(Dissociation: Self-Portrait by Danielle Hark)

Death Stopped By My Bed

(Sorrow: Self-Portrait by Danielle Hark)

Longing

At the psychiatric hospital. 53 capsules,
tablets, caplets, hundreds more waiting.

A little lift, twitch, flick of wrist,
all it would have taken to be free,
but doubt grabbed my wrists, froze
each phalanx, carpal, metacarpal.

Now, in the sterile blue painted room,
they stare curiously from behind glass.
Women in short hair and bright sweaters.
Nurses, watching with crooked smiles

as I gaze longingly at the lines
of my empty palm.

(Grief: Self-Portrait by Danielle Hark)

Danielle Hark @DanielleHark is a writer and artist who lives with PTSD and bipolar disorder. She is the founder of the non-profit Broken Light Collective that empowers people with mental health challenges using photography. Danielle lives and creates in New Jersey with her husband, two sassy young daughters, a Samoyed pup, a Scottish Fold cat, and a typewriter named Cori Blue. www.daniellehark.com