how are you coping? 

get it out in the open 

talk to yourself

none of our advisors are free right now

                          

how often do you feel like running away? 

do you squeal every day, do you kneel

when you pray?

are you a failure?  how many people have you

let down lately?

do you break out in a cold sweat, do you drown,

sedately?

do you ever forget?

 

are you up all night, down all day? 

do you worry too much? 

is the tv a crutch? 

do you wince at the touch?  do you speak

double dutch?

find it hard to relax?   

when the whole world cracks open

let it out

pardon my syntax

 

would you be better off dead?  stay in bed, get

a shed, your eyes are all

red, staring blankly ahead,

that’s not what I said

go out shopping, instead 

 

i want to be left alone in peace 

i cannot explain with

words

i can no longer speak, i have inherited nothing

meek, the future looks bleak

week after week

everything is blurred

 

i’m suffused with great dread, i’m ready

for bed, i’m undressed

joan crawford’s possessed

that’s what it is

i’m unblessed, i always confessed, get it off your chest

i don’t know what’s for the best

 

can you stand noise?  do you

like boys

what do you do when someone sits next to you? 

do you like sex?  too much or not enough?

like it rough?

how often

do you soften?

never dated, fabricated, love’s truncated,

masturbated,

ruminated, culminated

in this,

being here,

weaving blankets

 

why give birth?

i was as welcome to life as a weed

stamped out,

i feel like a centipede, camped out

in my bed, limbs flailing, longing for something

to cling to

what will you bring to

the situation? 

nothing

 

if there’s a roller-coaster in your head

make sure you’re strapped in

tightly

there’s a nightmare in my bed i’m

trapped in

nightly 

i can no longer read  

they ask, “what do you need?”

indeed

please proceed, harris tweed,

silence guaranteed

no one will intercede

when will you return?

 

death has me in a head-

lock, my neck on the block, it

was a terrible shock

landing on plymouth

rock - 

they watch me round the clock.

i’m not here, of course, i’m a pilgrim

it’s a lonely life

give a man a bad dog, he’s still barking

told me i’m a mad frog,

don’t you remember?

 

i cannot ask what you think of me –

i don’t want to know, i’m on the brink of

me, nowhere near you,

that year there was snow

i cannot bear it.

it was only a small hurt, it means nothing

to you

you were bluffing

 

how suicidal are you?

we’ve no resources to help you,

none

take courses, take kelp,

task forces, don’t yelp, run

run

weaving blankets

leads nowhere

don’t exceed forty lines