ARTIST Poem: On The Edge Of Eternity, by Amanda Mohn

I am not living.
I am not crying.
I am breaking.
Folding into the hollow of my ribs where hope was once kept.
Now gone like the leaves off the trees.
My joy has left without a sound.
My heart is beating, but I can no longer feel it.
My mind feels empty and yet so full.
I bury my face into my hands, so worn and calloused.
So I don’t have to see the world that keeps moving on without me.
Have I sat here for minutes?
Hours?
Days?
I don’t move.
Not because I don’t want to.
But because I’m trapped in a body that keeps breathing.
Even when I wish it wouldn’t anymore.
How much can a soul take before it just disappears?
The chair beneath me groans like it feels the same pain I do.
Like it’s held too many people just like me.
People who have used their last words and now sit in rooms of silence.
My shoulders ache like they carry something unseen.
And grief curls up in my chest so tightly I can feel it slowly breaking through the surface of my
skin.
I want it to end.
Not my life.
But the hurting.
But my pain is loyal.
It knows me by name.
It comes back to me every night when I try to sleep.
Curling up where my rejoicing used to lie.
I can no longer feel my pain.
I wish I could scream.
Get up.
Break something.
Curse God himself.
But instead, I am stuck sitting in this chair.
The clock ticks silently, like a sorrowful song made just for me.
I am slowly unraveling, and that is the worst hell of all.
Because in hell, you can scream and plead, as the flames lick at your feet.
But instead…
I sit here.
Hopeless.
Burning alive, yet not making a sound.
On the edge of eternity.

This poem is inspired by the painting “At Eternity’s Gate” by Vincent Van Gogh. I tried to
capture the sheer grief and hopelessness of the man sitting in the chair. The painting was made
during the time Vincent was admitted to a psychiatric ward and battling his mental health. So I
wanted to respectfully honor that by making a poem inspired by this artist.

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