Poetry has been healing me a day at a time. I had long since lost the ability to access my subconscious through visual art so it remained repressed and festering. Through poems, I am getting out the deepest, most primal parts of my brain. I have barely had any panic attacks since I’ve started writing again. The trauma is being expressed in a healthy, natural way instead of being bottled up inside of me. I think it was the PTSD behind all the panic attacks I was getting and there’s not really a pill you can take for that. You have to find an effective way to vent the anger, anxiety, and anguish it plagues you with.
I didn’t write a poem today but I have some ideas. Staying with my sister in this gated community the past few days has been surreal and I want to write about it. There are no sounds in this place besides bird song. It’s oppressively quiet and still. Even the middle of a forest isn’t this still. My husband is creeped out by it and I am too. I could never live in a place like this. A place where it’s against the rules to paint your house certain colors or put lawn ornaments in the garden. No thanks. I have no desire to have a brightly colored house but if someone told me I wasn’t allowed, I think I would suddenly want nothing more than to have a bright purple house just to stick it to the HOA.
Where would you go on a shopping spree?
An art store. I can’t go into one without coming out with a shit ton of stuff I’ll probably never get around to using.
The Art & Poetry of Mary Coleman 
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