Conflagration
10 short poems about bipolar disorder
Pharmacy The pills don't heal me. They just lock the attic and basement doors. The manias still have me bashing my head against the living room ceiling and the depressions still have me digging my nose into the kitchen floor. But, with the pills, it's less likely that I'll destroy all the good things that I destroyed before.
Grandiosity I never believed that I was Jesus or God's confidant. But it sometimes felt like my body was the sweat- drunk, fever- craving, his- and-her home of the Holy Ghost.
Burn, Baby, Burn Some say mania is like lightning but that's not it. Lightning is too brief. Mania is the forest conflagration after the lightning strike. You can send one thousand fighters to battle the flames but it'll still take an unpredictable number of days to firebreak the blaze.
Hallucination In my peripheral vision, a drum drumming and a tornado of feathers. But am I dreaming an epic war dancer or just one more day of crazy weather?
Crossing When I'm at my worst, I see any bridge and water far below as the place where I can step off and fall for a million million seconds before I drown.
The Bipolar Barter I'd trade 51% of all future poems to have my brain made whole. No, upon further review of the evidence, I'd think I'd only trade 49%.
Reptile
In that goddamn
treatment home,
the desert therapist
brought snakes—
real snakes
not metaphors—
into group therapy
and called them
great and good.
But he never once
warned me
that my manias
would lead me
into reckless sex.
And, yes, go
ahead and make
the connection
between those
desert snakes
and Eve
and Adam's
serpent
and everything
fraught
and ardent.
Go ahead
and make
the connection
between mood
episode and free
will. Go ahead
and note
that every fever
begins and ends
with hiss
and chill.
Depression
I'll stay
in bed until
the pillow melds
with my head.
Compassion
O, the lovely people
always rush to claim
that my brain will
someday get better.
But their wishes,
however generous,
are like telling a leper
that his scars will
someday become stars.
The New Age
Because I'm Indian,
some people believe
that my hallucinations
and paranoias are holy
visions but they're only
symptoms of my brain
disorder. Were I a grifter,
I could sell myself
as a healer. But I'm not
spiritually blessed. I'm just
a writer who grew up rez.
So please memorize this
bit of wisdom: Whenever
you think any particular
human is sacred then
you place yourself in danger.
After reading these 10 poems, I truly appreciate your many clustered layers. After reading them again, I imagined you like a whole flock of birds---complex and honed to a fine whir of motion---taking flight no matter what the weather... sunlight glinting gold off all those wings.
I sense the cycling of bipolar just in the order you placed each poem. Wow.
When I got to "Depression", strangely, I found myself smiling---even a little laugh---all because the image is in rhyme and it felt odd and opposite of the meaning, and so I felt it more---felt kinda thrown off center. Wow.
Thanks for these---each one a window. Thanks for letting us peek in, again and again. "Crossing" is so very vulnerable...
Wow. Just wow. As someone missing about 20% of my brain, some of this hits hard. To be honest, I don’t know I want my brain to be whole. The mere thought scares me a bit. I wouldn’t be me with a whole brain. I try to imagine it, but can’t. Depression. Oh, depression. For me, sleep is the only thing that seems to make me numb enough to survive it. My pillow and my head have often been one.
Thank you for your raw and honest gifts that you share with us. It makes you special.