Editor's note: This spring, Health Affairs held its first ever poetry contest. Three winning poems were published in the journal. We're also featuring some of our other favorites on the Blog throughout the month of October.
Mental Illness Runs In My Blood
My lineage has holes
family members who have held clippers
to the branch keeping them on the family tree
ropes hanging from its arms are ribbons tied to fingers
help you to remember
my grandma draws crochet needles through
all of these dropped stitches
her job to stop the apple
falling so far from the tree.
Isaac Newton sitting below is me
at age skinned-knee
wondering why they chose to leave my family
white din of hospital beds
swallowing your cousin
she is here to hide from the disease
nurses spell out
how much nobody can do for her.
At age fourteen I wonder
if it is weak to ride a pill bottle
to their side.
Under my graduation cap
their hands slip through
swearing my palms would be glue
branch stretched out over the quicksand
I would be the doctor to my
own patient heart.
See the dangers in self-diagnosis
too-hard beating of your heart
under their thumbs
drum sounding out success story
calling for change in this generation
at war with our own heads
using parents' guns to rip through skulls
still soft
missing the point
missing the prom
far too many empty-nested dads and moms
who couldn't see past closed doors
open the doors to the industry
unlock all these labels kids chain
to their own necks in attempt
to understand pressures passed-down
fruits of the family tree
see the other side of this self-prescribed story
stop looking for an ending.
-Mo Fowler
No Young People Here
Does the brown man with slumped face stare?
One round eye fixed, one puffed slit slants
Still, in institution blues, sits in brake-locked wheelchair
His swollen head most times upright may nod by chance
One round eye fixed, one puffed slit slants
Parked in too bright halls, always in view
His swollen head upright most times may nod by chance
How did his body fail? Why does he look at you?
Parked in too bright halls, always in view
His slight distortion disturbing as his ubiquity
How did his body fail? Why does he look at you?
Roll by quickly, stomach wrenched, try not to see
this ugly state may be better than you
Still, in institution blues, sits in brake-locked wheelchair
stroked, he may rise soon, may walk, as you yearn to do
Does the brown man with slumped face stare?
– Akua Lezli Hope
from Health Affairs Blog http://ift.tt/1PDAcFp
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