3 New Poems: The Last Three Poems For Mental Health Awareness Week

To close Mental Health Awareness Week (10th - 16th May 2021), I decided to share the final three poems on the last day. So you are reading Friday, Saturday and Sunday's poems. Mental Health Awareness Week this year had the theme of nature and I used this theme as the catalyst for each piece, along wth personal experience and emotions. I hope you enjoy "That Friday Feeling", "Butterfly" and "SunRISE". Take care of your mental health!

That Friday Feeling

A Poem by Simon Clark

Finished work for the week,

Everybody’s getting ready for a party,

They’ve got that Friday feeling,

But my mind is reeling,

My excitement hits a ceiling,

Anxiety takes over and it starts concealing,

The fun that I could be having is no longer appealing,

All the questions I’d been running from start revealing.

What if I’m not good enough?

What if I’m not dressed-up right?

What if I’m not fun enough?

What if I’m not acting right?

What if I’m not smart enough?

What if I’m not laughing right?

What if I’m not class enough?

What if I’m not standing right?

What if I’m not street enough?

What if I’m not speaking right?

What if I’m not cool enough?

What if I’m not taken right?

The moon is in the sky,

All the stars are twinkling on their midnight canvas,

I’ve got that Friday feeling,

Anxiety reeling,

Indoors staring at the ceiling,

I’m not sure I have the strength to keep on concealing,

The outside world, the party, the moon ceased to be appealing,

If only I could stop pretending, start revealing.

Stop running from that Friday feeling,

Step outside and become a star against the midnight canvas,

Stop running from that Friday feeling,

Start healing.

Butterfly

A Poem by Simon Clark

Burdened with my own shame,

Used to keep myself hidden,

To hide my light and blend into the beige,

Toed the line,

Encased myself in chrysalis of deceit,

Rode out the daily storm; slept, awoke, repeat,

For instead of standing on my rainbow pedestal and announcing aloud,

Let myself become terrorised by those who shouted loudest in the crowd,

Years wasted.

Buried my head in the sand,

Undercover, fell in love and couldn’t tell,

The self-harming deception built the fences higher,

To keep myself safe from judgement but not safe from myself,

Everywhere I looked I saw the straight white world represented,

Recoiling into my enclosure full of self loathing; tormented,

Found out that I was seen as sinful, wrong and a disgusting stain on life,

Lambasted with their phobic smears, the anger running rife,

Yielding to their demands.

But when it all became too much and my shell began to crack,

Underneath the chrysalis, my pink, purple and blue wings began to grow,

They busted through the casing and helped me rise like a butterfly,

Those bastards pushed me down, I realised, which only made soar,

Each of those slurs tried to rust my wings,

Ripped up the rulebook they handed me and to my own tune I began to sing,

Found that friends would find me and that the haters would still hate,

Learned how to just me be and to guide my own fate,

You can try to bring my down but you won’t succeed.

I’m a butterfly.

SunRISE

A Poem by Simon Clark

That black cloud sometimes appear,

The dogs are at the door,

Confidence diminishes and leaves me flattened on the floor.

So I wrote myself a letter one day, on a day when I felt fine,

A letter that I could read whenever I felt down,

When ever the smile disintegrated and left behind a frown.

It read:

I know you’re feeling down right now but cling on to all that is good and positive. Know you’re worth and value. Know you’re loved. Remember that you love yourself. You will rise again from the bedroom and be ready to face the world. You are the sun. You will rise again. You are the sunRISE.

© Simon Clark 2021