#scott-patrick mitchell

[lifeinpoetry]

familiar is only an ache.

— Scott-Patrick Mitchell, from "inner pity poems," Clean: Faith, Abuse and George Pell

[lifeinpoetry]

remember, getting clean is a form of grief so let go of your own ghost: a wake, every day.

— Scott-Patrick Mitchell, from "binding spell," Clean: Faith, Abuse and George Pell

[lifeinpoetry]

We burn ourselves alive from the inside.

— Scott-Patrick Mitchell, from "Co-Dependency (How Terror Forms)," Clean: Faith, Abuse and George Pell

[lifeinpoetry]

. from out the corner of my sight paranoia paranoia paranoia shadow people wave hello . see now how conversations drop . crash clatter bang into every . can’t remember where i . so easily distracted by . sleep will claim us . sleep will claim . sleep will . sleep

— Scott-Patrick Mitchell, from "The Sleep Deprivation Diaries," Clean: Faith, Abuse and George Pell

[lifeinpoetry]

in the therapist’s office you become dissociative flesh & from above you can see your interior’s ecology

— Scott-Patrick Mitchell, from "embodied," Clean: Faith, Abuse and George Pell

[lifeinpoetry]

Pink cloud an apostrophe in sentence, lifting. Five months on. Heady moments of recollection: the body has memory, remembers maelstrom. Nature is speaking clearer. Stones sing as they once did. Clear space inside yourself: there is grief, encroaching. Your mother will forgive you. The city will too. Walk with both of them. Watch as age takes hold. Gain more weight: shame is such a heavy, useless emotion.

— Scott-Patrick Mitchell, from "Clean," Clean: Faith, Abuse and George Pell

[lifeinpoetry]

Because I am still manifesting. At the age of 42, my gender identity is more fluid than ever. Inside, I am aqueous. Outside, I do not know which pronouns best suit me: been using he and him for so long I wonder if they are who I am. Or who I was. Who was I again?

— Scott-Patrick Mitchell, from "This Is Not A Manifesto," Clean: Faith, Abuse and George Pell

[lifeinpoetry]

If all time hap- pens at the same time, then every day is eulogy. Suffering is a cycle of bird and bud and sun. Of meds and ash and want. You put on your shoes. Walk. There’s a sea- son just over the hill. Beneath a summer sun, a magpie warbles. Tears evaporate. The blossom is spilt.

— Scott-Patrick Mitchell, from "Every Day," Clean: Faith, Abuse and George Pell