Few Haikus On Tic Part 3

Here’s some poems I wrote since last publishing a set of these on this wee blog, they’re a bit heavier going this time so CW for self-harm and depression, the self-harm one is at the very end so you don’t accidentally see it while reading that content warning for it. I'd gone for quite a while without writing any poems at all, but a particularly bad autumn and winter of 2016 helped spark some creative impulse, or else I just needed to create something in order to understand the negativity inside me and possibly work up from there.

Shot By Both Sides

This is something I wrote about my experiences of being a non-binary person in a world where things are gendered to a degree which seems pretty ridiculous, while I’ve been able to come to terms with it and feel a lot better than I did when the questions were going through my head, there’s still that overriding feeling of not fitting in, falling into some sort of empty space.

A binary cage,

torn apart by divergence,

fall into the void

Midnight Companions

This is about intrusive thoughts, the late night stabs of imagined scenarios constructed from facts and patterns taken out of context to weave a narrative of everything falling apart, crushing your head until gaining any sort of perspective is impossible or just buzzing away in the back of your head like a fridge, shout out to Radiohead’s Karma Police for the opening line.

Detuned radio,

a negative feedback loop,

thoughts keep intruding…

Unfinished Business

This is a poem about smoking a rollie that’s been half smoked after the ash at the bottom’s been flicked out, which is a pretty typical thing for a white English student to write a poem tbh. At the same time though, it’s about talking to someone you’ve largely finished with, be that an ex where things didn’t end well or someone you’ve fallen out with or someone you’ve just grown apart with. While you’ll get something out of it, much like smoking that half-finished rollie, it’ll sting and might not be worth it looking back.

Final spark, burnt lip,

a few minor fleeting drags,

remains flicked aside.

It Stops Hurting After 10 Seconds

(CW: self-harm, it’s as graphic as an image but if this kinda thing might trigger you you’re not gonna want to read this). Wrote this about self-harming, something I went through pretty badly in sixth year and have relapsed into occasionally in college. This isn’t intended to glamorise it or anything like that, it was me trying to work through and understand what drove me to do it to myself, taking something dark and creating art from it.

From the lung to limb,

incendiary penance,

atone for my sins.