Agnosthesia
for MH
She gives me a word to look up
in a dictionary of obscure sorrows.
I, who try to decipher echoes from
other people’s reaction to my words
throw down a bucket into the well
recognise water when people tell me
how sad––how infinitely sad. I am
a ghost behind a wall scratching
messages from the other side,
a tunnel under a barricaded door,
the underground stream that undermines
the foundations of a hurriedly built house.
Under this mountain of stones that sits
on my shoulders, a faint yellow pencil mark
struggling to rise to the morning.
When my adolescent children grow
into their early starts, they’ll wonder
where in the world I am, hiding behind
a smile, the bright push of encouragement
to listen to their hearts. Listen,
my darlings, or the world will learn
how to drown you out.
[Agnosthesia: the state of not know how you feel about something, and having to look for clues in your own behaviour or in others’ reactions]
Hannah Linden won the Cafe Writers Poetry Competition 2021, and highly commended in the Wales Poetry Award 2021. Her debut pamphlet, TheBeautiful Open Sky (V. Press), was shortlisted for the Saboteur Award for Best Poetry Pamphlet 2023.
X: @hannahl1n