A Demon We’ve Got To Live With

*Trigger warning: mental health

This past week was the Mental Health Awareness Week. A lot of people have this invisible heavy bag constantly loaded on their backs. It's very important to recognise and acknowledge it when you or people around you are struggling mentally, and seek for help. Mental health issues don't tend to go away easily or completely, but gradually you also learn how to navigate through daily life while carrying this baggage. For someone who on and off suffers from little or longer episodes of depression and anxiety, I just want to share a poem I wrote a while back that documented a tiny episode. It was from this one time when it just jumped out and hit me when I was in a supermarket.

***

Do you sometimes feel your heartbeat

all of a sudden?

Some stronger

Some weaker

1,

2, 3,

4, 5, 6,

7,

8

Irregular

That’s why I’m feeling it

The demon is here

It’s never away

Always here

Hidden somewhere

Under the laughters

Sensing the moment of me being alone

Captures it

Strikes a hit

Without a notice

It recognises the seconds

when my head wanders away from the crowd

Squeezes in

Sets a screen

Travels down to my belly

Leaves me standing in a Sainsbury’s

losing appetite for everything

Yet I’m here

I have to bring home something

A box of raspberries, it’s on sale

Instant noodles, my best friend

Mushrooms, to balance my diet

A red wine?

Why not

Everybody needs it sometimes

if not all the time

It’s a beautiful evening

Cooling down after a whole day of sun

Music behind me

People drinking outside

Light traffic

All in distance

Glad I brought my vape

So that I can take some proper deep breathes

When I look back

Things turned out not bad

This time it will too

It will

I walk

And I wait

The monster is walking away

Spits me out

Leaves a massive shadow behind

I’m going to boil some water for the noodles

And open the wine