Skin Collection: Self Harm

Description

The Skin Collection was initially based upon six poems that were to do with self-harming behaviour in the form of skin-picking. As Isobel developed confidence she begun to use poetry to help describe the desperateness of her depression and mood-swings. Isobel finally found a way of using words to put a voice to some very difficult feelings that were not only very confusing but also very destructive.

About the Author

Isobel Knight was born in Oxford in 1974. She did a degree in Winchester in 1997. She then worked in arts administration before working in managerial roles in the voluntary sector. She also trained as a Bowen Therapist (a remarkable form of gentle soft-tissue therapy from Australia) and has her own private practice. Always interested in writing, Isobel has already started to write her own autobiography. She also loves classical music and plays the Alto recorder. She also enjoys both watching classical ballet and dancing herself. Isobel is also very fond of cats, and finds them very therapeutic! This is her first collection of poetry.

Book Extract

Someone tore at the curtains of my heart.
My hand is stretched out fully to crisis; I never made contact with them.

Misery grazes my face; a rope is uncoiled from the pit of my stomach, unravelling down the road.

Screams pierce the darkness in my head and whistle out of my skull.

I want him, oh god.

Like a sacrifice I am lain dead at her feet.
I would dance naked down the street, turn Catherine wheels until the flames sparkle the skies and ignite us.

Jumping Jack in somersault, reach and pull me down,
Over and over, I flip, upside down. A flat gingerbread, who has been caught by the wolf.

In flight I soar the foggy skies that cloud my comprehension.

I turn inside out, agony unscrews in the darkness.
Wax is dripping out of my formless self.

The clock moves so reluctantly I have to budge it with the second hand.
MOVE.