I don’t really know when she sleeps… pretty sure NOT sleeping is her superpower. She gives a lot of herself to those she chooses to love and I worry about her giving too much of herself. She writes fast and furious with a mind like a speedway. Today she wanted to share our friends book with you and (because I haven’t been able to find the time to love my friends properly) I asked if she would do it here on my blog.

This poem is inspired by the book (to be released 05/11/15 Amazon) Dear Stephanie by Mandi Castle. Also, please check out another friends book recently released Seven by Beth Teliho which I have in my possession calling my name every night.

I have linked a few more great Authors if you are looking for someone new to read! Support their efforts to inspire you and buy some great books!

Rachel Thompson

Sarah Fader

IT COULD BE ME by Lizzi Rogers

Trapped between the pages of your mind
In truth, the fiction’s harder
To escape, it won’t leave you behind
Nor seek to offer reparation
Instead it leaves you reeling, gloatingly
Bestowing with a curse its validation
That e’en beyond the author’s wending thoughts
Reality drifts, reveals its sticky webs
And tangles you in what it taught
You to believe, knowing full well
Its ultimate intention was to deceive
And drag you into living hell
Where so alone, and lost, and scared
You echo around your brain
Screaming silently, for no-one cared
Enough to see you fall, or try
To catch you as you crashed
Yet still you wonder? FIE
FIE ON YOU, vile thing
If hope hath feathers
Then hope hath taken wing
And flown away – don’t shout
It’s pointless; you’re alone
There’s no-one left to care about
You, for at your hand
They were pushed away
And didn’t understand
You needed them, so desperately
So much, so much, so much
And so you write “Dear Stephanie,
Today I’m telling you I’m going to die”
And lining up your plans
You errantly wonder “Why?
Why does no-one seem to know
The agony of this life? How come
They don’t talk or share or SHOW
How it feels to live with this disease –
To never experience love,
Or calm, or hope, or peace?
Yet somewhere, in a book
Trapped inside the world of Paige’s mind
Someone might take a look
And realise that the lady that they see
Could be someone who they know;
It could be me…

*** * ***

Fight back with fiction – not because fiction necessarily gives us the fairytale ending (sometimes anything but), but because it has the ability to bring mental health issues into the mainstream and make them topics of conversation.
Well-written books, like Dear Stephanie, offer readers the chance to lift the mask of mental illness and see the person underneath…and learn that the person is more the same than different; that they have many of the same anxieties, challenges and triumphs as anyone else; that they matter…and in so doing they kick back against the stigma which surrounds mental illness, and keeps people trapped in silence and isolation.
Help to kick back – pre-order Dear Stephanie (release date May 11th) and learn for yourself the way a talented author like Mandi Castle can make a difference, with a gritty, sexy story that you’ll want to talk about.

Lizzi is a Deep Thinker, Truth-Teller and seeker of Good Things. She’s also silly, irreverent and tries to write as beautifully as possible. She sends glitterbombs and gathers people around her – building community wherever she can.