WHEN LIFE GIVE YOU, LEMONS MAKE MARGARITAS

By Dale "Coyote" Johnson

When I was young, I felt empty and alone

Holding on to dreams that would never come

Each night, I would cry myself to sleep

No one understood anything I did

Listening to people say “You’re weird, you don’t belong”

I only wanted to find a place where I would fit

Fighting became my way of life

Each time no matter what, I would always loose

Going through life unwanted and feeling unloved

I had to change mentally and had nowhere to turn

Very few people would give me a chance

Easier to just watch the fires burn

Shame for all that I lost and did made me try to end it

Yet someone watched over me and held out a hand

Only then did I open my own eye and received help

Under guidance I learned I wasn’t alone

Life with undiagnosed autism has always been a challenge

Every relationship gets estranged because of understanding

Most people don’t see that every day is a new day

Only looking backwards instead of forwards

New challenges wake when the sun rises

So today I choose to see what happens next in the rollercoaster of life

My shoulders feel much lighter without the weight of the past

After all I’ve lived through the past and have learned that I can handle it

Kingdoms have fallen in the past only to be rebuilt

Enjoy the day and take from the past the knowledge of something new

My being different makes things difficult but I won’t let it define me

A new light wakes me to possibilities of a happy day one step at a time

Rivers get blocked yet always find a path to continue to flow

Going on a different path when a way opens up

Always know that there are ups and downs in life

Rich with wealth I may not be

I choose instead to see the good in each day which is a wealth in its self

Tomorrow is a chance at a new start

Always move forward and don’t let the past pull you back

Some days may be dark but the sun still shines

ABOUT DALE: "I am currently 49 years of age and struggled all of my childhood as a ward of the state of Minnesota. They didn't understand that Autism was a spectrum back then, so I was left undiagnosed and was pushed aside, and basically an orphan and only seeing what family I kind of had on holidays. I began writing mostly to help me cope. I write in a kind of mixed form; which is in Acrostic/free-style format so if you first read the sentence going downwards, you will see what I intend for my readers to understand and cross-wise - I tell how I came to that conclusion. I was also born with a low IQ because of fetal alcohol syndrome, and have Bi-polar, depression and anxiety. plus foster care wasn't very good back then so I have a good case of PTSD ... so I'm a mess. But I want to spread the message to people that mental illness is a challenge, but you can make it a gift if you can find what your niche is, and that you just have to keep moving forward in order to find it, and also to help people who don't understand mental illnesses what we sometimes go through in our dilemmas. I am also a self published Author of a book on amazon and Kindle."

WHERE YOU WERE

By Lindsay Walter

i don’t know where you were

when you died

‘suicide’ someone said

i wrote to your mother

for a while at school in Malton we were friends

i remember you in uniform

sky blue and navy

head down shoulders squared in a hurry

i did like you

we squabbled in Art squashed each other’s clay pigs

agreed where babies came from

disagreed on where they came out

liked each other

then grew apart

you spent weekends in Newcastle

never said what you did

what you’d done

at college in Totley you broke down lost your place

i saw you sedated on a ward in York

you weren’t really there

you turned up in Cherry Hinton on a motorbike in leathers

someone called the police

in London you had an abortion your mother came 

you got married lived in Slough three tiny children

i saw them sleeping once

i heard you gave away one of your twins

‘you can’t hold hands with three’ you’d said

i don’t know

where you were

when you killed yourself

Newcastle perhaps

ABOUT LINDSEY: Lindsay’s home is in York (UK) now, but she has lived in many different places, from Bradford to Bournemouth, Switzerland to Malta. She was born and brought up in a village in a valley in North Yorkshire, where her family had lived for generations. There was a lime tree outside her bedroom window, a beck ran past the garden, owls called from the woods at midnight. Lindsay has been writing poems for four or five years. Lindsay has also written a children’s novel, ‘Ruby and the Moon Children’, and many mini-stories.

FB: @RubyAndTheMoonChildren



I'LL GET BACK UP

By Annie Walsh

Life’s thrown curveballs

That’s one thing for sure

Some ups and downs

That I’ve had to endure

With friends and family

I made my way through

More stronger with time

Loving everything I do

A chance I gave to you

A hand i did extend

As cautious as I was

Maybe we’d be friends

I was happy at work

Until you came along

I was doubting myself

Every day it felt wrong

It make you feel good

To make me feel bad ?

That look on your face

Smirking cause I’m sad!!!

It was then I realised

Why you picked on me

Because I was exactly

Who you want to be!

A wonderful, loving family

A work family too!

So happy and popular

Was probably killing you!

I may have broke down

Hurt,angry tears I cried

But I still stand tall

I have right on my side

I’ll come back stronger

Just you wait and see

And you will be punished

For your treatment of me

And just like any bully

Who manipulate and lie

Karma will come get you

There’s nowhere to hide

I promise you one thing

I’m standing up to you

I will tell whoever listens

About the bully that is YOU!



EVEN WHEN I'M COLLAPSING

By Andrea Mitchell 

I seem to be folding up like an empty cardboard box; a hollow shell, a barren void 

that once housed such promise and hope,

the expectation of a pleasant surprise.

Now I'm just trying to survive and work out how to cope.

Life's great mysteries turned out to be disappointments and lies;

Not a gift but a burden, a weight on my shoulders to carry every day.

Always looking for an early exit yet knowing I'm obliged to tough it out and stay.

The daily tears, bumps and cracks undermining my strength and weakening my resolve, 

threatening my form, my function, forcing me to adapt and evolve.

Yet, I endure, even when I feel I shall break apart and the last strings of my sanity feel at the point of snapping, 

Still I hold it together, even when I'm collapsing.

ABOUT THE POEM: "I was inspired to write this little poem after a conversation with a friend who is really struggling with her mental health. I have always written poetry to explore my feelings and better understand the feelings of others. I hope it let's her, and others, know they are not struggling alone."

SPLIT

By Jennifer L. Alukonis

October is National Domestic Violence Awareness Month

I remember being broken in two

Something happened long ago

I can’t remember what

It was so long ago

It tore my head in two

My memory went  went in two 

it split in two

I decided what memories stayed and what memories would die

Leaving blank what was long ago

Old memories shred in my head

My body bled

Wings on kite taking flight

Later in life I learned this saved my life



YOU CHOOSE TO BE LIKE THIS

By Hari Berrow 

‘You choose to be like this’,

They say in unison.

I choose. 

Like a hedgehog chooses to roll into a ball.

Like a pill bug chooses to pill.

Like a pufferfish chooses to puff.

‘You choose to be like this’,

They say in unison.

As I do the meditation.

As I read the books.

As I try the yoga.

‘You choose to be like this’,

They say in unison,

A Greek chorus of ignorant advisors 

Cursed to hear Cassandra,

And only respond 

with things written in magazines and op eds. 

‘You choose to be like this’;

Their faces contorted into a mask 

Of knowing concern,

Their arms extending as one

To put their hands on my knee

And look deeply through me. 

‘You choose to be like this’,

And once upon a time 

I might have believed them. 

‘You choose to be like this’,

Their hollow mouths proclaim,

Forgetting that I know myself.

Forgetting that they don’t see the fight.

Forgetting that hope is invisible.

Forgetting that I hold myself

When all anyone else can say is:

‘You choose to be like this’,

They say in unison,

And I reply:

‘When did you choose

To turn your face from the sun?

To let your heart turn to stone?

To see only cowardice in 

The bravest of souls?

You chose to be like this.

I choose to live in spite of it.

I choose to believe that one day

You will be better.’

ABOUT HARI: Hari is a working-class writer, academic, arts journalist and advocate based in South Wales. She has a Substack where she complains about nature. She wrote this based on her own experiences of navigating the judgement of others while trying to heal and hopes this inspires someone to find their voice. 

HAVE HOPE

By Sophie Squires

“Have hope”, they said

“Take care”, they said

As I lie on my bed with visions of a mother

Lost in her own darkness whirling around in my head.

“Have hope”, they said

“She can get better”, they said

The feeding tube cuts into her nose, her only lifeline when her mind tells her this is the end.

“More meds”, they said

“I can’t”, she said

Her deeply sunken eyes looking into mine, pleading for resolve.

Her hands crooked in her lap, shaking with frailty and delirium.

“Depression”, they said

“Psychosis”, they said

The world such a frightening place now, consumed with her fears,

“No more, it’s gone too far, what have I done”, she said

“Have hope”, I said

“Your grandchildren love you”, I said

Her smile, still there, a glimpse of a past so recent and yet so far.

“Stay strong”, I try

Find joy, I must

Laughter still filling my home, as new life and its innocence forces me to carry on.

“How is she today?”

“No change”, they say

My best friend, my support, my love,

“Have faith, have hope”.

ABOUT THE POEM: "I wrote Have Hope during a very difficult time when my widowed mother suffered a very severe mental health crisis following the second lockdown. During the subsequent two and a half years I gave my all to help her, bringing her to live next to my young family and me and after various stays in hospital she finally received the treatment she needed and is now almost back to her former wonderful self. This poem was written during the first hospital stay when the doctors were trying to figure out how to help her, in such a bad state of health."

HOMELESS

By Sasha Irwin

Can’t find a blanket 

Overcome with exhaustion 

Walking and traipsing through the streets 

The rain pours down 

My hair is soaked 

I’m shivering 

Lost my shoes 

Step on a needle 

Crying 

Can’t find a blanket 

Curl up in a doorway 

How could I end up like this I think to myself 

As my eyes gaze at the flickering images in the doorway 

People say what I see isn’t there 

I know that isn’t true 

It is real 

I think of when I was a child 

The garden 

The sunflower tree

The strawberries 

The laughter 

The happiness 

I know now that my past can bring that joy back 

What I was just wasn’t me

I am happy now 

What I see is too real 

I am in my childhood garden again 

ABOUT THE POEM: "This poem is about my struggles of schizophrenia and being homeless. I have been well for 14 years but I can still remember the misery I endured"



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