I AM NOTHING BUT SHADOW SADNESS

By Tricia Lloyd Waller

And did you ever stop to consider at what cost

I present here for you these bitter sweet words?

An unfastening, a coming apart, a tipping out.

Trickle becoming torrent of long buried memories and

pain - so much pain.

Swimming to the surface like bubbles 

blown through a squashed stripy straw

a returning to those deep dark days 

of his death.

When my world shattered into silvered smithereens

and there could be no returning to ‘my before.’

Sitting slumped in that faded armchair 

without hope, without future, 

without my son, without my soul;

whilst the pitiless house tumbled down around me.

So where were you then? 

With your fellowship of family and friends

gushing out guttural vowels promising

wise words, help and understanding? 

Today you walk straight past me as if

I am nothing but shadow sadness.

And once again I am alone surrounded in sorrow.

Your lint-laced laugh and accusatory daggered eyes

slice right through my silky psyche.

Your outstretched arms are for others than I!

And so I turn away from your babel babble.

Stoop down low to locate my bulging bag

of grief and rise head held high to walk 

fiercely past you all and do you even notice?

For you certainly do not care - not about me!

Look instead to your own.

Revel in your camaraderie.

Celebrate with smiling snapshots on social media.

Because my smiles can never be anything

but hollow imitations. 

Tell the world how things will be different 

In the future because of you and your good intentions!

And I?

Well I continue the jigsaw puzzle

with the missing piece

which masquerades as what is left of my life

and wait in hope that one day ...

ABOUT THE POEM: This is about long-term grieving, and the cruelness of a group of people who vaguely know each other to a stranger/outsider.

ABOUT TRICIA: Tricia has recently had work accepted by Big Thinking Publishing and The World of Myth. She was 2022 winner of The Pen to Print poetry competition. 

X: @TriciaJean44

Instagram: @lilyofaday

~

BAD GRAMMAR

By Elena Angelopoulou

The wound you opened in me

was not written in words,

but in punctuation.

A comma hovered

between “come” and “leave,”

a thin fissure

where the bleeding began.

Your period—

heavy, final—

fell and sealed my mouth

like a coffin.

Your question marks

still hang on my walls.

Why. When. How much.

Rusting hooks,

keeping the skin of memory

drawn tight.

Your exclamation point

entered my chest.

Not from joy,

but from desire in excess—

the kind that always pays

in silence.

The parentheses, too,

hid what you feared to love.

(Me), small, incidental,

a footnote

in an unwritten book.

And the ellipses—

those finished me.

Three dots, an open wound,

a promise without the nerve

either to stay

or to leave.

Now I breathe differently.

With dashes

—sharp, plain, honest.

If I am to hurt,

let it at least

be properly punctuated.

Because love

did not wound me.

Its bad grammar did.

ABOUT THE POEM: "I wrote this poem to give form to the psychological impact of emotional uncertainty and unclear boundaries. Punctuation became a way to speak about how ambiguity can wound — and how clarity, even when painful, can be a step toward recovery."

ABOUT ELENA: Elena was born in Frankfurt, Germany, and grew up between Germany and Northern Evia, Greece. She holds a degree in Educational Sciences from the University of the Aegean, and an M.Ed. in Innovative Technologies and Specific Learning Difficulties from the University of West Attica. She is currently completing a Master’s degree in Creative Writing at the University of Western Macedonia. She is an experienced educator and currently serves as a public school principal in Athens.

Facebook: @eleneaggelopoulou6

~

LINGER

By Yazdan Khoshsirat

How memories attack us is truly amazing 

Just imagine

The last time that you

Did you?

Now a ghost      is roaming around you

Or     a few

Spirits of past existence

Ready to haunt

Or maybe to taunt.

being

At a place

You kissed

In a certain situation 

You missed

The smell of a specific scent

You tasted

That music piece 

Your eyes listened to

The taste of gin 

in ginger

The touch of warmth

Torching your sleep

A certain weather

Sheltering you.

The nostalgia towards absence 

Is almost always

Lingering     in you

    on 

at You next to

     with 

Ready to be in the light

And leave you in the dark.

Let me call someone.

I want to watch “The Ghost Busters”.

Yazdan is an Iranian poet whose writing draws inspiration from the intersection of past, present, and future. "My PTSD stems from my mandatory time in the military, specifically during the 12-Day War, and the circumstances I endured during that period. While I am not comfortable sharing further details about those events, they have left a lasting impact on my life, and wish the very best for anyone tackling any form of PTSD. It is a silent battle, but you are not alone."

~

ABUSE

By Anna Mavroidi

I came back to you

with my hope in tatters—

believing you might change.

Covering the wounds

so my body wouldn’t remember.

Crushing reason

to dance blindly

once more with you.

Holding in my hands

a thousand excuses—

for the children, for my parents.

I came back in summer,

not to remember

the heavy winter

I spent with you.

You will greet me as I dreamed,

only to throw me once again

against the rocks.

How you love

to rescue me from shipwreck ...

ABOUT ANNA: Anna is a Greek poet and the author of five poetry collections. Her work has appeared in numerous anthologies and literary magazines, and has received multiple awards. She studied Psychology and completed postgraduate studies in Clinical Psychology at the University of Indianapolis, as well as in Health Care Management at the Conservatoire National des Arts et Métiers (CNAM). She has specialized in Systemic and Family Therapy, and holds a postgraduate qualification in Applied Clinical Supervision. Alongside her literary career, she works as a counselor and psychotherapist in private practice in Athens, where she lives and writes.

W: www.oiksys.gr

Facebook: @Anna Mavroidi

Instagram: @mavroidianna

You can read Anna's other poems: THE HOUSE DRAWN WITH A COLOUR PEN, SIMPLE LINES, THE ROPE, STRANGE SPECTACLE and DEAD PEOPLE in the book PTSD.

~

LIVING WITH THE BLACK DOG

By Karen Greenbaum-Maya

It’s like a black dog,

a crazy terrier hanging on,

delivering whiplash to some poor rat,

always sniffing out the worst, 

finding the dead snake under the leaves.

It’s like you’re tuned to radio station K-SUK,

where you suck, all the time, 24/7.

Don’t touch that dial.

Sing along with the play-list:

You’re No Good, Hurts So Bad, Cry Me A River.

You’re no good, you’re no good,

Somebody, say it again: Baby, you’re no good.

It’s like the too-high-up dream.

From way up in the air, trees are dots.

Whatever flew you high has faded out

and now you fall through nothing.

With nothing between you and the ground,

you fall fast and slow as drops of rain.

It’s like the time I saw the gray cat 

crouched in a concrete corner, 

a young cat forty feet up, high 

on the cement ledge of Target’s roof.

Rickety ladder shifted under my hands

as I fought the pull out over empty space.

ABOUT THE POEM: "A writing friend and I challenged each other to write about our shared depression. I resorted to recurrent dreams as the basis for this poem."

ABOUT KAREN: Karen is a retired clinical psychologist, former German major and restaurant reviewer, and three-time Pushcart and Best of the Net nominee. 

You can read Karen's other poems: SO SORRY, ASTRAY, and MACHT FREI, in the book PTSD.

~

BETRAYAL

By Barry Thorne

The weather outside is hail,

The weather inside floods the mind,

All thoughts must leave a trail,

To answers I hope you never find.

One minute the sun, she’s shining,

In a beautiful, big blue sky,

Next minute thunder is rumbling,

And hell quietly ushers you to die.

The fire inside keeps burning,

And you don’t even think to question why,

You just become the firefighter,

To a now orange, violent, smoky sky.

Then just like that comes colour,

After so many weeks pass by,

A stunning example of hope,

Brings the colour back to a man’s eye.

In something as small as a flower,

Life’s reminder you’re not left behind,

One reason to reclaim your power,

A million reasons to keep being kind.

I may feel like it’s over,

But the battle is not yet won,

I may feel old and tired,

But this warrior’s not yet done!

ABOUT BARRY: Former military, Barry suffers with PTSD, depression, and anxiety at a severe assessment level.

~

THESE VOICES

By Blessings Mwahimba

Dad says, 'Son, work, work.'

Mother says, 'Son, marry, marry.'

Granny says, 'Travel, travel.'

Aunt says, 'Grow, grow.'

To make us proud.

They don't see the world

sinking in my head.

If I fail, I'm a loser. 

Friends have gone far, 

But I'm still a grade 4 old boy,

a friend of depression. 

Peace doesn't find a room in me 

Some voices are deep,

Some voices are faint. 

They speak in me 

They say I'm not good

for this world,

that I'm just a loser. 

But what do you say—

these voices?

When everyone speaks, the mind has no silence.

ABOUT THE POEM: "I wrote this poem to shed light on mental health, particularly depression and anxiety, as influenced by familial and societal expectations. The poem means a lot to me as it is the only way we can express the effects of familial and societal expectations on our lives."

ABOUT BLESSING: Blessings is a Malawian poet and literary student pursuing a Bachelor of Arts in Literary and Cultural Studies at the University of Malawi.

Facebook: @BlessingsJamer 

Telegram: @bulehmwahimba

~

THE BODY REMEMBERS

By Garima Sachdev Kapoor

It does not arrive loudly.

It slips in through smell, through tone,

Through a door she didn’t know was still open.

Her body remembers what her mind would rather not.

The shoulders rise first.

Breath shortens.

Time bends…

Suddenly she is there,

Even when she is safe here.

Some days she lives smaller than she is.

She scans rooms.

She rehearses exits.

She mistakes stillness for danger and noise for certainty.

Yet there are mornings when the sun touches her skin

And nothing bad follows.

When her breath calms down ...

When the past loosens its grip by a fraction.

She is learning that healing is not forgetting,

But staying.

That her body is not broken, only vigilant.

And slowly, with patience she once gave everyone else,

She is teaching herself that now can be different.

She is still here.

And today,

That feels like a beginning.

ABOUT THE POEM: "This poem was written from closeness, from watching someone I care about navigate a world her body still reads as unsafe. It is not an explanation of her experience, only an attempt to stand beside it, to notice how memory lives in breath and vigilance. What moved me most was not the trauma, but her quiet persistence, and the way now slowly becomes possible again."

ABOUT GARIMA: Garima is an education practitioner, based in Dubai. Her writing explores the emotional landscapes of overthinking, uncertainty, and quiet resilience, often blurring the lines between vulnerability and strength.

~

SHADOWS IN MY MIND: A POEM OF CHRONIC PTSD

By Donna Wester

There’s a shadow in my mind that lingers every day, 

A silent storm within me that never goes away. 

It creeps into the daylight and follows through the night, 

A constant, heavy presence just beyond my line of sight.

I wake to racing heartbeats, sweat upon my brow, 

The echoes of old battles still raging here and now. 

Memories like thunder crash behind my eyes, 

And though I try to run from them, they always find disguise.

Some days I am a fortress, unyielding, standing tall, 

But other times I’m fragile, and I stumble, trip, and fall. 

Triggers come like whispers—sometimes loud as screams— 

They turn the world around me into nightmares from my dreams.

Crowded rooms can choke me, silence makes me fear, 

Every sudden movement brings the past too near. 

I flinch at harmless noises, I freeze when people stare, 

My body holds the stories that my lips cannot declare.

Friends may see me smiling, but inside I wage a war, 

With memories and feelings I cannot ignore. 

I wish that I could tell them how hard it is to cope, 

How every single morning I must gather up my hope.

Therapy and breathing, grounding in the now, 

Learning to be gentle, though I don’t know how. 

Sometimes I am angry, sometimes I just cry, 

Sometimes I feel nothing, no matter how I try.

Yet in this endless struggle, I find small rays of light, 

Moments filled with courage, victories in the fight. 

A hand that reaches out to me, a voice that understands, 

Reminds me I am not alone, and offers helping hands.

I write my pain in poetry, I speak it when I can, 

I learn to trust my journey, to do the best I can. 

Though trauma shaped my story, it does not own my soul, 

Each day I rise and face the dark, determined to be whole.

So if you see me trembling, or distant in my gaze, 

Know I’m fighting battles that set my mind ablaze. 

But also know I’m healing, though slowly, step by step— 

For even wounded spirits can find their strength and depth.

This is my confession, my truth for all to see: 

PTSD is part of me, but it will not define me. 

With patience, love, and courage, I’ll walk this winding road, 

And carry on with dignity, despite the heavy load.

ABOUT DONNA: Donna is a 31-year-old poet residing in Fort Smith, Arkansas, USA, alongside her wonderful husband, Doyle. As a mother of three, Donna finds inspiration in the everyday moments of family life, as well as the personal journey of navigating mental well-being. Her poetry offers a heartfelt and authentic voice, exploring themes of love, resilience, and the intricacies of the human experience.

MORE POETRY ...

Back to extracts ...