Ben's Poetry, age 21
Seven years ago, before Ben's first hospitalization, he took a poetry class at a local community college. I look at his class assignments now and wonder how I could ever have doubted the seriousness of his illness. Where is the line drawn between creativity and complete inner chaos?
A sample:
GOD
My wind grows weary
Monotony is thick
The rivers ain't clear
As I am stained by this thick...mud puddle
Whilst I bear my own radiance
Sinned they be by a typical DEMONstration
Of a casual world spoiled by love
And a casual battle and death from above
Preaching false ideas
Made right for hatred is doubt
And through this calamity I can hardly reach out...to you.
This short poem makes some sense, though many others did not. But - the "DEMON" in capital letters? His own radiance buried underneath thick mud? To whom could he not reach out? To God? To me? But I was there all along, and at that time he refused my love. What was I to do?
