Arts: Poetry
Journal Entry at Age Thirteen
I was sitting in class and trying so hard to pay attention. The teacher was a kind man, who always had a
smile. As he walked the front of the room, speaking about his chalkboard outline, fog-like grey matter
kept blurring my vision. I widened my eyes and tried to blink it away. A whirring of sound filled my ears.
I shuffled in my seat to ground myself and I cleared my throat to overpower the sound, but the roar and
darkness remained.
With my pencil, I colored my entire notebook page completely grey to represent the derealization I was
experiencing and begged myself to keep trying to fight my way out. Then, I wrote down my thoughts
in a free-verse poem about the feeling of being immersed in a weighted greyness. I tried to describe
the sensation of being enclosed in this thick, grey film that
I couldn’t escape. It seemed like something I literally had to tear open. I also scribbled a cloud of pencil
and black and red ink, with the words Chaos and Mind written across it.
Mind
Can you see? Do you hear? Do you want to see?
Are you afraid to break the shell?
Don’t be.
I’m not.
I try hard.
It’s very hard to pull it and dig it away.
Sometimes it works, but not always.
Sometimes it’s easier to hide in the gloomy depths of the mind.
Fight your way out!
To spring!
To freedom!
Fight ahead not backwards. You can slip backwards.
It’s easy to remember (how to slip backwards).
But the real pleasure is the color and openness of reality!
24 ICSA TODAY
By Maria Peregolise
Journal Entry at Age Thirteen
I was sitting in class and trying so hard to pay attention. The teacher was a kind man, who always had a
smile. As he walked the front of the room, speaking about his chalkboard outline, fog-like grey matter
kept blurring my vision. I widened my eyes and tried to blink it away. A whirring of sound filled my ears.
I shuffled in my seat to ground myself and I cleared my throat to overpower the sound, but the roar and
darkness remained.
With my pencil, I colored my entire notebook page completely grey to represent the derealization I was
experiencing and begged myself to keep trying to fight my way out. Then, I wrote down my thoughts
in a free-verse poem about the feeling of being immersed in a weighted greyness. I tried to describe
the sensation of being enclosed in this thick, grey film that
I couldn’t escape. It seemed like something I literally had to tear open. I also scribbled a cloud of pencil
and black and red ink, with the words Chaos and Mind written across it.
Mind
Can you see? Do you hear? Do you want to see?
Are you afraid to break the shell?
Don’t be.
I’m not.
I try hard.
It’s very hard to pull it and dig it away.
Sometimes it works, but not always.
Sometimes it’s easier to hide in the gloomy depths of the mind.
Fight your way out!
To spring!
To freedom!
Fight ahead not backwards. You can slip backwards.
It’s easy to remember (how to slip backwards).
But the real pleasure is the color and openness of reality!
24 ICSA TODAY
By Maria Peregolise
