Bipolar II

For the record,

I am myself. 

Even in the dark

with no mirrors, no clues,

I am myself.

I am not the feeling

of being buried alive.

And if I fall through the ice,

I am not my hypothermia. 

I am not the cruel absence of

presence

that my heart

as a vacuum leaves

in my chest.

Nor the stitches 

that burst when 

it fills up

expands

again.

I’d like to hollow

my bones with a long handled

spoon

so that maybe

instead of sinking down

I could always

stay up.

The echoes of my ribs

rattling together

could leave me with some sort

of music

like chimes crashing together

in a hurricane. 

My body is a battleground

composed of sickly sweet sunshine

and the decay of rotting blood. 

I don’t see any blood, 

But I can feel myself bleeding. 

You see,

I knew who I was this morning

but it’s changed a few times

since then.

I rise up

and up and up and up and up 

and people ask me,

“How are you doing that?”

And I reply with

“I don’t know.”

Because it’s the truth.

But then,

I sink deeper 

and deeper and deeper and deeper

and yes,

sometimes I take a shovel

and dig myself

farther. 

My mom, my sister, my flesh and blood

suffer

they say I’m a psycho and 

maybe,

maybe they’re right.

But this psycho

loves them

and 

would claw their way through solid ice

clots of dirt,

and steel rails

if I could

to get back up

on the surface of their humanity

and kiss the tears from their 

cheeks

…

My bipolar has been holding my hand 

and squeezing it, 

and crippling me

and damn near swallowing me

alive.

Once it embedded the belief in me

that I would sprout wings 

and fly

and flung me from a rooftop

and even when my bones crunched below me

I didn’t mind.

I didn’t mind,

because I’ve learned

that my life isn’t about

waiting for the storm to pass.

It’s about learning 

to dance

in the rain.