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Rhiannon McKay-Day
New Zealand

Four Steps To Standing on a Horse - Penny Howard - 2014
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"I write about mental illness or at the very least take inspiration from it. for me, poetry is a way that i can share my own experiences with mental illness and hopefully give others a way to experience them without suffering from any one of the numerous conditions that plague the human mind.
"Sending me away" is a poem consisting of four haiku's and is about the feelings that many people have had about being sent away to hospital to be treated for the mental illnesses they suffer from.
"Something like this is" about the way someone can lie about their illness to hide it from others and contrasts that lie with the truth."

Sending me away

Sending me away
Would be just like killing a
Frightened mockingbird

Sending me away
Would destroy my innocence
Swiftly afterwards

Sending me away
Would destabilise the earth
Only forever

Sending me away
Would displace my faithful soul
-Lonely deceiver.




Something like this

A simple whisper,
A silent tear: falling.
My heart: whole,
You walking free.
A quiet goodnight,
A sweet kiss in the dark.
Nothing like this.

A simple song,
A silent wish: imagined.
My mind: blank,
You leaving here.
A quick goodbye,
A girl left in the dark.
Something like this.