Eve by Hannah Linden

A large tree in the middle of green woodland. Large white text reads: Eve. Smaller text reads: Discussing disabled characters in fairy tales and folklore.

I have been asleep, what can I say?
I missed a few years, gliding in
and out of old nightmares, not always
 
night dreams. Sometimes
I’d daydream my way through months
before the screams would
 
force me back into the darkness.
Sleeping was better than being awake
and watching the reactions to
 
my twitching (how horrible to witness
yourself in a nightmare).
I hadn’t noticed it was twenty years
 
since I had had a thought, a real thought
that breathed in the air.
Sleep thoughts seemed so
 
convincing (I do dream in colour, don’t
you?) and the thought woke me
and I realised I was naked
 
(I always sleep naked, don’t you?
Well you don’t have to say, you
weren’t on display whilst sleeping)
 
and a fig leaf won’t do, not
after all these years, a fig leaf
doesn’t even begin to cover it.

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About the author:
Hannah Linden has struggled with depression and anxiety most of her life. She’s a survivor of multiple traumas, including the suicide of her father when she was a child. Her poetry explores many kinds of impact from mental health challenges and she is particularly interested in the way trauma, and the experience of marginalisation, is explored in folklore and fairy tale, in both negative and positive ways. She has a Northern working-class background but, for many years, has lived in ramshackle social housing in Devon. She is widely published and, most recently, won the Cafe Writers Poetry Competition 2021, and was Highly Commended in the Wales Poetry Award 2021. Her debut pamphlet, The Beautiful Open Sky, (V. Press) was shortlisted for the Saboteur Award for Best Poetry Pamphlet 2023. X: @hannahl1n