Dear Mental illness/Health
My name is Mpho
I am writing this letter
To congratulate you
I am tired of the breathing exercises
And exhausted
From counting random things
Just so calmness can find its way back
To me
So congratulations
This is your reward
You have finally made it
Here is the stage
Collect your award
I am no longer
Going to hide you
In short punchy lines
The stanzas are not
Worthy of your celebration
So here
Is a poem titled after you
Each stanza
Created for your reward
Dear Mental Health
Apparently, May is your month
An awareness created just for you
But everyone still has a hard time
Embracing you
Dear Mental illnesses
They say you are all in mind
That you are choice
Apparently, we can choose to be happy
Hence, I carry around evidence
Dead bodies
With your arms
Wrapped around their minds
The year 2000
My maternal grandmother, Ma’Machona
Was exhausted from taking your “feel-good juice”
So she lay in hospice
Welcoming death like a beloved friend
The year 2013
My friend George
Suffered a fatal epileptic attack
And weeks before
He had insisted
That he met you
He described you
As the darkness stole that the sun
From out of his heart
The year 2019
My friend Shelby
Suffocated your grip
So she tried to bleed you out
But your grip tightened
Until she laid OD
On the floor of bar
Embracing the other side
Just to escape you
Apparently, you do not exist
And we are just attention seekers
Like the guy I once met while working
He had a tattoo with the words
The voices in my head
Won’t pull me under
His name was Chris
A marine who has seen guns
Embrace the heads of beloved friends
He says he has witnessed
Triggers being pulled
In a pure attempt to escape you
So Chris and I
Carry around evidence
Dead bodies
With your arms
Wrapped around their minds
Dear Mental illness
Are you ill?
Is this conversation
Making you sick to your stomach?
Oh yes, the heart palpitations
Welcome to the club
No, you are not going to faint
Wait don’t reach for blade
Let’s find your friend— mental health?
Mental illness
Stay, don’t run
You have accolades
We can discuss
Have some tea
Tell us
How is suicide doing
He has the second leading cause of death among people aged 10-34
Breathe,
It’s going to be okay
The overall suicide rate has increased by 31% since 2001
Relax,
You are overreacting
46% of people who die by suicide had a diagnosed mental health condition
Are you okay?
It is all in the mind
Remember?
75% of people who die by suicide are male
Mental iIlness?
Mental illness?!
Mental illness? ?!!
See?
How dare you encourage us
To be quiet
And stop imagining things
When it often feels like
There are well-built hands
Pushing down on our throats
When I say
I can’t breathe
You call it being dramatic
My search for what the people perceive as normal
My journey to restoration
Is their bewilderment
Their perfect ethnological expositions
Dear Mental illness
Do you know love?
How does it feel?
To stop running from it?
Because of you
I have never stayed
Long enough
To let the fire keep me warm
It is better to leave lovers while they still love
A sane version of me
Do you have any idea
How I have mastered excuses to stay home
The party is healthier without my heavy heart
And I have mastered holding my tongue
Dare it land me the psych ward
Dear Mental illness
My name is one
You should write off your books
I am not the one
We are not the ones
For your playing field
I am healing
And trying to get
My name
In the Mental Health Books.