Tag: mental-health

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Grimvael: An Introduction

I am currently writing (and rewriting) a poem to introducte a creature I have conjured into being. As often happens when I am world-building, I find myself becoming consumed by detail, wandering too deeply into imagination. Grimvael will reveal himself in the coming days, though in truth, he has always been here. Within me, yes, but also woven throughout the imagery and symbolism of this website.

So, what is Grimvael?

Grimvael is a mythical serpent of the mind, an imagined creature that feeds upon anxiety and dwells within forgotten memory. A vast black-scaled serpent of immeasurable length, his underbelly is lined with a thousand feeding suckers that cling to fear, grief, sorrow, and memory itself. He is my visual representation of anxiety made flesh (or scale).

He is not born of darkness alone, but weaponised by innermost emotions and our most intimate fears. In moments of panic, dread, or overwhelming anxiety, it is as though Grimvael feeds, coiling tighter, constricting, drawing life and energy from the very suffering he consumes.

Dark? Yes, perhaps.

Yet there is something strangely empowering in giving form to what once remained hidden, something invisible, unnamed, and shapeless. By giving anxiety a face, a body, a myth, it ceases to be an unseen force lurking in the shadows. Now, it is Grimvael.

I realise this may sound a little mad to some. But perhaps that is the quiet beauty of creativity and imagination: they grant us language for our fears, shape to our struggles, and sometimes, strength we never knew we possessed.

Grimvael concept
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Beyond The Weeping Gate

I’ve been me so many times now,
That I am lost in the echoes of myself;
I hear them calling, hear them calling,
From beyond the weeping gate.

There the shadows kneel in silence,
Wearing masks I abandoned in softer years,
Their mouths stitched shut with old confessions,
Their eyes like drowned lanterns beneath black water.
They beckon without movement,
A congregation of former griefs,
Gathered where memory rots in black corridors,
And time hangs damp with suffering.

The house within me has grown cavernous,
Its stairways descending into impossible rooms
Where sorrow sits upright beside the fire,
A patient dust covered harbinger of grief.
It knows me by every mask I have worn,
Calls each by name in the language of mourning,
And pours black wine into trembling hands
That no longer remember which flesh is mine.

I hear them calling, hear them calling,
The selves I starved, the selves I feared,
The silent twins of all my failures,
Their fingers pale upon the rusted latch.
Beyond the weeping gate they gather,
Neither wholly dead nor wholly memory,
Waiting where the dark folds inward,
Where sorrow flowers into sullen shapes.

For doom has lived beside me always,
A patient guest seated near the fire,
Its hands folded neatly in shadow,
Its smile thin as winter beneath the skin.
It speaks not of endings but of returning,
Of circles drawn in grief and dust,
Until I no longer know if I am haunted,
Or merely wandering the ruins of myself.

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Emerald Ocean of Sleep

Timeless this walk has been,
Upon the plateau of broken dreams,
High above the sleeping sea,
Where starry skies have carried me.

Now far away in the land of dreaming,
Where warm white sands wait gleaming,
Scented winds blow a gentle breeze,
As I sit on the beach of the dreaming sea.

Crimson birds float through azure skies,
Serenading dreamers with lyrical cries,
But they fall deaf upon my sullen ear,
As whispering waves call me near.

Under the emerald ocean I now wade,
Down where the saddest dreams are made,
It becomes so dark that I cannot see,
And I’m lost once more inside of me.

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Emptiness

The poisoned blade of emptiness breaks skin,
Even while standing amid a nameless crowd,
Where emotions contend in primordial tourney,
Like crows fighting over a bloated corpse,
And I, a husk among their fevered murmuring,
Drift unseen through the crush of borrowed faces,
A stranger even to the chambers of my own breast,
Watching my thoughts circle like carrion birds,
Pecking at old wounds hidden beneath the tongue,
While some forgotten part of me stands distant,
Coldly observing the slow unmaking within.

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Morning

The stillness of a winter morning,
Awakens with cold and sharp clarity,
The night before brought such melancholy,
That lingers still in the frost like memory,
Its quiet ache suspended in the pale air,
While rooftops wear the silver breath of dawn,
And bare trees stand like solemn witnesses,
To thoughts left restless in the dark,
Now softened beneath a brittle light,
As silence gathers in the waking cold.

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Thought Serpent

Shadows dance by lamplight inviting intrusive thoughts,
Although the hour is late, I must address their demands,
I sit and write, hoping to dismantle their covert weaponry,
Those heavy thoughts behind my eyes like invaders in my keep,
Anxieties that hang in the air like thick scales upon the back,
Of that great black serpent that has weaved its path,
Throughout the entirety of my waken memory,
Sleep may conquer it, but the realm of dreams must wait,
Until I write, then reword, and contemplate my escape,
Time passes, my mind aches and my eyes begin to burn,
I’m weary enough now to swallow that evening pill,
Knowing, that the great serpent sits coiled within me still.

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Adrift Within

At times, my mind feels adrift at sea,
Lost, with no stars left to guide me,
Disconnected, suspended between directions,
Where every horizon holds the same bleak view.

So where do I turn to now,
When true north feels unattainable,
When my thoughts circle like currents,
Pulling me between fear, grief, and exhaustion.

Do I follow the fading light,
or sink beneath the weight of the storm?
Do I keep calling into the dark?
In the hope that something calls back.

The ocean within feels vast and unnavigable,
I drift, emotionally disorientated and restless,
I lack clarity or trust in what may come next,
Struggling to find something solid to aim for.

Perhaps the question is not “Where do I go?”,
But,“What part of me can I anchor to”,
A place where I can take a breath and refocus,
Where I can hold my head above these crushing waves.

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Welcome to nowhere

For some, it becomes harder to let the light in,
The world seems full of ghosts,
Every face seen is a blur,
Every name known is forgotten,
A darkness consumes the world,
The only certainty is that scratching,
Behind an old wooden door,
That colourless place with stale icy air,
Where death resides.

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Masks

There is a point that we reach,
When the daily mask we wear,
No longer fits our life,
So, we remove and dispose of it,
Leaving the flesh beneath raw and pliable,
In the beginning, it is sensitive to all sensation,
Eventually it will harden into a new mask,
Life exists in a state of constant flux,
Hopefully a time will eventually come,
When no masks are required,
The way we interact with the world will change,
And we can finally rest and be free.

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Today

Life seems to be a blur,
It holds little pleasure anymore,
It is a series of necessary movements,
Each one perfectly engineered to pay,
In some way or another,
I’m constantly lost in thought,
Caught up in a flurry of movement,
Against competing sounds,
There is no longer an opportunity to stop,
I am a ball of confusion in motion,
Daily toil seems to have no end,
Stress abounds in infinite supply,
Pain is a daily reminder,
It is an inconvenience to others to mention it,
What doesn’t affect people has no meaning,
Pain is personal, worry is the same,
Ignorance is the Crown Prince of today,
Soon to be made the King of fools,
I see no point being involved with most things now,
Even imaginary escape is impossible,
Peace always has a cost associated,
Human spirit has been corrupted,
Life seems to be a blur,
It holds little pleasure anymore.