You expected me to be gone. To vanish. To disappear. You liked the strong woman in me.
I have that other side the side that not many see.
It makes me weak and vulnerable. At times a little crazy. Hard to console.
Surely If you want me you need to love both sides of me.
Surely If you want me at my best you need to want me at my worst.
After all is that not what love is
Poem by Emma Visca
You said I would be okay
Told me to tolerate the side effects
Teeth chattering
Irritable
You told me it would be okay
You told me
I felt like a shell Washed up by the Sea
Empty inside
Burn, burn, burn
My head it just burns
You told me it would be ok
My rare, rare find You told me
Sometimes you make me smile
I miss that
You were in town Didn’t come by
Do you have that key ring dangling from your car mirror?
You told me it would be ok
My rare, rare find You told me
I have your soul engraved on my heart
I said to the man in the parlor
Tattoo his soul onto my heart
I have it now Your soul
You told me it would be ok
My rare rare find Lost now
Swept off by the Sea
You were never mine to begin with.
Poem by Emma Visca
Today I saw an angel
That angel was me..
I keep planning it
It occupies my mind
Today I thought there were many signs
To lead me to it
Today it’s ok
To give up
Today I lost control
My other mind occupied my head
She wanted to get rope
Boulders
Stone
Drive to the Sea
With Gin and meds
She wanted to walk into the Sea
She did
Sometimes the She occupies my mind
Poem by Emma Visca
I think perhaps I stole a little bit of your soul.
I didn’t mean to do it.
You did not offer it
I did not ask for it.
That time when you saved me
I think perhaps I took it then
It’s just a tiny little bit
It became lodged in me.
Sometimes I think I feel it.
I feel it ingrained in my body
Intertwined with my own soul
I feel it cursing through my veins
Now how can that be
That I have it and you don’t know it?
Is it in my imagination?
This feeling that is deep within.
Surely one cannot take such a thing without the other knowing.
Sometimes I try to give it back as I know it does not belong to me.
At first I thought If I cleared my mind It would go.
Maybe If I painted it would go
Maybe if a drank a little more wine it would go.
Maybe I need you to know that I have it and then you can just take it.
I fear because it’s in me now I can’t change course
It keeps drawing me back this stolen soul.
It keeps drawing me back to you.
You that does know that it has been stolen
Poem by Emma Visca
And so life just goes on. There does not need to be some big drama about it. We live everyday and we learn everyday and we grow. I could walk amongst a thousand people. I am no different to every other human being. Plodding through life trying to make sense of it.
My body is a shell. My face merges with the sea. My mind….my mind can clear itself and let itself be and so the shell, heavy in the water falls deep to the bottom of the Ocean. She will remain there in the silence. For everyday she can see the sun shining on the waves above. Her shell glistens. And every night her old friend the moon can be seen. The shell closes her eyes, she does not need to see him. She can feel him deep within
Poem by Emma Visca
Slowly I started to remember
Piece bits together
The flashbacks of you keeping me in a cage
You would keep me barely awake
Keep me hidden away so you could have me night after night
Comatosed
Dead
I was already dead
Did you rape me?
My body unwilling
Unresponsive
Keep me away from my family
It was you I was trying to get away from
I was your prize
A dead prize
Now the healing process begins
My body will heal
My mind will heal
I will become me again
The me before
Before I was broken
Left frightened of you
You always frightened me with your anger
I thought you would kill me
And so I left
The only way I knew how
The only way I could
Poem By Emma Visca
Now I become Myself
Maybe I did die those four weeks ago
Perhaps a part of me let go
I try to think back and remember what brought me to this point, but my memory still fails me
They say I will begin to remember again in time
Have a little patience
I am not a patient lady
You don’t need to be in control all the time
Yes, I do
I am a control freak
I like to have a handle on things
Don’t tell me I don’t need to do that because that is who I am
Don’t you want me to be who I am?
Am I to change again to fit into your world your world?
I am a bird
I am free
I cry to my children and tell them I’m sorry
I didn’t mean it I would say
I love you I don’t want to die
I just want my head to stop to stop to stop
I still feel it I think I have a phantom electric current still in my head
Daily grinding burning it makes me jump and there is nothing there
There is a certain freedom about letting go
A flash of freedom
Not having to pretend
Being set free
A head that stops that stop that stops
I am who I am I am
I am who I am I am
I painted these pictures after the ECT I have no memory of painting them
These paintings now I hold dear to me
They become my story one that I cannot tell
One that I cannot remember
They are the story of losing my mind of being violated
Tortured
Like some sort of animal left out to die
Not fit enough for keeping
The rut of the pack
I am I am I am
I am who I am who I am
I am the rut of the pack
I am the woman who painted these pictures
I am the woman who exposed her mind
But who cannot recall
Who I am I am I am
Poem by Emma Visca
I’m not sure if I’m alive
As I sit here looking at my children as they play
As I sit here listening to my children as they laugh
I feel as If they have taken something from me
Those people in the hospital have stolen my brain
I think I have lost who I am and I don’t know how to get me back
They said my depression had got so bad I tried to kill myself
Three times in the space of several hours
I can’t remember any of it
My brain is all fuzzy
It is like having a constant migraine
I have also developed a love of the word ‘fuck’
choosing to say the word after every fucking second word
I am confused and I have lost my memory
I can’t recall any of the last fortnight in the mental health hospital
I still get lost trying to find the laundry room
You are not a human being when you are a mental health patient
you are downgraded to something perhaps animal like
It doesn’t matter what your views are
It doesn’t matter if you want to see your children
It doesn’t matter if you don’t have capacity
I have seen bits of paper that I have signed
I have signed a piece of paper telling the health professionals to electrocute my fucking brain
I have seen this piece of paper that I signed
I have no recollection of signing it or agreeing to the procedure
Now I’m fucked
I have lost my memory
and I’m fucking confused
Poem by Emma Visca
Shy and vulnerable
quiet and weak
refrained from feeling her own emotions
refrained from hearing her voice
her voice a whisper a whimper
The wild one longs to get out
Brazen and sexy
Prostitute, slut
There is darkness within her
a fire that burns
She craves the burning, the tortured soul
He the moon watches over her
seducing her with his light
He will devour her
Spit her out
Destroy her
The strong woman the third she wants to take it on
For she longs to burn but she is not weak and cowardly
She would rather feel something than live a life void of feeling
Abstain. Abstain
Let me see it with my eyes
See you with my eyes just once
Then I can rest
Then I can live
Then I can sail on my Sea
Poem by Emma Visca
She goes to the Sea. She watches the waves as they splash hard against the rocks.
You allow her to create. You give her space so that she can find herself.
Love, who we love, what we love everything about you shapes me. How do I shape myself. Can I be me without you?
She falls in, her body limp. She does not fight it. She gets flashes of her former self. That person full of stories, full of passion, full of desire. Everything feels numb.
She will remain a shadow in her own life. She is not the leading lady of her own movie. Her body a shell. Her Mind erased.
There is no boat on the Sea on this day. No fisherman to save her soul. But the Sea is kind. She wraps her arms around the girl. She thrusts her out up onto the rock and ripples away softly.
Poem by Emma Visca
