Objects in the Mirror

May or may not exist...

My very first post! I found courage today.

Reading back over this I’m cringing. I’m so bad at this part. I want to tell you guys everything all at once so you can understand where my words are coming from. All in good time, right?

I have posted a few Notes with little pieces written more recently, but what I have always wanted to share with someone, is the poetry and words I wrote during the initial aftermath of more than 20 years of intimate partner violence.

I have spent about 5 years in and out of the Mental Health Unit, or what I lovingly refer to as the psych ward. I have chronic suicidal ideation as part of my mental illnesses: PTSD (I believe it is CPTSD, but not officially), Borderline Personality Disorder (I think diagnosed solely on the fact that I self-harmed), Generalized and Social Anxiety Disorders, and Major Depressive Disorder. The PTSD is what has held my mind most captive I believe, with anxiety a constant, and waves of seemingly unbearable despair.

My first hospital stay began the night I left my ex-husband in 2019, and my most recent stay was 2 weeks last summer. Why am I telling you all this? Well, I picked up a pen the second night of my first stay, and really haven’t put it down since.

My poetry has come from pain, in every form that exists. I’m going to be writing more about that. But right now, today, there is hope. Something I have searched for, far and wide and back inside. I’m beginning to find it, and I’ll talk a bit about how.

Okay. I’ve been on Substack since February 2025 and part of what has taken me so long to post is anxiety over how to choose what poem to share first. What I finally did was randomly choose one of my notebooks, randomly choose 3 poems, and made my choice from there. No cheating. And I’m okay with it.

This piece came after an intentional motor vehicle accident that obviously I survived, with nary a problem but a broken arm. This wasn’t written during that hospitalization, but during one a few months later. Perhaps I had processed it more by then?

Oh and another thing, almost all of my poems are untitled, so I’m just making these up as I go along. Without further delay and yammering, I present to you my debut Substack poem!

 Objects in the Mirror

Her dreams
Careened off
The guardrail and
Crashed head-on
Into the makeshift reality
That her brain had created

The placenta of her mind
Delivered from
The spirit that lies within
After the stillbirth 
Of self-compassion
         She is empty

This spectacular showing
Of fear and broken dreams
Has taken its toll on
Her fragile self

And her emptiness sits
Like a hunger
That can never be
Satisfied
While her mind 
Keeps racing toward
The next
Miraculous disaster.

Jennifer M.
August 21, 2020
Unit B

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