Dear my friend: I'm (not) fine by Jigeesha Mukhopadhyay (Canada, 22)

You are fine. Don’t whine.
Just don’t come wagging your depressed tongue
in my face:
You’re not a lost case;
You’re just fine— The everyday kind
Of person that we all are. Don’t come shoving your jar
Of jargons of mental illness. Shut up!
Drain out the funky pills from your cup.
You’re just fine. Trust me, your cliched lines
Of pretentious anxiety and disorders and medical terms--
They don’t fit into my vernacular, and I confirm
That you are thriving just as well. Put aside the tall tales
Of cringe-worthy openness about your situation--
Now that’s the word you use too often!

Dear my friend— you’re too loud and alarmingly direct.
Look at you being all confrontational with your self-hate.
Is making amends to others your business?
Get your invasive nose out of there, honestly,
no one cares
For your awareness campaigns, shiny posters,
Getting people to sign up on your
structured rosters
To attend sessions, to speak out, to empathize--
You’re incubating hope in your petri-dish of lies
And serve it on your compassionate platter
for the ones
That keep flocking in. It’s utopian, it’s false--
Stop it. You’re fine, you’re fine.

I am not fine, please hear me out--
I stand in front of you, wearing vulnerability on my sleeve,
I’m afraid, just as you are, but
I do believe
That it gets better. It gets better when we speak,
When we all stand here, naked in our truth, we seek
Comfort in each others’ stories and
We get better, I promise.
The same mind that you sometimes loathe is also the one that writes poetry;
I’m here for you, as you are for me.
Depression, anxiety, pain, fear, crippling
self-doubt— Vent it out.
Put words to the emotions, it gets better from there,
I swear.
Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise,
Please don’t surmise.
You are not the only one here. You never were--
We stand with you, we cry with you
Till you get better, till we all get better,
Till we are actually fine.



Jigeesha is a microbiology student in Canada, working on mushroom genetics. She is active in the slam poetry and improv/playback theatre scene and seeks escape from the academic world and lab experiments through written and oral poetry performed to self-composed music. Jigeesha is also the co-founder of science magazines/blogs like InquiScitive and loves to integrate scientific jargon in her literary writings.