By Molly Hannan Scott
If you feel like crying, then cry. If you feel like screaming, scream in your pillow, sometimes that’s what you need. You don’t need to get a manicure, get a facial, or go for a night out with friends; sometimes self-care is about listening to yourself.
By Rebecca Kokitus
This poem served as a confession in more ways than simply stylistically, it was an admission, and in many ways, an untethering. My poetry is, by nature, confessional, but this poem was different—it was the first poem I could remember writing about my eating disorder, which at that point, I had been suffering with for about five years. The poem was a confession to the self, more than anything else.
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by Natalia Vela
it’s true that i’m a better poet when i’m falling apart. i may be in pieces when i write, but writing is the only reason i am holding them all together.
understand this: when i hold the pen, i am choosing to hold something other than this sadness inside my palm. i am choosing not to fall asleep in the tub. i am choosing not to think about a belly full of cyanide. i am choosing not to reach for the bottle or reach for the pills. i am choosing not to think about how ten feet away there is a drawer full of knives.
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by Sophia Mihailidis
I was sixteen years old when I first attempted to take my own life. I was depressed, anxious, anorexic and lost. I had left high school and spent my days in my bedroom alone, in the dark, refusing to talk to anyone or leave the house. I wasn’t eating or sleeping; I wasn’t functioning. Everything hurt all the time, physically, mentally and emotionally. I was on medication to try and numb the pain. I was turning to alcohol, drugs, self harm. Nothing was working. I had to find a way out.
Writing was the only solace I found.
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by Tyler Zeanah
I try to write poems the same way I breathe: without thinking too much about it. I'm not one to sit with a poem for too long, picking it apart or trying to find better descriptive words. I try to write what I feel and what comes naturally, and only that. I don’t like to force a poem into something it's not, so if it isn't working for me, I'll put it down and move on. It's been a great practice in self love and understanding, for me to let the metaphors come as they please without me interfering with my negative self talk or perfectionist attitude.
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