Schizophrenia and Poetry: The Space Between My Brother and Me

When words fail, poetry speaks.

Avebury, England- Photo by Zoltan Tasi on Unsplash

Quiet Man

My youngest brother,
quiet man,
I wish I could hear you—
laughing again.

I dig deep
to find my memories of you,
watching me—
learning from me
how to fail.

And while I failed forward,
struggled through,
you were left behind.
My lost brother,
quiet man,
I wish I could see you—
play again.

I search for words
to wake you,
words that you do not have
anymore—
just voices
and the sadness
of wasted days—
going up in smoke,
burning thoughts.

Mindaring—
yes, you went too far.
Climbed too high.
You always did.
You tried a drug
that left a scar
on an already fragile idea
of who you are.

And while I was lost
to the world of me,
trying too hard to belong,
you became lost—
unbelonged—
to the world of us.

My youngest brother,
quiet man,
Mindaring—
quiet man.

The forms of my poems
are precious.
They stand like stones—
silent and steadfast,
strong signs
to one day guide you home.

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It’s been twenty years, thereabouts, since my youngest brother was diagnosed with schizophrenia. For a couple of years after his first psychosis, it seemed like he might recover. Even before then, he’d struggled as a young man—fitting in, finding friends. An experiment with the wrong kind of drug brought him to the edge of reality. He came back, for a while. He moved to Melbourne with my other brother, found a job as a security guard at the Docklands redevelopment, and tried to make a life. But night shifts, poor sleep, bad eating habits, and likely some marijuana use culminated in another severe episode. A break from reality.

He moved back home and lived with Mum for another 14 years. When she passed, we helped him find supported accommodation in a small country town. He lives with other people facing similar challenges—schizophrenia, acquired brain injury, or lives shaped by the long shadow of addiction.

It’s difficult to communicate with my brother now. His brain often mixes up the words he wants to say. Some call it schizophasia; others call it word salad. It’s one of the condition’s many negative symptoms—the abilities that schizophrenia takes away. He also experiences avolition (a lack of motivation), asociality (a disinterest in social activities), and a seeming apathy or lack of emotion. It took me years to understand these symptoms, to stop blaming the medication or searching for fixes, and to accept him as he is.

When I visit him, I sometimes communicate with him through poetry. I might share funny or what I hope are witty haikus that I make up while sitting with him, and sometimes these make him smile. Last time, we sat together and listened to Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Cameby Robert Browning.

He seemed engaged as we listened, and the poem’s depiction of desolation and isolation felt, for a moment to me, like a mirror to his world. Yet, unlike the bitterness in the poem, my brother doesn’t seem angry or in pain. He seems resigned to his fate—stuck in his own hero’s journey.

When he finishes his second cigarette, if he has any, I usually leave—back to what I think is the real world. But who can say? Perhaps my brother is more real than I am.