Surviving the Knife
a poem about bipolar disorder
Article voiceover
When depression murders sunlight, there are two ways to use a knife: I can push the blade into my temple and shudder to the floor or I can slice open this avocado and offer slices to the ones that I love most. Don't become a ghost, I say to myself. Don't become a ghost. Depression doesn't suggest. Depression demands. Depression interrogates. Should I cease my life or should I feast with my children and wife? I’m forced to take this either-or test on too many days. Depression is a relentless clock, collapsed. Depression is is a compass, confused. Good-hearted people think there's a map. And, look, there's a map! Look! The ink is faded. Look! There's a blank space where the trail used to be. Look! I'm an Indian pilgrim. I'm an Indian pioneer. To survive, I need to accept my pain. I need to love my pain. Dear pain, I welcome you. Dear pain, take my hand. Let’s dance with joy and sorrow. Let’s sing with broken tenderness. Let’s drop our knives into the sand and find hope in this, in this, in this ramshackle caravan.
An exact and heart breaking assessment of my reality. This is why poetry can break open what nothing else can touch. Thank you for these words and for all the words you’ve written. They’ve been a constant in my life.
Emily Dickinson once defined poetry this way: “If I read a book and it makes my whole body so cold no fire can warm me I know that is poetry. If I feel physically as if the top of my head were taken off, I know that is poetry. These are the only way I know it. Is there any other way?” Your writing, Sherman, blows the top of my head off. Thank you.