forget? Here I stand, wind blown and forever circumspect, a peak waiting on another expedition. Hopefully, one that’ll show me more respect. My first book of poetry, The All or the Nothing, is available now as an e-book from most online distributors. To find out more, click here. Continue reading Peak. A poem.

Love, Mental Health, Poetry, Writing2 Comments

Love Never Sleeps. A prose poem.

Laidback DM

Are you faded and fated, to pass from memory as if you were an afterimage on grainy film stock? Or consume me whole like Jonah’s whale, where I will suffer forever and a day? I have wanted/needed you so desperately that I could not move or breathe without you taking control of me, like some mad puppeteer, pulling strings while I dance to some obscure polka tune. Why should I forget you? You, who stole anxious days and nights of worry, where my thoughts betrayed me and I wondered constantly if you hoped and dreamed (like me) or even felt … Continue reading Love Never Sleeps. A prose poem.

Love, Mental Health, Poetry, Writing5 Comments

Sometimes. A poem.

Laidback DM

Sometimes when I’m by myself and the night has swept daydreams away, like dust from polished floors; when lights click off and the house settles in with creaks and purrs of contentment. Sometimes, I wonder where you are and whether I’m in your consideration. And sometimes, when my mind plays trick or treat with facile retribution, I want you here to play those games in person. Continue reading Sometimes. A poem.

haiku, Mental Health, Poetry, Writing13 Comments

Haiku Friday. Anxiety. A Haiku Trilogy.

Laidback DM

Anxiety. A haiku trilogy. 1. Harbinger Tingling on your skin, harbinger of darker things. The skies open wide. 2. Run Run while you still can, ‘fore this acid rain melts you. Too much weight to bear. 3. Hide You can’t hide from this. A pall hangs over you that doggedly consumes. I suffer from anxiety, but manage it much more effectively now than I did a few years ago. These haikus are for all the anxiety sufferers out there. Stay strong Steve 🙂 My first book of poetry, The All or the Nothing, is available now as an e-book from … Continue reading Haiku Friday. Anxiety. A Haiku Trilogy.

Mental Health, Poetry, Writing65 Comments

Tired. A poem.

Laidback DM

I’m tired. And my drifting aimless gaze settles on a distant mist-like haze that wells up continuously inside, like savage, misplaced pride, and makes me drop like a stone into waters unknown. Lost on cruel tides that wend the capitulating ocean to its end. So tired. If only sleep could solve this quandary, instead of leaving me on the periphery of a world that spins aimlessly, through head space and trickery, and leaves me wanting nothing less. And nothing more. Just tired. Time to leave this place. Steve is a literal starving artist. Please keep the dream of poetry alive … Continue reading Tired. A poem.

Love, Poetry, Writing16 Comments

Phantom Limb. A poem.

Laidback DM

I’m forever haunted by this phantom limb, writhing in my sleep, guilt stricken for my sins. I see you in every couple on the street, and at the coffee shop, where we drank each other in. It feels like you’re still across from me; the conversation, imagined and forlorn, accusing eyes that follow me no more. Your ghost absorbs my days and nights, a peripheral blur, just out of sight. Time heals all wounds; such perfect sense, but not in my experience. You’re the limb I lost, that still persists. A phantom limb, my will insists. Continue reading Phantom Limb. A poem.

Mental Health, Poetry, Writing8 Comments

Dead Men Deep. A poem.

Laidback DM

Hulls of broken ships, scattered like white noise. The sea bed, as black as a charcoal cellar. It welcomes sailors to their ends, bloated corpses sleeping in hammocks of crusted ribs, drunk on briny, antique wine. Coral wreaths and sawdust mouths; barnacles, the new tattoo that marks the passage from man to martyr. Here among the starfish and crustacean shells, unworried by the weather, seabed tales in whale song punctuate their empty dreams. Continue reading Dead Men Deep. A poem.