After

‘You have lost weight.’

My brother has come on a visit.

When he leaves, I go to the mirror.

I am pale and small.  I have lost weight.

I washed my hair, twisted it into a bun.

It is still wet, so it sticks up.

I look like Tintin.

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I look small and fragile,

but I know what I did.

I took on a psychiatric illness, and I defeated it.

Depression so severe, that everyone else had left the field.

‘Your daughter will never recover, in my opinion.’

Learned Doctors giving us a gloomy forecast.

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The thing is, I am like a soldier returned from the war.

He knows how to fight, but now he is on civvy street.

I am struggling now.

I do not know where to begin, with life after a mental illness.

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