Bomber Planes

𝗡𝗼𝘄 𝗽𝗹𝗮𝘆𝗶𝗻𝗴:
“Song 2 – Blur” ★
01:22 ━━━━●───── 02:01
ㅤ ㅤ◁ㅤ ❚❚ ㅤ▷ ㅤㅤ↻ ♡

My favorite book of all time is Catch-22. In like the third chapter Yossarian describes how he got so bored when reviewing letters he started redacting random words… you guys can probably see where I’m going with this.

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Redacted

Professor Redacted

English Redacted-1

27 Mar. 2025

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Side Effects Redacted Include: An Exploration of Mental Health Through Poetics

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Unwritten

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Poetry Fails me.

It Redacted my jagged edges into palatable lines,

Filters my grief through metaphors 

That taste Redacted of the truth.

Ink is too soft to bear the weight

of Redacted spent staring at the Redacted,

Thoughts rattling like rusted chains.

Redacted break clean–my mind does not.

I could write a thousand poems

And none would Redacted me.

They are just cages made of air, 

And I Redacted still drowning.

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Upon first receiving this Redacted, I really struggled Redacted to draw out what I would write my Redacted on; I then looked back to our writing Redacted with Cecilia Vicuna’s film “What is Poetry to you?” From this assessment I gathered that I should write about my emotions… which would be simple if I Redacted an emotionally complicated human being. This brings me to my first poem, “Unwritten.” This Redacted expresses my Redacted with poetry’s inability to capture the depths of my emotions.

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One of my Redacted issues with poetry is its vagueness, its ability to be left up to interpretation: which is why I chose to start it off with “Poetry fails me.”(1). This Redacted line is a direct, unambiguous Redacted that establishes the speaker’s feeling of frustration. The second line, “It trims my jagged edges into palatable lines,”(2), refers to how often poetry smooths over the harsh realities of life by using metaphors and similes to Redacted it more ‘palatable’ for an audience… doing no justice to the raw experience. This feeling is carried on to line four– “that taste nothing like the truth”(4) –the stark contrast in this Redacted is clear: the metaphors used in poetry, while creative, are inauthentic. 

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In the second stanza, I aimed to make the writing seem a bit more personal. It starts off with “Ink is too soft to bear the weight”(5), this line really draws on the Redacted of ink–something fluid and soft–and Redacted it with the immense weight of the speaker’s Redacted. It suggests that no medium can hold the gravity of personal pain… especially not something as delicate as ink. The final line of this stanza, “Stanzas Redacted clean–my mind does not.”(8), speaks to how in Redacted to the neat structure of a poem, the Redacted mind is messy, disordered, and fragmented. The contrast between structure and disorder underscores the gap between the clarity of written words and the confusion of real experience.

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The final stanza aims to really push in the paradox: while the speaker turns to poetry as an Redacted, it ultimately fails to express the full depth of their experience, creating an ongoing cycle of seeking understanding through an inherently Redacted medium. I feel as line eleven speaks the most to this, “They are just cages made of air,”(11). This line is Redacted metaphor for the empty, fragile nature of poetry. The Redacted, while meant to hold something, are useless because they cannot contain anything real.

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13

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On April ninth, the world became my grave,

A birthday lost beneath a silent storm.

No friends to share the day, no light to warm,

The cold that wrapped me tight, a soul enslaved.

My parents fought, while I, so lost, behaved,

Alone, I sought relief, a fleeting form.

In reckless hands, my hope took its new norm–

Those pills that promised peace, but none could save.

But now, each year, my birthday fades to grey,

A hollow echo of that endless night.

I cannot shake the shadow of my cost.

The tears, they fall and never go away,

A pain that lingers, heavy in its bite–

For all I lost and all I nearly lost.

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I Redacted admit, writing this poem was by far the most challenging part of this assignment… Redacted Redacted Redacted Redacted Redacted Redacted Redacted Redacted a Redacted harder. I wanted my sonnet to explore some of the typical themes seen in Italian or English sonnets. My sonnet, in its Redacted way, explores Redacted of Redacted Redacted mortality.

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The title, to start, has two stark meanings: first, the ‘13’ pays homage to the netflix original 13 Reasons Why, a show that explores the suicide of a teen girl; second, it reflects the events that transpired on my own Redacted birthday…my Redacted attempt.

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I chose the Italian sonnet form Redacted its structure naturally divides into two parts: an octave and a sestet. This allowed me to separate the past from the present. The octave is trapped in April 9, 2020—isolated, hopeless, spiraling. The sestet shifts to now, revealing how that day still follows me, how my birthday has become less of a Redacted and more of a shadow. The form itself reinforces this sense of before and after, of an Redacted divide in my life.

The poem opens with the line, “On April ninth, the world became my grave.”(1) This isn’t an exaggeration. That day felt like a burial…of joy, of innocence, of any hope I had left. April 9th wasn’t just my birthday; it became an ending.

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The second line, “A birthday lost Redacted a silent storm,”(2) introduces one of the major themes of the poem: isolation. A storm rages, but it’s silent—no one Redacted what I was going through, no one heard me. The loneliness was Redacted, made worse by quarantine, which had already taken away my friends and any sense of normalcy. Redacted Redacted and four, “No friends to share the day, no light to warm, / The cold that wrapped me tight, a soul enslaved,”(3-4) emphasize that isolation. ‘No light to warm’ implies that birthdays are supposed to be filled with warmth, with people, with love. But mine wasn’t. Instead, the cold wrapped itself around me, taking hold, refusing to let go. The phrase ‘a soul enslaved’ suggests that I had no control, that I was trapped in my own mind…in my own pain.

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Lines five through eight shift to the Redacted point,”My Redacted fought, while I, so lost, behaved.”(5) That line feels especially cruel in hindsight. Redacted this time in life, my parents were nearing the end of a nearly 3 year long custody battle. This battle, of course, tore apart my family, my little brother having to live with my grandparents for months, Redacted mom and her fiance getting Redacted, my dad and my step mom getting a divorce, and my mother and I living out of hotels for months on end.  The one common Redacted in all these problems was me… so of course I felt the guilt; But I was good. I didn’t lash out. I didn’t fight back. I just quietly broke. The next lines, “Alone, I sought relief, a fleeting form. / In reckless hands, my hope took its new norm— / Those pills that promised peace, but none could save,”(6-8) reveal the decision I made. It wasn’t dramatic. It wasn’t a cry for help. It was just… an ending; At least, that’s what I thought at the time.

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Then comes the volta. “But now, each year, my birthday fades to gray.”(9) The shift from Redacted to present is subtle but heavy. The language changes—the immediate, visceral imagery of the Redacted is Redacted with something quieter, duller. That’s Redacted the pain didn’t Redacted. It just changed. It became something heavier, something that lingers. “A Redacted echo of that endless night.”(10)  The word ‘hollow’ matters here. An echo means something still remains, Redacted back, repeating. Redacted birthday isn’t just a day. It’s that day, every single year. Lines eleven and twelve, “I cannot shake the shadow of my cost. / The tears, they fall and never go away,”(11-12) make it clear that survival Redacted with its own weight. The ‘shadow of my cost’—what I nearly lost, what I’ll always carry. And the tears? They don’t just happen on my birthday. They follow me. The grief, the guilt, the pain—it’s never Redacted gone. The Redacted lines, “A pain that lingers, heavy in its bite— / For all I lost and all I nearly lost,”(13-14) bring Redacted together. The weight of that night, of everything leading up to it, of Redacted that followed—it hasn’t left me. And Redacted it never will.

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Hello it’s me here I have decided to retroactively redact everything that falls before this sentence lol.

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This Redacted isn’t just about a single moment of pain. It’s about how trauma refuses to stay in the past, how it threads itself into the future, how it turns something as simple as a birthday into a reminder of survival—of both what was lost and what almost was.

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Redacted

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I make you worship them,

Your every Redacted bent to their will,

I am Redacted Redacted to breathe,

Redacted purpose

Redacted addiction.

They are the center of your universe,

And when they leave,

I take everything–

Your warmth, your light,

Your sense of Redacted.

I turn Redacted love into Redacted,

And your longing into rage.

You are mine now.

I make you hurt when they turn away,

When their smile doesn’t land on you,

When their eyes linger elsewhere.

You Redacted,

You Redacted,

Because if they go,

You’ll vanish too.

I’ll make you Redacted you’re nothing without them.

Redacted they found out,

They thought they could control me,

But I’m the one in charge.

I took your medication,

And now you pay.

$90 a Redacted,

Just to keep you sane,

But you’ll never Redacted be free.

I’ve Redacted you into something that doesn’t know who it is.

I’ve made sure you’ll never leave me.

You cant Redacted leave your room now,

Afraid of what the world will think,

Afraid of Redacted,

Afraid of the nothing I made you.

You don’t know who you are,

Redacted I am who you are,

I am the voice in your head, 

The endless echo,

The prison that Redacted lets you go.

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As you Redacted or may have not realized by now, all of the poems kind of have a central theme–my mental health (total literary genius right?). I chose to model my persona poem after the cause of my mental state in its entirety. If it is not Redacted, I have a Redacted Redacted Redacted Redacted Redacted Redacted(Redacted). Redacted before I go deeper into the analysis I would like to thank you, Redacted Redacted, for making this assignment; getting to write from the perspective of the disorder that people very often stigmatize and weaponize has allowed me to feel a sense of gratification of sorts… like I’m putting my truth out there.

“I make you worship them,”(1) the first line of the poem is BPD speaking directly, asserting control. The first stanza as a whole speaks to what professionals often refer to as a ‘favorite person.’

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Redacted are Redacted center Redacted your Redacted,

And Redacted they Redacted,

I Redacted everything–

Redacted warmth, Redacted light,

Redacted sense Redacted worth. (6-10)

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These lines reflect the devastation the reader Redacted when the person they ‘idolize’ makes Redacted feel abandoned, and how BPD magnifies feelings of worthlessness when said person ‘leaves,’ leaving them feeling emotionally empty and unsure of themselves. The next three lines, “I Redacted your love into hatred,/ And your longing into rage./ You are mine now.”(11-13), vocalize how BPD manipulates emotions of love and need into destructive feelings. The transition from love to hate, and longing to rage, show how unstable the reader’s emotional shifts can be. The final line–”You are mine now.”(13)–makes it clear: the reader is no longer in control. Redacted has fully taken over.

The second stanza explores another act of manipulation, this time done by the reader instead of the speaker. In lines 17-20 the speaker states:

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You Threaten,

You bleed,

Redacted if they go,

You’ll Redacted too. (17-20)

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So while BPD is actively manipulating the reader Redacted believing that if they lose the person that they are obsessing over, they will lose themselves too, the Redacted is in return manipulating the person. As seen in ‘threaten’ and ‘bleed’ in lines 17 and 18, the reader makes threats on their life and threats of self-harm in order to keep themselves from being abandoned.

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The third stanza explores the negative prenotion that often comes with a BPD diagnosis. ‘They’ in lines Redacted and 23– “When they found out,/They thought they could control me,”(22-23)–refers to the insurance Redacted that stopped covering the reader’s medication and therapy once they were given an Axis II diagnosis. This stanza reflects how the speaker not only Redacted manipulates but also Redacted external factors. As BPD is an Redacted II disorder, meaning it is considered to need ‘long-term treatment’ or to be ‘life-long’(Clarkin & Kemberg 58), Redacted companies tend to not cover individuals Redacted treatment. Line 31, “But you’ll never really be free.”(31), reinforces the idea that even with medication, BPD never lets the reader be fully ‘free’ or ‘stable’…it’s an ongoing fight.

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In the Redacted stanza, the Redacted causes the reader to have an identity crisis, leaving them without a clear sense of self– “I’ve shaped you into something that doesn’t know who it is./I’ve made sure Redacted never leave me.”(32-33)  BPD’s Redacted presence, ensuring that the reader can’t break free and is forever bound to the disorder. This thought is Redacted down into the following lines. “Afraid of what the world will think,…afraid of the nothing I made.”(35-37) The speaker creates an intense insecurity; the reader is trapped in Redacted, unable to interact with the outside world due to fear and shame. The idea that they are “afraid of the nothing I made you,”(37) encapsulates how BPD leads someone to lose their sense of self.

In the end of the poem BPD claims total ownership over the reader’s identity, “Because I am who you are.”(39), making it so they can’t differentiate between themselves and the disorder… defined by their emotional instability. The final lines bring the poem full circle, “I am the voice in your head,/the endless echo,/the prison that never lets you go.”(40-42), emphasizing how BPS is constantly present, echoing in the person’s mind… a prison they can’t escape.

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Effexor

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Redacted.

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I Redacted admit, I’ve had the most Redacted writing the minimalist lyric poem, mainly because I hardly had to write anything at all. This poem, unlike its predecessors, is short Redacted sweet…at least it seems. To the average Redacted speaker, it may just seem like two words in which are the same, but to maybe a more technically trained eye, this poem speaks more Redacted any other found in this assignment.

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Before I continue with breaking this down, I suppose an definition would suffice: Effexor, or Redacted, is a serotonin-norepinephrine reuptake inhibitor (SNRI), Redacted is Redacted used to treat major depressive disorder(Smith). 

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I chose to title the poem “Effexor” to Redacted the sense of isolation I often feel in day to day life, especially when dealing with something as private as taking Redacted. The single word ‘Effexor’ stands alone, much how I at times feel disconnected from others, reliant on this Redacted support for survival. The single word title Redacted how my internal experiences can feel solitary and separate, just as the medication exists as something that is part of my life, but also apart from me.

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I also aimed for the title to imply tensions between the relief effexor provides me and the Redacted that led to needing to take it in the first Redacted. It’s a lifeline, but it also symbolizes a deeper issue… chronic mental struggles. The word ‘Effexor’ Redacted a metaphor for both the necessary tool that stabilizes me and a reminder of my ongoing fight to stay alive.

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Now onto the body of the poem–or in this case, the lack thereof. The Redacted reasoning behind me choosing to make this poem only one word instead of a line or two was to Redacted the duality of dependence. Effexor, Redacted me, is both a source of Redacted and a necessary tool for survival, but it’s also a reminder of the fragility of my mental state. The Redacted that this poem is reduced to one word emphasizes how the line between stability and chaos is so thin.

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It’s a word that, on its own, speaks volumes about what I rely on to stay stable, but also hints at the cost, the Redacted battle, and the fragility of it all.

Redacted Cited

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Kernberg, Otto F., Redacted John F. Clarkin. “Redacted of Personality Disorders.” International Journal of Mental Health, vol. 21, no. 2, 1992, pp. 53–76. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/41344630. Accessed 27 Mar. 2025.

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Smith, Kathleen. “Effexor for Redacted: Facts, Side Effects, Cost, Dosing.” Health Central, 2023, http://www.healthcentral.com/condition/depression/effexor-venlafaxine-hydrochloride. 

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