Below are 25 poems about my psychotic episodes. They are tales that have haunted my mind for years. These poems tell the story of millions.
Blast Off to Insanity
By Daniel Hoeweler
They say I am mad
That I am evil
And creepy
That my genes are corrupted
And my brain is deformed
That my actions are freaky
That my behavior is not the norm
They then ask me the question
“Sir why are you this way?”
I tell them as such:
“A genetic predispisation
An environment unsound
The reasons for madness
Don’t matter to me
For I believe
In the world
Of impossibility”
Wacko Schizo
Psycho and nuts
Call me whatever
I don’t mind
For I can escape
To a strange world
And leave you behind.
I’ve seen places from hell
with fires and flames
Of torture and madness
It’s name is taboo
Psychosis, psychosis
Does it scare you?
Madness, Madness
A self destruct button
That I pressed
Years ago
To blast off on a mission
To a planet
Where the aliens are free
To play with
My memories
Here things are different
Many say they are strange
Here it’s the “normals”
That are deranged
If you want to be different
If you want to be free
From logic and reason
Then come and meet me
On this strange planet called
Insanity
Parallel Universes
By Dan Hoeweler
The universe I live in
Is different than yours
I will show you some day
And you will believe
In places
Where death stalks all
Where trickery takes place
Where deception is king
Where demons rule
Where everything is cruel
I came here one day
Through a black hole
Called Knowledge
And viewed the world
In a different light
When traveling through
I saw the demons
That rule everything
Everwhere
All the time
I see them here
In this parallel universe
That you cannot see
That you cannot hear
They can see
Those that are not blind
They track everyone
Who can see the light
They control me
They hear me
They see all
I want to be ignorant again
Just like you
But poisoning my mind
With strange pills
Which brainwash me
Will not let
Me be free
I wish I was blind
And could not see
This world is a curse
To everything
That I breathe
One day you may discover
This parallel world
And find yourself in
A lot of trouble
With demons
That see and hear
Everything that you do
With voices
That will torment you
Stay away from the voices
Stay away from the light
Don’t listen to them
Don’t think they exist
They will lead you here
Where I am now
With voices
And demons that I fear
Stay ignorant please
Forever more
Or the demons will come
And take your soul
The Demon
By Dan Hoeweler
Who is that man
That I see
Who is that man
That watches me
You look suspicious
And very strange
Stop staring at me
As if your deranged
I look at you
You glare me
I begin to see
Your murderous spree
I’m onto you
I see your hate
As you walk towards me
I stand and wait
I see your eyes
They are red
Demon of Lucifer
You want me dead
An angelic voice
Speaks to me
From a place
I can not see
“There is no mercy
There is only hate
For you my friend
This is your fate.”
The Things That Lie Hidden
By Dan Hoeweler
I sense the hidden apparitions and entities that wander
About my abode
Screaming, squawking, and gnarling
In disharmonious tune
These capricious plotting conniving twisted devils
Torture and pain the fabric of my mind
In inconceivable and intangible ways
Incessantly whispering, screaming, and howling
They sing sagas of my death
They whisper tunes of my suffering
This is the mesmerizing tale they tell
This is the story etched within:
“We are coming to get you
You cannot escape
Your death is near
Do not resist your fate”
This song of death, this requiem of evil
Ensnares my spirit and captures my soul
Till they willingly waltz the dance of death
With abhorrent apparitions in the ballroom of Satan
These seductive entities of death with their songs
So beautifully written by Lucifer just for me
To torment the spirit I once held
Now taint my every nerve and thought
Their melody beckons me even now and here
Their irresistible tunes from what our senses cannot perceive
Their voices of horror and madness from within
I cannot resist them
I profess this as a warning to you:
There are things that you cannot see, that you cannot perceive
That no book will tell of, that no instrument can measure or enumerate
There are things that lie hidden, that no mortal is meant to sense
Do not disturb the natural order of things, lest you suffer my fate
Under the Sea
By Dan Hoeweler
Illogical bits and bytes
Are passing through my mind
Corrupting my logic and reason and
Scrambling my data
Within a nanosecond of time
This cataclysmic
Malware attack on my brain
Has left me confused and
I feel my brain sinking
Into a sea of 0’s and 1’s
Deeper
Still deeper
Into the abyss of
Unreality
A lack of reason has overtaken me
And I am swept away by waves
Of irrationality
To the bottom of the sea
Darkness has enveloped me
And I find myself lost
Under a sea
That has long forgotten me
The Burden
I came home from grocery shopping
One sunny afternoon
And there were five police cars parked
Outside my house with flashing lights.
I was met with a surreal and chaotic scene
As my cherished possessions were
Scattered outside on the lawn
In an unorganized manner.
Going inside the house
Past the police officers
My house looked
Thoroughly Disheveled
And searched through.
Outside my window
I could see the perpetrators
Sitting with angry and unrepentant
Visages drawn upon their faces
In the back of the police cruiser.
Some weeks later
I was still shaken by this event
And paranoid about my safety.
I’d like to say everything
Went back to normal afterwards
But certain events change you forever
In ways that you cannot predict.
This had been the third time
I had been robbed in Cincinnati
And I guess my psyche
Had had enough.
The anger and mistrust
That I felt
Towards humanity
Never fully diminished.
I was told these emotions are a
Defense mechanism
To help prevent me from being
A crime victim in the future.
It is the burden
I carry
To help me
Stay safe.
So far it has worked.
The Inferno
By Dan Hoeweler
Electrical waves
Passing through my brain
In a haphazard fashion
Turbulent and inconsistent
My neurons exploding
Like firecrackers in the night
From this blight
Popping
And out of sight
My prefrontal cortex
Burns
While my eardrums sizzle
And smoke
Suffocates my consciousness
Flames enter and
Incinerate
My cerebrum
Till it becomes
Embers in the night sky
Thousands of glowing
Smiles of freedom
Psychosis
By Dan Hoeweler
Running from
A wicked thought
Thinking of
A deadly plot
Seeing and touching
It again
Fleeing fighting
Free me my friend
Thinking thoughts
That it eats
Making it stronger
Making me meek.
An idea begins
A deadly game
Of cat and mouse
That I believe is sane
Help my friend
Save me again
From the beast
Who wants to feast
The C.I.A.
By Dan Hoeweler
They like to peep
And watch
And See
And hide
And scheme
And listen
To me.
Their devices
And cameras
Lie under my skin
Their Spies
And Wiretaps
Can find me
Again
Secrets and plots
And nefarious men
Seeking me out
Wherever they can
Creeping around
Without a sound
Help me, my friend
My Psychiatrist
By Dan Hoeweler
My psychiatrist is a C.I.A. Agent
I know this to be true
You’d better watch out
He may be watching you
He poisons me daily
By giving me pills
That cloud my mind
And make me ill
His cameras spy
On my every move
As I try to flee
And escape from their view
He likes to trick me
Since I know a lot
About his plans
And his sneaky plot
I know he knows
That I know the truth
That my Psychiatrist’s a CIA agent
That is sneaky and sleuth
The Hiding Spot
By Dan Hoeweler
Rationality eludes me.
My mind is free
to turn my imagination
into a reality.
I hear aliens
from electronics in my brain
they are trying to steal
a mind that was sane
And so I hide,
From their peering eyes,
As they sit in a spaceship,
High in the sky.
Their technology knows,
That I am here,
as I quiver and groan,
In fright and fear.
The Thought Thieves
By Dan Hoeweler
I think a thought
Of which they take
They create an idea
Which is fake
An idea that was mine
A thought that was fine
A heavenly vision
On a mission
They take them so boldly
And kill them solely
To enslave and control me
And trick and fool me
I’m starting to think too much
They know it now
I feel my memory
Being erased somehow
What was I saying?
How am I here?
Who am I speaking to?
This is so queer.
Monsters
By Dan Hoeweler
There is a world
Beyond our own
Where monsters live
Waiting for me
I know they are real
For I live in their world
And not in yours
They say that monsters
Don’t exist
But I have seen them
From inside my brain
Feeding
Feeding
Am I insane?
Transfering thoughts
Reading my mind
Inserting ideas
Inside my head
These monsters are evil
I wish
Them dead
Monsters exist
You may not see them
But I am like a ghost
Wandering this earth
Till I die
And am given second birth
They are all around me
Like spirits in the night
But I am dead
And can see
That they exist
And cause me misery
To experience death
A thousand times
Before I die
Is a burden
Upon me
My soul is wary
And tired
And tortured
With pain
That no one
Can see
I am alone, sir
With monsters
Around me
I am alone, sir
Why are you
Mocking me?
I am alone, sir
With company
I am alone, sir
With monsters
That feed
on me
Buy This
By Dan Hoeweler
Hallucinations
And
Delusions
Be Jesus Christ
Or somebody else
Hear voices
Speak
And brag to your boss
That you have special
Powers
That he does not
Like invisibility
Or talking to
Your dog
This is not
The Fake
LSD
Bullshit
This is
The greatest
Show on earth
All Natural
Stuff
I know hearing voices
Isn’t the latest fad
It’s not on the
Hollywood “A” list
Yet
But once
I am on
Oprah
Or
Rickey Lake
Then things
Will start
To change
Afterwards
I will wear
A shirt
With a
“Got Voices”?
Logo
And
Take my Anti-psychotics
Only five days a week
So I can listen
To God
On the Sabbath
And find out
That I am
The Messiah
By Monday
The NSA
By Dan Hoeweler
I once had a vision
That the government was spying on me
And had tapped into my computer
While monitoring my phone calls
And tracking my whereabouts
I had a vision
Of nefarious government agents
Tracking
Remembering
And following
Everyone
Everywhere
All the time
I had a vision
And it ended up being true
Now that reality has seeped in
Everyone is schizophrenic
Thought Manipulators
By Dan Hoeweler
Thought Manipulators
Thought Controllers
Thought Deceivers
And Thought Receivers
My thoughts are not yours
To steal
My memories are not yours
To erase
My existence is not yours
To terrorize
My beliefs are not yours
To control
I am free
To think and choose
Don’t come near me
I am not yours
You Are Welcome Here
By Dan Hoeweler
Welcome to the madhouse
We don’t discriminate
We think you are great
Welcome to the madhouse
Our asylum is growing
There is plenty room in here
Welcome to the madhouse
The world is crazy
Why not catch it’s disease
Welcome to the madhouse
We are the new normal
We are your new friends
Welcome to the madhouse
The special place
For special people
Welcome to the madhouse
Drive yourself crazy
Then join our club
Welcome to the madhouse
We are recruiting
Don’t be left out
Welcome to the madhouse
A vacation away from normal
A new place to call home
Welcome to the madhouse
A fun club
For fun people
Welcome to the madhouse
Take lots of pills
Take them for free
Welcome to the madhouse
Just call your doctor
And get your ticket in
Welcome to the madhouse
Step up
And step in
Voices in the Night
By Dan Hoeweler
Voices, voices in the night
I hear you speaking
About my plight
“Going to have fun
My puppet my toy
As I steal your thoughts
As I play with your head
I’m eager to feed
As you lie in bed”
Voices please
Stay away
I don’t want trouble
This very day
“I am here
To play with your soul
As you listen to me
You are under my control
My voices come
From within
The device I implanted
Under your skin”
Voices, voices
Threatening me
I beg and plea
Let me be
“An idea can begin
A deadly game
Of cat and mouse
That is insane
Think hard now
At the thought
In your head
Now run for your life
Or just be dead”
Voices, voices
Don’t unleash the beasts
That chase after me
“It’s too late my friend
They are after you
You’d better hurry
They know where you are
So run along
Or you won’t get far
The Confessions Of My Paranoia
By Dan Hoeweler
I am the one that follows you
I am the one that knows your thoughts
I am the one that you cannot hide from
I am the one with secret plots
I am the one who tapped your phone
I am the one who whispers in your ear
I am the one who you talk to
I am the one who brings you to tears
I am the one that made you a leper
I am the one that made you feared
I am the one that made you beg
I am the one whose always near
I am the one who stole your wife
I am the one who stole your job
I am the one who stole your home
I am the one who possessed your life
Yours Forever,
Your Paranoia
You Don’t Know Me
By Dan Hoeweler
I am not that thing
On your television screen
That searches for victims
In the night
Is that what you think of me?
A madman gone bad
A badman gone wild
A wild man on the loose
Maybe if we met and talked
You would find out
That I am vegetarian
That I can program in C
That I am a nerd who likes Star Wars
And a computer instructor
Instead you see
A man once gone mad
Who used to hallucinate
And hear voices
Who am I?
How would you know
The Monsters on TV
By Dan Hoeweler
I am a decent human
Or so I thought
Until the news told me
That I am a
Schizophrenic nut
Gone mad
Destined to be
Soulless and bad
That’s why I decided to turn off the news
And think instead
About the things that matter
Instead of listening to the propaganda
On my TV
Televised stupidity
That doesn’t represent me
Take me away
From that insanity
The Computer Virus in my Head
Information scrambled into irregular bits and bytes
Are being downloaded into my mind
Corrupting the input/output
Regulator that has given me
Balance throughout time
These corrupt data points
Are a source of angst for my
Central Processing Unit
A source of logic
That has gone mad
And is now creating
Dysfunctional data
Scrambled information
Malignant viruses
And corrupt logic
Inside my head
You Never Forget
20 years ago
I had no place to call home
And was “Filth on the street”
People would walk by
Not understanding
Why
A young man so seemingly
Vibrant could end up
With no place of his own
Much later
I would find myself employed
With my own domicile
A seemingly impossible task
Now I
See the so-called
“Vagrants” on the street as
Former shadows of myself
“What could have been”
I see myself
In each of them
The Unreality of my Being
Is reality something that is sold to us
In propaganda and TV commercials?
Or is it something else?
Some ticking thing inside my head that
I play with from time to time
In an attempt to make myself happy
Or to escape from this sick, sick place
Into the unreality of insanity.
Never Alone Again
By Dan Hoeweler
A kitten showed up on my porch
Worm infested and
Half starved and
Homeless
I felt as if it was bad karma
To leave him out in the cold
Given that I myself was
Homeless some years earlier
Looking into his eyes
I knew there was this bond between us
So I took him under my wing
Cleaned him up, took him to the vet
And christened him with the name
“Mr Giggles” and gave him a
Place to stay
And we hang out to this day
Two former vagrants
Once cast aside
Yet now living it up
Having the time of our lives
Knowing that we are survivors
Has made life so much sweeter
We savor its juices even better
When we share it together
The Blacklist
I don’t understand it
But ever since I started writing
About my delusions online
Headhunters
Haven’t called me
For an interview
Not even
One single time.
Its as if I carry the plague
I can ward every fortune 500 company
From one hundred miles away
I guess they have never heard about
That law called
The ADA.
Antipsychotics
Have you ever had your life
Held by a thin rope?
That is what
Everything feels like
On a
Life saving drug.
My job
My friends
My family
My life
All dependent
On a single pill.
Without
These pills
I would cease
To be,
And with them
I can flourish.
Modern medicine
Has breathed
Life into me,
And made me realize
That true heroes
Often work
In hospitals
Stigma & Victim Avoidance
When you suffer from a
Stigmatized disability
Like Schizophrenia
It is important that you
Watch your associations
And connections.
There are people who
Will try to take advantage of
Your situation
And the best way to
Avoid being a victim is to
Associate with people
Who are of a more
Noble and less
Predatory
Nature.
You will experience
Prejudice
By similar
Individuals
Don’t let their
Negativity
Contaminate
Your mind and
Actions.
It is a rough life
But in the end
It is important to
Realize
That there are still
People out there who
Will treat you fairly
Regardless of
Your disability
Status
Psychotic Universe
Thing of evil.
Seed of Satan.
That primordial
Idea that gave
Birth to terror
From inside
My mind:
“That evil exists everywhere”.
That cancerous thought
That grew
Like tumors
Inside my soul.
That idea that
Conjured this other world
To unfold.
A universe
Where
Falsehoods become truth
And truth becomes horror.
A universe
Where misery reigns
Where demons thrive
Where reason dies.
A universe
Where friends become enemies.
Where enemies are not real.
Where love does not exist.
A universe that
I’ve poisoned with
Thousands of pills
From physician and
Quake alike.
A universe were
I no longer reside
Allowing the tale can be told.
I remain precariously unfettered
Till eternity takes hold.
Recovery Journey
I fell apart into
A thousand pieces
Twenty years ago
And it’s taken almost that long to
Sew myself back together.
Piece by piece
Part by part
Brainwaves being rerouted
Into their proper places and
Neurons being soothed into
A serene state of being through
Medication
Exercise
Diet and
An honest job.
It’s been a
Monumental task
That exhibits how
Self improvement is
An endeavor worth pursuing
For even the most flawed
Human being.
I had a best friend who was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia and 7 years ago on April 5 he was found hanging from his garage my world was twisted upside down for I had lost my best friend to this day I had no idea what was going on in his head but these poems helped me understand more.
I wish I would have written poetry in my hard times. You are not alone.
The demon was my favorite. Very very well put.
You are my new favorite poet. Your poems were so deep, creative, and emotionally moving to me. I love your works.
I embrace your words, finding my own self. I am a music producer and would love to have you write lyrics for me. Email me if you would be interested. [email protected]
These poems are deep. My favorite poem was ” You don’t Know Me”. I haven’t been fond of poetry until i read these. I have a new genre i like to read. Thank you
Thank you for your poetry. It’s more than that to me. My son has been diagnosed with schizoaffective disorder bipolar mania. I’m trying to understand what he’s dealing with and why he hates me sometimes. I don’t think I can but for some reason you’re poetry makes it not so lonely for me.
Thank you.
This made me cry all the way through reading it. I feel like i just got one step closer to forgiving and loving my schizophrenic father again. I was raised to hate him by the rest of my family but now i cry for him.
Hi Dan, I am impressed with your poems. I will be taking part in a mental health awareness workshop in June. The purpose of the workshop is to create awareness and understanding. I would like to share a couple of your poems. Would you be willing to give permission or your poetry to be used. I look forward ti hearing from you. Take care. Cheryle
Hello Cheryle,
You have my permission to use my poetry in your workshop. Thank you for reading my works, and I hope that you find them useful. Thanks again.
-Dan Hoeweler
Hi Dan.
I sometimes put words and phrases on pottery I make. Would you give me permission to use parts of your poems? I would also put your name to properly credit you. You are remarkable. You are aware. You are courageous. I wish you better and better health.
You have permission to use part of my poems. Thank you for reading :)
You have permission to use part of my poems. Thank you for reading :)
Is there an online store where I might be able to buy a piece of pottery? I’m not sure if I can afford it, but at least I can look.
You Are Loved
I was wondering if I can use one of your poems for a choral piece. Thanks, Holden.
Hello Holden,
Yes, you can use one of my poems for a choral piece. You can contact me at [email protected] Thanks.
I would like to use few of your poems in an event to educate about Schizophrenia .
Hopes it’s ok .
Go ahead. Thanks.
Thanks so much .
Great poems. I can relate a lot to them.
Dear Dan,
Thank you so much for sharing your heart, mind and struggles and pain with us. This is a gift to those of us who also have schizophrenia! I loved the poem about the miracle kitten given to you on the porch, a friend to love. Don’t give up!
Best wishes and prayers for you!
Rachel
Thank you, your support means a lot.
-Dan