mental illness awareness week 2009

today marks the end of mental illness awareness week. here are some bloggers who wrote about it, and a poem

and here’s my contribution, a poem i wrote about 15, 16 years ago. you’ll be happy to hear that the suitcase has been emptied.

i’ve been carrying around with me
for all these years
a hidden suitcase of despair

once in a while
i go and open it
inspect it
gleefully
under the covers of my
sheltering bed

i am delighted at its contents:
colourful puppets and leftover trinkets
spill out
and one or two caterpillars, brillant in the half shade
of what little light pierces
the soft, warm clouds of my duvet

then, when i hear footsteps
i close it
camouflage it
so that no-one
can steal
not even with a glimpse
my precious suitcase
brimming with exquisite anguish

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