Hello

Welcome to Day 21 of our run of Zine 2 submission posts. We’ll be posting each submission as it appears in our zine. Today’s post features poetry by Jasmine Chatfield.

‘Jasmine Chatfield is a poet and writer based in Manchester where she co-hosts experimental cabaret night FLIM NITE. With Stirred, a feminist collective, she co-runs a monthly spoken word event and makes zines as Stirred Press.’

The poetry she has shared with us is entitled ‘This Sweat is Not Real’. I interpret it as an expression of how being depressed can remove the capability to access simple pleasure and basic human need, natural light. It is written from a point of view of someone who hasn’t left her bedroom for days. Isolated and in the dark. Paying close attention to her environment. This detail is telling of how simple yet detailed observations can become all that the person is physically able to engage with when they have resided in a single place for extended periods of time. I find the poem very sad, i’m sure that is familiar to those who have suffered like this. See Jasmine’s poem below…

If you would like to buy a physical copy of Jasmine’s poem in our zine, click here: http://designingoutsuicide.bigcartel.com/product/designing-out-suicide-issue-2

If you want to see more work from Jasmine, please see the Stirred Poetry blog here  here: https://stirredpoetry.wordpress.com/press/

Thank you for sharing your amazing talent with us Jasmine.

This Sweat is Not Real

I eat only in the darkness

My skin ever-slick with sweat just showered
My sheet-less mattress more skin than fabric
I do not know if it is dark or light outside

Something heavy atop my skull presses, presses the entire plate
the radiator screeches and burbles
I do not know what it is leaking

Though they say natural light would be good for me
I do not see any of it for a week at least
There are tufts of hair and toenails everywhere

By Jasmine Chatfield