Grey

Artemis's poem draws on her experience influenced by anxiety, working through her feelings, and ending with a hope for self-acceptance and coexistence with anxiety.

- Artemis Lam

mediocrity is my illness

a two-day-old coffee

              drink it –

and leftover instant noodle soup

              save it –

i could not bear to throw out

i could not bear myself

want aching and straining out of me

i am fervidly unwell

i am in a closed room

there is no window, no door

much easier to spatter myself

on wall and on floor

yes, i am embedded now

a shrine for myself now

and i am on all fours begging

curled up and shrivelling

who am i calling for?

the moon is my deity

faceless

nameless

cold-swollen milk-mother

i am used to edges, always on the brink

pressed into the flat outline of a yellow wildflower –

the sun will not rise.

so i must learn to love grey skies

and wanton clouds reflected off the window opposite mine

and me, reflected off the window opposite mine

Find out more about anxiety and how to support someone.

Artemis Lam is a third-year English Literature student at Durham University. She is an advocate for open and honest conversations on mental health, as well as a literary representation of such experiences. When she is not reading or writing poetry, she can usually be found in the gym or indulging in her mildly worrying addiction to coffee.