Extract from WHAT SURVIVES THE LULLABY

By Heeya

Far away, in the menacing night,

a child’s cry of agony sounds by—

a moment of visible pain in her features,

a scrunch in her expression,

discomfort dressing those tears.

It’s difficult to point out the exact cause,

yet suffering arrives as an inevitable pause.

And the mother holds her close to her chest,

whispering sweet nothings,

soft syllables meant to rest.

It’s easy to detect a child’s pain

only because they do not hide in vain—

they don’t mask their grief

with a lid of somber temperance,

but give themselves to lullabies,

drinking in borrowed bliss.

And yet the child grows, bit by bit,

learning postulates of manufactured grit—

unsure of the moment

when signals cloak themselves in plain sight,

unsure of the clause

that seals suffering airtight,

into rehearsed patterns,

into engineered chaos.

One day she shows up wearing a smile,

drinking her pain with a whiskey-on-point denial,

drifting inside the mirage that everything’s fine,

while a phoenix murmurs dead cries

through the wreckage of time ...

You can read the rest of Heeya's poem WHAT SURVIVES THE LULLABY in the book PTSD.

ABOUT HEEYA: Heeya is the creative pen name of a final-year medical student at Nil Ratan Sircar Medical College, Kolkata, India. Her poetry serves as a bridge between the clinical observation of the mind and the lyrical reality of the heart. Heeya examines the emotional cost of holding space for another’s pain—the 'aftermath' that settles in those who stand watch. She seeks to articulate the quiet, ongoing exhaustion and the fractured peace that remains when the 'lullaby' of caregiving becomes a heavy, persistent reality. Her writing is an attempt to alchemize the weight of empathy into a language of survival.

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MY THERAPIST IS LIKE PAUL WELLER

'For MS'

By Pip McDonald

My therapist is like Paul Weller,

He’s quite a cool fella,

I’m not hearing voices it’s just the chorus,

We should never underestimate what therapy can do for us,

It is important for me to state,

My therapy has a verse, bridge and middle eight.

Talking through difficult feelings is like walking down Stanley Road,

It lessens the load,

The studio is a thinking palace,

More therapy less 'malice',

I’m a lucky sod, because my therapist is a Porcelain God,

A therapeutic mod.

I’d one considers, we don’t 'Walk on Gilded Splinters',

We talk like thinkers,

My therapist is 'The Changingman',

Because he does what he can,

For when we feel like 'Broken Stones,'

He makes us feel like we are not alone.

There is no need to get too miffed,

You just need a good riff,

And a 'Peacock Suit',

To get to the absolute root,

Of your fears,

This is music to my ears.

I’ll never lose my shiner,

Because my therapy is in A minor,

I think we all have The Style Council phase,

So I am going to write poems in cafes,

'Wake up the Nation',

Without hesitation.

Therapy is good,

It’s like walking through a 'Wild Wood',

Capo second fret, I’ll never get bored,

I don’t fret anymore, I can play a new bar chord,

When you start to feel depressed and desperado,

All you need is a good arpeggio.

Bring on therapy with Weller in stereo,

It is much better than overthinking and ruminating on scenarios,

Give it some welly,

It’s the sound of therapy,

You’ll go far when you are 'Wishing on a Star',

With therapy and a guitar.

Have a good strum,

And pick problems with a plectrum,

Schizophrenia and 'Quadrophonia',

Bipolar rock and roller,

Therapy keeps my head above the cloud,

And enables me to create my own sound.

My therapeutic goal,

'Is Northern Soul',

Get me thinking,

To get 'Out of the Sinking',

When you need a 'Brand New Start',

You don’t need to go that far.

To my therapist, 'You’re the Best Thing,'

When I’ve got a 'Heavy Soul', all I need to do is sing,

For when my Walls 'Come Tumbling Down',

I pick up the guitar and make a sound,

You are a cool dude,

And you help me manage 'My Ever Changing Moods',

Therapy is like a The Jam,

You start where you are and do what you can,

Music is bliss,

Perhaps it could help us rethink psychosis,

Psychodynamic, 

Music and magic.

I’ll focus on my half-filled cup,

'From the Floorboards Up',

When I feel like my self-esteem is zero,

I just ask 'Just Who is the 5’Clock Hero?'

'That’s Entertainment', that’s therapy,

In the words of Paul himself, 'You Do Something to Me'.

ABOUT THE POEM: "My therapist really helped me to both overcome complex PTSD and manage grief. We both used creativity as a constructive way to manage challenges and often discussed song-writing and music during counselling sessions. The poem attempts to weave together songs and music with authentic reflections of a raw therapeutic journey. In many ways, the poem was inspired by 'The Wrong Boy' (2000) by Willy Russell, a book given to me by my late mother, where the main character writes to Morrissey."

ABOUT PIP: Pip is a spoken word performance poet from North East England. She has performed in Hyde Park, Whitechapel Gallery & HMV.

Social media: @pipmac6

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THE PLUNGE

By Laura Michiels

I’m not quite ready to swim today.

And yet the finger moving rapidly

from left to right

coaxes me

further away

from shore.

I let go—

and find myself

engulfed

by the black bile of yesteryear.

I watch a younger me

struggle.

Unloved

underfed

insecure.

I am not enjoying this particular movie.

I would like my money returned.

Disoriented, I release her.

She and I are separated

by decades of painful growth.

She lives on a deserted island

I am to leave behind.

But can I, truly?

ABOUT THE POEM: "This poem is based on my experience with EMDR therapy. Even though it helps me reprocess my traumatic memories, I intensely dread going to these sessions and they always leave me reeling. It also takes me several times to be able to 'reprogramme' some of the things that happened."

ABOUT LAURA: Laura is a theatre scholar and poet based near Brussels in Belgium. She holds a PhD in American Literature, and wrote a scholarly monograph about Tennessee Williams. Her poems have appeared with Malefica Press, Poetry for Mental Health, and The Ekphrastic Review. Her current poetry project grew out of her own recovery from PTSD and explores female myth-making, performance, and mental illness.

You can read Laura's other poems: MARBLES, and SELF-IMAGE  in PTSD. 

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“SMILE IT MIGHT NEVER HAPPEN ...”

By Matthew Gilbert

Bang — the words hit me like an uppercut, stinging my ears as they helter-skeltered round my head embedding shrapnel in every part of my brain.

My legs buckle and I stumble as the tenebrous emotions engulf me, eyes burning, gasping for breath, as the tannoy announces, final boarding for the 08:30 to nowhere, I try to find my way out of the station I know so well,

So many people, so much noise, bumping, jostling, spinning ... “Where am I!”

Head pounding, ears ringing, lights dimming ... “Please someone I need help!”

Heart racing, skin dripping, muscles aching ... “Don’t let me fall!”

Need to find the exit, need to get out of here before I’m consumed from outside-in and from the inside-out.

Legs heavy with the inexorable pressure bearing down on me, I reach for help, but there is none.

Sat crying in a familiarly strange place — the noise has gone. No, everything has gone. But I’m still here.

I can’t hear anything, but everything is so loud!

I can’t see anything, but everything is so bright!

The world goes on, but I’ve ceased to exist.

Everyone is watching me, but no one can see me.

I call out for help, but no one can hear me.

Punch drunk I look for my corner, but this spinning world has no corners, just a vortex and I fall in.

“Smile it might never happen!” ... but for me it did!

ABOUT MATTHEW: Born and raised in the Fenland town of Ramsey, England, Matthew has always felt most at home in the black furrowed fields and quiet beauty of the fens. Their solitude and texture inspire both his writing and sculptural work. After a serious illness caused by sepsis, he struggleD with his mental health and turned to ceramics as therapy. Working with clay grounded him, helped him heal, and reawakened his love for art and nature. Words have always intrigued Matthew, though poetry became his true way of seeing — its rhythm brought order to his thoughts and images to life. Through clay and language, he explores the landscape that shaped him. Matthew hopes his work invites others to find their own reflections in these flat, open lands and to create their own pictures from his words.

~

WHAT DO WE DO WITH THE ANGER?

By Gary Shulman MS. Ed.

When your very being is deemed to not matter

By powers that are spewing venomous chatter 

Resulting in rights being obliterated and torn

Throwing souls into a tailspin, your spirits forlorn

What shall we do with the anger that’s growing?

What bromide do we ingest so our rage won’t be showing?

When hatred is allowed to reign unchecked

Good lives will be ruined and souls will be wrecked

To all who are feeling this horrific pain

Know that there is hope in this land yet to reign

We go to the polls and vote for compassion 

Bring back the love, make justice “in fashion”

Right now it is painful, right now devastated

We’ve been hurt before, lord knows we’ve been berated

But rise up we shall and rise up we must

In this I must believe, in this I must trust

For good humans are out there who will refuse to cower

And our votes yet to come shall place them in power

The anger is valid, the anger might remain

But just sitting on that anger will all be in vain

If not used to morph the future into something more grand

A place of justice and kindness in this great land

Let us take that pain and use it for good

Change the future we can, change the future we should

Turn the venom to compassion, make the land once more sane

It has happened before, it will happen again

ABOUT GARY: Gary Shulman, (MS. Ed.) has spent a lifetime supporting vulnerable families and children. He began his career working with children with and without disabilities in an inclusive Head Start program in Brooklyn NY. He then transitioned to become the Special Needs and Early Childhood Coordinator for the Brooklyn Children's Museum for 10 years. His passion for advocacy grew as he worked more and more with parents of children with disabilities. For over 24 years he passionately advocated for the needs of these parents as the Social Services and Training Director for Resources for Children with Special Needs, Inc. in NYC. The last years of his working life, Gary served as a private Special Needs Consultant conducting hundreds of training sessions throughout NYC and beyond to help parents and professionals find and access the services and systems required to facilitate maximizing the potential of their children with disabilities. 

You can read Gary's other poems A HOLE IN MY SOUL, and A SIMPLE REMINDER in the book PTSD.

~

BATTLEFIELD THOUGHTS

By Rita McDermott

Invincible young soldiers we were ...

boots hit the ground

on a foreign land

welcomed by

gunfire and explosions

Days 

became a lifetime

battles captured our youth

thoughts changed

carrying on today

to get to tomorrow

just want to make it home

Followed home

can't escape

reliving the battlefield

the things this soldier has seen

Trying to drown the memories

they keep flooding back

trying to relieve the pain

looking for peace at home

ABOUT RITA:  Rita is an Army veteran of 21 years. She did not serve in active combat, but had a combat support role as a behavioral science specialist, in which she assessed and counselled soldiers and families dealing with various mental health issues. She is a 30 plus year member of the American Legion, and is an involved participant in a veteran meet-up group in her local community - with some of the soldiers dealing with PTSD issues.

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