Helpless Devil of the Mind

September Diary '24

Lady Lilith by Dante Gabriel Rossetti (c.1866)

Reading: Armadale by Wilkie Collins / Life With Picasso by Francoise Gilot / Everyman Pocket Poets: Art and Artists

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"Beware of her fair hair, for she excels
All women in the magic of her locks,
And when she twines them round a young man's neck
she will not ever set him free again."

—Faust, Goethe

I write a poem on Lee Miller’s photograph of a breast post-mastectomy. When I submit it to Charlie at

Anthropocene

, I expect another rejection, but to my surprise I am finally welcomed into the fold. Ekphrasis is a form I have enjoyed since I first tried it in 2020 at the Nexus Art Café. There were eight of us packed into this little room just creating art based on other art like an intellectual lasagne. It was also a time when my poetic temperament was relatively stable.

A robin flies in through the window—supposedly an omen of death. Three weeks later my uncle dies and I am reminded of the day I found out about Stewart’s death. I was staring out of the window at Nana's house when I saw a black cat. Only hours later would I read his final letter to me. My life is full of omens. 

I wonder if I am perhaps burnt out? I feel that a day is wasted if I don’t write, finish, and submit something within that time frame. I know it’s ridiculous but it’s just how I am. No matter how many times I try not to be bothered by it, I am upset by my lack of competition wins. I have lost every single one I enter, just like being the kid ignored at the back of the classroom. I see so many of my peers achieving great things, and I try to be happy for them, but I just wonder when it will be my turn. When will I get my black dahlias? I believe I am a decently talented poet, and I am not asking for special treatment, but a modicum of recognition would be nice! I want to be acknowledged outside of my circle. 

As I wrote in my journal, “Am I tied to this helpless devil of the mind?”

I think it’s hard for people to understand how difficult it is when you weren’t rewarded during your childhood. I have always had super supportive parents, but when most of my life was spent at school (and I didn’t receive it there), to see it continue into adulthood is frustrating. I continually feel as though I am fading into the background like a ghost in a haunted house. I spend my days waving my arms and knocking things over.

Aside from writing, I am thirty-seven books down for the year. I am just starting Wilkie Collins’ ouvre while also listening to a memoir on Audible. I am a huge fan of audiobooks. The last one I finished was Orwell’s Keep the Aspidistra Flying, read by Richard E. Grant. I use StoryGraph to track my reading as well as a documented list of my own.

Since my health problems, I have been unable to visit a bookshop. It pains me greatly to be unable, but I am grateful for eBay, and for my mother who calls me from the supermarket bookshelf to see what they have. That is how I recently acquired copies of The Great Gatsby and Pride and Prejudice.

In Gilot’s memoir, she talks of how odious Picasso could be:

“There are two types of women: goddesses and doormats.”

I listen as I gaze out the back door. The blue, green, and yellow clothes pegs hug the washing line. The rain falls from the leaves like little moons. That one weed stays taller than the rest—the perfect spot for Barney to hide in.

The Great British Bake Off begins again soon—as does Big Brother. I get a little anxious when I think about it because this time last year was at the peak of my health issues before it was helped a decent amount by anti-depressants. I have to remember that I have improved somewhat since then. I didn’t have my chromebook last year, so my entire source of entertainment was my iPhone, which is all well and good when the screen is big.

I receive an acceptance from The Aquila (Niagara University’s Journal) for three poems. I consider will be writing another play after the great success of the one I had staged back in April. I love my National Theatre at Home subscription. Till the Stars Come Down is an absolutely brilliant force of theatre.

In Shelagh Delaney’s play—A Taste of Honey—she wrote, ““My usual self is a very unusual self.”

I am unusual. I am strange. I have known this for many years of my life.

In the biopic of Emily Brontë, she was called “the strange one” by her sisters. I describe to my therapist how I’ve always felt like I float on a cloud—observing from ye-on-high—while everyone below treats me like a ghost. Somehow they find me interesting, but I’m not entirely sure that’s a compliment. I don’t often feel right for this world. I suppose this is why I have to leave a mark somehow.

I don’t have much by way of appearance, and I’m kind of glad because I have to make my own way in this world. The downside is that you’re often ignored if you don’t pose for a camera. Brains don’t count for much in the face of a bedazzled carcass.

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