mental illness

Before you Ask: a Poem

Trigger Warning: This poem contains dark themes and is intended for audiences who can handle these themes. If you are experiencing symptoms of depression or suicidal thoughts, please see a mental health professional or refer to my list found here.

Before you ask,
yes,
I am feeling sad and hopeless,
and I do have a lack of pleasure
in doing things I previously enjoyed —
like writing poetry or talking
to my imaginary friends.

& yes, I’m aware
how it makes me sound
when I say “talking to my imaginary friends”
but I’m an author and a poet,
I play with words for fun.

This isn’t fun
for me.
These wellness checks.
These inventories on my feelings:
check “yes” or “no”,
rate your feelings on a scale.

Most days, I’d rather paint you
a watercolor of my emotions,
let the feelings wash together until
you can’t tell ecstatic bliss
from despondency.

But today,
before you ask,
words are falling apart,
they’re fragile ghosts who haunt me
but don’t seem to speak my language.

Before you ask,
the poet in me doesn’t want to waste
the paper.
She thinks it’s better used
for a brilliant mathematician
cycling through his numbers
or a census-taker calculating persons
than to listen to her trivial whining.

Yet here I go.

Before you ask,
yes, I suppose it’s natural
to plan these things.
To work out the logistics of life
and to perhaps even plot out
the details of death.
But I’m not Sylvia Plath,
contemplating the temperature to set
my oven,
nor am I going to the ocean
with stones weighing down my pockets.

I have too many plans.
Too many things to do.
I would have too many goodbyes to say.
Too many books to donate.
I still have unfinished stories burning
in me.
Before you ask,
the light in my eyes flickers
and yes, even dulls,
but though the disease tries to steal me,
as I go through these inventory questions,
I discover
I’m not ready to leave


just yet.

Isabelle Palerma

May: Mental Health Awareness Month

Trigger Warning: I describe mental illness and suicidal ideation as well as suicide and suicide attempts. A link to a variety of resources is provided.

Normally, my website is a place for my poetry or my fiction, but after a conversation with a colleague last week, I felt a renewed sense of why I advocate for mental health and talk about how important it is to reach out if you are struggling.

My co-worker talked about how his nephew committed suicide, and I personally have lost a few friends to suicide as well, but their stories are not mine to tell. However, I can tell you about the aftermath. The hole that the loss of their lives ripped through my heart.

I, too, have tried to kill myself, whether it was from an overdose of pills or because of a psychotic-fuelled nightmarish episode where I ran into traffic in a fit of a hallucination.

I know there is a lot of stigma surrounding mental illness, but I am now willing to be vulnerable about my bipolar and my complex posttraumatic stress disorder. If by being honest about these illnesses can help save lives, I’d share my story as many times as it takes.

Of course it’s scary to share it, but what’s scarier are those who are dying undiagnosed or living with mental illness, struggling each day.

If I can do anything to ease your pain, know I would do it. I am just one person, but I am one person who cares.

Please reach out to a person you trust if you need support or if you can’t find anyone, try the list I have here if you’re feeling suicidal.

But please don’t wait until you feel that hopeless. Get help soon. People do love you and care about you. We want you here and we want the demons to be silenced, too, but there’s a way to silence them without ending your beautiful life.

The world needs you in it.

Isabelle Palerma

Raw: a Poem

Slice through the heart of me
and wonder why I feel so raw.
There’s bleeding somewhere,
and yet I’m still searching for the cut.
I’ll seek out the scars,
but I didn’t know I was the one
clinging to the knife.

Isabelle Palerma

A Cage for Your Heart: a Poem

An architect constructed you a mansion
for your heart and you called it a cage.
He crafted each room with so much caution
and care.

The muscle nestled between your ribs
felt like a boulder I was incapable of swallowing,
I am a myth,
tugging on strings that have strangled me.

My fantasies were polished glass shards
shattered by laments and heartbreak.
Ancestors draped mirrors
with black organza in bereavement
after a loved one died.
The fabric is as light as a ghost,
so tell me,
how did I still I wake up with
bits of glass crunching beneath my feet?

The sadness was a fragile creature –
the weight of black organza –
and yet I am a myth,
desiring nothing more than to pull
the strings that choke me.

But it’s gentle sometimes,
sneaking in like a moth,
as soft as a ballerina’s skin
and barbed wire.

Our wires danced across the dance floor,
and if you watch,
we might just choke on the memory,
the softness of sadness, and
the gentle lull of love.

Isabelle Palerma

Poet Spotlight on: Alfred Gremsly

Alfred just recently shared with me a reader review which I feel entitled to share a part of with you all before including his interview. A reader of Alfred’s poetry had said the following:

The candor of this review honestly speaks volumes about Alfred Gremsly’s poetry, and while I am just starting to familiarize myself with his poetry, I can tell he has the same intentions I do with my writing and my day job – to provide a voice to communities normally stigmatized.

Alfred Gremsly is an American born poet who writes about mental health and the struggle that comes with it. A lifelong sufferer of anxiety, depression, and other mental illnesses, Alfred began writing poetry at the young age of twelve as a means of escaping his own mind.

Whose poetry style is most like your own?

I don’t know if anyone’s poetry is like mine.
I don’t read a lot of poetry, and if I do read, it’s going to be something that’s complete opposite of what I write.

Have you received formal training for writing? If so, what’s your background? If not, what got you interested in poetry writing?

I started writing around age 12; I was a very depressed kid. We lived in the country and had nothing to do, and so, I would make homemade books for myself of my thoughts and feelings.

Who are some of your favorite poets?

Some individual poets I like to read are Jan Serene, Ashley Jane, Angie Waters, Margie Watts, and Sarah Kay Collie.

How do you feel when you’re writing a poem? Is it cathartic or do you find it draining? What types of emotions do you experience when writing poetry?


As I, myself, am a lifetime sufferer of depression and anxiety, I have extreme highs and lows. Unfortunately, it takes being in those extreme lows in order for me to get out what I’m needing to say.


I sometimes feel as if writing is a curse of sorts –
so horrible would be the feelings and emotions I’m under while writing.

A lot of my poetry features fractured versions of myself as a narrative voice. What subjects do you write about and how are they influenced by your own experiences?


I write about what I’ve been through in life’s journey – my struggles with mental illness, the feelings of being mentally ill. I have overcome a lot through in life through poetry. I now have a grasp on my depression and anxieties, and I’m now on a mission to help others suffering from mental illnesses.

Where can readers find more of your poetry?

https://instagram.com/poetalfredgremsly

http://www.alfredgremsley.com

https://a.co/d/5B8OkmR

I’ll Be Dead before I’m Better

Am I just pretending
there are voices in my head?
And can anyone else hear
a single thing they’ve said?
Am I really talking to someone
who has been talking back to me?
Or have I just become
a psychotic mystery?
Life’s no fun pretending
when you need a friend
and a therapist is not the answer
when you want the words to end.
Can anyone hear the voices
that are screaming from my head?
I’ll be dead before I’m better
if I’m not already dead

– Alfred Gremsly

Isabelle Palerma