Renee Writes

I’ve been going through old notes, trying to piece together for myself the story of the many years before Laena’s death that we grappled with mental illness. I guess I need to prove to myself that my memories are accurate, probably trying to comfort myself that we really did try (though that often backfires, and instead I feel disheartened and angry that there were so many unanswerable questions and so many times I was just spinning wheels and getting no traction). But it still feels like a piece of my healing so I keep doing it.

Anyway, I came across this poem. I remember scribbling it down but I didn’t know I still had it. It was the night that we had to admit Laena to the ER for the first time for a psych evaluation, which led to her first mental health hospitalization. I was so scared. I remember scrambling for some paper and a pen, then these words came pouring out, and it helped. It was like my brain needed to vomit out the overwhelm of emotion and fear. I’m sharing because maybe you’ve felt this way, and maybe this poem will help you feel less alone, and that would be a good thing.

ON THE CUSP

There is a moment when
day crosses into night.
Full day drifts toward twilight,
small pieces of night show up,
a shadow here, a cool breeze there.
It is Day with increasing spots of Night.
Then the small fragments of night
gather themselves together and it is
Night with small pieces of Day
lingering among the growing darkness.
A ray of sunshine on the tallest treetop,
leftover spot of warmth on the sidewalk.
Background one color, speckles of another,
trading places as one grows and one diminishes.
Like adding black ink to white paper,
slowly, splotch by splotch,
until at some un-pin-down-able moment,
the black outweighs the white
and it is no longer white with black spots,
but black with white spots,
white succumbing to the ink tide.

As the water rises, do we notice
when the land turns from
a solid place dotted with lakes
into islands surrounded by oceans?

I was standing in a normal life,
dotted with bad times.
Now I look around my feet and
wonder if I’m on the cusp
of a bad life dotted with good times.

And yet, I hope that it is
not a straight line but a cycle.

As the dark grows dominant,
I will wrap my arms around myself
for warmth and keep my eyes
on the horizon and
wait for a spot of daylight
to return.