The Mask

Don't be fooled by me
Don't be fooled by the face I wear,
for I wear a thousand masks,
masks that I'm afraid to take off,
and none of them is me.

Pretending is an art which is second nature to me -
but don't be fooled, for God's sake don't be fooled.

I give the impression that I'm secure, sunny and unruffled,
within as well as without,
that confidence is my name and coolness my game,
that the water's calm and I'm in command, and that I need no-one.

But don't believe me. Please.

That surface may seem smooth,
but my surface is my mask.
Beneath this lies no complacency.
Beneath dwells the real me in confusion,
in fear and aloneness.

But I hide this. I don't want anyone to know it.

I panic at the thought of my weakness and fear of being exposed.
That's why I frantically create a mask to hide behind,
a nonchalant, sophisticated facade to help me to pretend,
to shield me from the glance that knows.

But such a glance is precisely my salvation,
my only salvation, and I know it - that is,
if it is followed by acceptance,
if it is followed by Love;

it is the only thing which will assure me
of what I can't assure myself -
that I'm worth something.

But I don't tell you this. I don't dare, I'm afraid to - afraid your glance will not
be followed by acceptance, will not be followed by Love.

I'm afraid that you will think less of me,
that you will laugh at me,
and your laugh would kill me!
I'm afraid that deep down I'm nothing, that I'm no good,
and that you will see this and reject me.

So I play my game, my desperate game,
with a facade of assurance without,
and a trembling child within.

And so begins the parade of masks. And my life becomes a front.

I chatter idly to you of superficialities.
I tell you everything that is really nothing,
and nothing of what is everything -
of what is crying within me.

So when I'm going through my routine,
do not be fooled by what I'm saying,
what I'd like to be able to say,
what, for survival, need to say but can't.

I dislike hiding - honestly! I dislike the phoney game I'm playing.

I'd really like to be genuine and spontaneous and me.
You've got to hold out your hand
even when that is the last thing that I seem to want.

Only you can wipe away from my eyes the blank stare of breathing death.
only you can call me to aliveness.

Each time you are kind and gentle and encouraging,
each time you try to understand because you really care,
my heart begins to grow wings,
very small wings,
very feeble wings,
but wings!

With your sensitivity and sympathy and your power of understanding
you can breathe life into me.

I want you to know that. I want you to know how important you are to me, how

You alone can break down the wall behind which I tremble.
You alone can remove my mask.
You alone can release me from my shadow-world of panic and uncertainty,
from my lonely person.

Do not pass me by.
Please do not pass me by.
It will not be easy for you.

A long conviction of worthlessness builds strong walls.
The more closely you approach me, the more blindly I strike back.

But I am told that love is stronger than walls,
and in this lies my hope.
Please try to beat down those walls with firm hands
but with gentle hands...for a child is very sensitive.

Who am I, you may wonder?
I am someone you know very well,
for I am every man that you meet,
and I am every woman that you meet.

Chair's welcome for our poetry night

I'd like to talk to you all about a subject close to my heart

No one was looking at mental health so we made a start

We wanted to bring it up as an important topic

Because when people ignore it, that's what gets on our wick

We held a meeting last May to see who would come

And since then we've done loads of work and had lots of fun

Fundraising's our aim to bring services to the town

And driving the stigma around it right down

We believe mental health is on a par with the physical stuff

And those who cope with illnesses are really quite tough

It's hard to find doctors who help and can seem like a task

We want there to be services out there when people ask

Thanks for coming to listen to a few poems tonight

We hope you'll think about donating to make the future bright

If you want to come along and get involved in MHAG

There's a monthly meeting, you won't find it a drag

In between we go to lots of different places

So you might think you've already seen our faces

If you want more information please come and find me

Or Beccy Blake who's my right hand lady

For now I'll end this poem and say goodnight

Because some of my rhymes are really quite shi...

A purging of happiness

This poem was written by an anonymous poet and read out at our poetry night by vice-chair Rebecca.

A binding in the Throat -

Metallic mercury mucous blocks Truth.

A pounding inside the Head -

His steel capped boots push and press and crack

The Skull; my Perion.

The fizzing in my Lungs -

Cyanide soup is my oxygen.

A slashing in the Stomach -

Sardonic Satanic slugs slither out from in.

Spewed are thy Organs -

The Intestine, a worm unravelling defencelessley.

Help.

Plonk goes the Liver and Dong goes a Kidney.

What is left?

You have it all.

He has it all.

Him.

A scarred nostalgia for thee, yet a

pleasant narcissim for He.

Now He asks for my Heart, but He took that

portion years ago.

He overpowered it in seconds.

He rusted it in minutes.

He covered it with blistering hate.

And then -

He burned it in wood and fire.

He can have what sits in its place, yes.

The only yes I have ever and will ever give to

Him.

But that is not a Heart, not anymore.

That is a shrivelled reality of He -

It is imprinted with His purge on my childhood.

For this Life is not a Life but an Episode.

That plays over and over and over and over -

We wait for an applause, a record or a pause

We pray that She may take it away

Those melancholy memories

That play in My chapter of a thousand page

book

Hundreds feel the soreness of soiled court

And there is help

In the custom of Victim Support

Friends, don't suffer the torment

For although you may want to lament

Now is the time for us all to ascent

Together.

To the prosperous land of beauties

To the field of finer daisies

There I found my missing Heart

In my friendship and my family.

For it was never taken, just forgotten.

There is light in All darkness

And you Will find it,

My friends.

Never give in and never let them win.

A Cruce Salus

Another of the poems shared at our poetry evening:


A Cruce Salus
By Natalie Brookes

Watching intently categorizing, analysing
Observing that which is only visible under a lens, human behaviour in all of its brutalising form
Genetic mutations, malfunctions, mutilations
A Cruce Salus
The brain consciousness, unconsciousness, sanity insanity, miswired rewired, encoded decoded
Buetiful monsters perfectly faulty within the data set
A cruce Salus
The robotic masses coded, socialised, psychoanalyzed, traumatised, victimised
Saved only by a little pill, a talking therapy, transactional analysis,
Spirituality hanging from a rope, cutting its own throwt, slicing each healing word, sentence by sentence, vowel by vowel metaphor by metaphor simile by simile
A cruce Salus
Cos every effort to save my life has a subtext
A benefit cost analysis
Very few of us ever achieve Maslow's Hierarchy of needs
What is my worth a pence, a pound, a hundred, a thousand
I realise it's a postcode lottery
Cos I know the true price of CBT
The value the worth of a mind, a personality, cos many of those who have already been lost are already dead, dead to themselves
A cruce Salus
They feel separate worthless and insignificant and the words 'I love you' fall on deaf ears and that's the real tragedy that the lives most affected by madness are the most profoundly visionary
So I leave these words with you and I hope they find you peace as they did with me
A Cruce Salus Salvation comes from the cross

The Way Life Is

We wanted to share some of the amazing verses from our poetry evening earlier this month. Here's the first, look out for more coming up:

The Way Life Is
by Shahyan Nawaz Syed

Quote: "Sometimes we have to accept the way life is, some things we cannot control, it's the way life is."

I do say my prayers, so why am I still stuck in this deep dark lair, life is never straightforward or fair.
One time I was so unwell my story I could never tell
It's full of craze I am stuck in this maze with no door, where is the floor have I found my feet, why am I still a loner in the street?
My mind takes me to another place, some look at me in disgrace
Every time I cried, no one would reply, on who could I rely
From this dream I cannot wake, I feel like a vampire that has been staked
Some memories slowly fade, whilst some debts have to be paid, sometimes friends can never be made
People used to always joke when I had no money and I was broke
Hard situations are hidden and never can it be ridden, brushed under the carpet and buried, it resurfaces when we are not ready
We try to confront our demons, but only for the sake of evens
Some people live in glitter whilst some people pick and eat food from the litter
Some fears cannot be overcome and are always accompanied by tears
Innocent people that did not do the crime are locked away doing time
Love always came late, I get pulled down by the problems people create
Some don't say hello at all, whilst some warriors rise and fall, no one gets treated fairly after all, and in our life evil tries to crawl wanting us to always fall
Bad things come up from my past, I can't keep up the world is moving way too fast
I saw a beautiful, white, unicorn horse drinking by the lake, when I went over everything was fake
Given a rose I got stung by the thorn my heart was very badly torn, when loved ones die we cry on and mourn
Some people always lust, so who in this world can you trust
I woke up in the middle of the night when I had a dream of a very bad fight
Some people live in fear and their story is always told in tears
I heard crying of the crows, some emotions really do show, broken hearts heal very slow sometimes we want to grow but progress in life is very slow, I am used to this hurt I do not want to go
Some problems are so deep, you can hear them in your sleep, in life it makes us wander and weep
I helped a man who was weak and thin, I helped him when the world turned their backs on him
Sometimes I used to dress in rags, there's people who have supplies of clothes still with the tags
If I lose my health does it mean that I will lose my wealth?
No matter what colour or creed, we all get inside hurt and bleed
Some people make you cry, some die without saying goodbye
Some things get suppressed which make us very depressed
Some say stick to your own culture, if you step out you will get eaten by the vultures
Some things in my life are blank, for this I do not know who to thank, I have seen a lot at this age, and I cannot control my rage.
Some people forget the way they used to live and now they are rich they never hand out and give, I'm watching my life pass through my hands like sand in a sieve.
Some people are spoilt in fashion whilst some people are fighting for rations
Nothing in my life gets better, my old dearest friend did not reply to my letter
I helped a man who was blind, true love I can never find, the uneducated are made to work to the grind, you will find that some people are never kind
Situations affray letting some go astray, from good things we are turned away, all i do is pray hoping for a better day, some run away from home and go away
People get away with crimes, ahead of us are very hard times.
Death is not always accompanied by the colour red we all wish for a peaceful death inside our beds
Sorry to say this is what I have seen, no one wants to go to the places I've been, in this world I am looking for peace and light, but sometimes people don't understand and fight
My heart gets filled with anger and rage, no I am not ready to move on to the next stage.
Those people who fought and served, do not get the respect they deserve
There is a lot of hurtful things that I have seen and the only way I can escape is when I am in my dreams
In life I try to follow my own path but I always get overtaken by my very own wrath, if I want changes there'll be a great big clash
How long will it take, life is slow I really want to move on and go
I am getting old, I hope this poem has explained the story that I have told

It's the way life is,
We all have to accept the way life is,
It's the way life is