poem | basement of my brain

After the Acheron

September 26, 2024September 26, 2024anna maughanpoem, waterLeave a Reply

We left the river dazed and tired from swimming, clambering, slipping. The rain started. Almost exactly 5pm, Akis was right. Already soaked from mythical waters, we walked happily back to the car where we stripped off and put our dry clothes on, too spaced out to really care who saw us. We opened the crisps as we set off, still hoping to picnic, but the rain got heavier, thunder rolled, the gods were waking up. We pulled into a layby and grabbed sandwiches from the picnic bag. Stood in the rain by the pale aqua river, opposite a half-finished villa, glassless windows watching, patient as a skull. My bare feet were gritty on the wet roadside but I was so happy it didn’t matter, and neither did my bruises from being caught in the current on the rocks. I opened a beer. The rain got harder, lightning flashed across the sky. We couldn’t stop talking about where we’d been, what we’d done, we couldn’t stop smiling. First Published in Wild Roof Journal | Issue 27 FALL Edition.

M5, Late Summer

September 5, 2023September 5, 2023anna maughanhope, poemLeave a Reply

Wildflowers growing around the barrier in the centre of the motorway— beauty will take hold anywhere, given the sliver of a chance. Even if they are missed by almost everybody speeding past, still they blaze— golden as sunlight, persistent as hope.

Little Suns

August 17, 2023anna maughanbpd, c/ptsd, depression, family, mental health, poemLeave a Reply

I remember thinking of all the bodies before me on the plastic-wrapped mattress, sobbing or still, raging or silent, all aching with the weight of a broken mind. I remember asking for daffodils to put beside the bed, next to a picture of my children, to try to make the cold room feel like home. I remember how the flowers opened overnight, going from tight buds to full suns, shining on the faces in the photograph. And I remember realising that I wasn’t going to give up, seeing those little suns, so bright, the promise of a future that held more than just darkness, a future I had to stay around to see.

Hooks

March 17, 2023May 6, 2023anna maughanpoemLeave a Reply

anxiety, a tremor underneath my skin, a background hiss like static, like unearthed electricity. it waits, with its little barbed hooks, ready to latch on to the slightest disturbance and surround it, making it bigger, louder, more insistent and frightening and I don’t know how to stop it. it prickles and shivers and makes my hands shake and my legs twitch to a rhythm I can’t hear. I don’t know how to simply exist– that’s all I want, just to be. to feel at peace. still and quiet, not humming and whirring with untapped energy that goes nowhere and does nothing but make me afraid to be alive.

The Memory

March 16, 2023May 7, 2023anna maughanpoem, waterLeave a Reply

once upon a time, a memory was formed.
the whole family was there to see and hear, smell and feel it.
each of them knew that it was something they would never forget,
having seen it so sharply right there in front of them.

Taraloka

September 5, 2022April 21, 2023anna maughanpoemLeave a Reply

today we breathed together, meditated on lovingkindness, talked and walked in friendly silence, concentrating on growing our hearts. we mindfully went through our day, trying to learn self-compassion, and to unlearn the malice with which we’ve talked to ourselves for years. today our hearts grew, just a little, and we got to know ourselves a little more.

metta retreat, daybreak

September 5, 2022April 21, 2023anna maughanhope, nature, poemLeave a Reply

dawn came with a rush and sibilance of air as geese flew overhead, a solitary crow on a telegraph wire, watching. the sky steaked with brilliant pink fading to soft antique rose, lavender clouds with luminous edges. bumblebees already bumblebeing, busy on the sunshine yellow bird’s foot trefoil and the sun itself, slowly emerging from the clouds, golden and brilliant.

compassion

September 4, 2022April 21, 2023anna maughananxiety, bpd, c/ptsd, chronic pain, depression, mental health, poem, self imageLeave a Reply

my psychologist encouraged me to write another version of ‘shame’, from a compassionate perspective. so I did my best to do so…. perhaps you could write about the damage done, the bruises on your soul, your heart that walks with a limp, your voice that only sings when no one’s there? or perhaps it hurts too much, or frightens you, to show those parts that no one knows, the wounded and scarred fragility of the self you’re afraid never will be whole? what if they knew that you feel like a thousand torn and tiny pieces moving as one? what if you were able to say that there are things you don’t even know about yourself? what if you don’t remember, because you don’t want to remember, though you were there and carried the shame home, heavy on your back? why do you think you’d be judged as harshly as you judge yourself? what if they knew that something chewed your heart that night and left a bloody mess inside your chest? why do you think they’d see you differently, just because you’ve been too ashamed to speak of something that was not your fault, that has left you feeling as though you are all blanks and fractures, missing pieces, and the aching, endless, misplaced weight of shame.