Welcome to the Bipolar Poetry Reading!

Send email to Jeremy

Greetings,
   I've been diagnosed as bipolar for about a year now.  At age 22, it's
a relief at times (knowing the source of the mood swings), and a drag at
others (taking the Lithium and wondering if I'll relapse anyway).
   Here are a few selections of my writing on the subject:


						Passible Rebirth

When all is as well as today, with smiles around nearly every corner,
I discover a secret longing for depression, just the forbidden flavor.
To feel it's course texture, rolling the emotion around with my tongue,
But careful to maintain a firm grip with which to return.
Dancing with the devil, Russian Roulette with the soul,
Bungee jumping into the void, spiking the punch bowl of life.
Tonight I will cuddle with my pillow and moisten my cheeks.
Tomorrow I will be reinvigorated and eager to face the chaos of life.
Will it always be this easy?  Have I graduated out of the vicious
extremes?
Can a little pink pill they call Lithium have been my savior?
Or will I wake up tomorrow in another hospital;  alone and trapped?
The thought, the realization that this could be a reality, is sobering.
With this awareness I struggle to better prepare myself for the unknown.
Perhaps in Yoga, Tai Chi, proper nutrition and exercise I can win.
These are my weapons with which I fight for sustained sanity.
And there is one other, still elusive and around the corner:  love, a
companion.
A partner with whom to share emotional extremes, softening their bite.
One who I can merge my dreams with, taking part in hers.
But this is all in the future;  "Tomorrow" and the day after...
Tonight I must be content with myself, savoring a sullen mood.
As I lay me down to sleep, hugging myself because I can,
I look to the stars and begin the countdown, for "Tomorrow" is
approaching.

					Exhausted Mania

Perhaps this could be called my new theory on poetry.
The ever futile attempt at pulling reason into life.
A gesture of redundancy in attempt to calm a scattered mind.
I have to wonder if this is my way of adding water to pain.
Scared to allow another to truly see the things that I feel.
But still needing a written record to survive me if necessary.
This night my mind churns in a caffeinated melancholy.
Sensing an energy that seems all too familiar and out of place.
Feeling emotions flying randomly but claiming order,
as if standing in a false salute
the act of pointing the finger
a desperation that I can't escape
and am afraid to confront
So I sit here with this evolved pen and paper to scribble my thoughts
Drinking hot tea as music rubs my back and soothes what it can.

  My mind is admittedly crippled with exhaustion and shock
  Stifled by hangovers and sugar and left over hormones.
  But it leaves me wondering if they are the source or the residue.
  If I should get on the phone and call for help, or go to bed.
  Sleeping off a life's worth of understandable incomprehensibility.
  Maybe just saying that five times fast will snap me out of it.
  Sad when the laugher doesn't come to forced bad jokes.
  Though I suspect some would find this a relief.

      Does impotence produce mad men?
      Is it a key unlocking mysteries to the state tagged insanity?
      The frustration of having your dream and being unable to follow
through.
      Listening to your own subconscious taunt and heckle.
      Impotence is so much more than a limp dick
      As even a woman can be impotent.
      Not to mention, insane.

  I rock back and forth in my chair to the calm rhythm
  Comforted by strong arms embracing me in a hug
  Even in the knowledge that they are my own arms
  I can take refuge in the fact that others would be here if I asked.
  But the sad thing is that it wouldn't help.
  It feels that it can't help.
  There's a word for this feeling.
  While the English language lacks many
  It doesn't lack this one.
  Helpless.
  If from nothing else, perhaps apathy.
  So I continue to embrace myself and breath deeply.
  I can make it until tomorrow.
  I will make it until tomorrow
  I will.

      Would you let me out?
      The scream bubbles from inside through external prompts.
      This urge is to kill the king and feed his money to the needy
hungry.
      In revelation I recognize what I feel as a withdrawal.
      Something is leaving my system, and it's screaming like a starving
infant.
      If only I could place a finger on a concrete source.
      Instead of rubbing my head and scratching my ass.
      Either move feels the same.
      Neither accepts responsibility.
      But both stand to loose.
      We're all in this together.
      No matter how disassociated things begin to seem.

    Looking around the room a smile escapes my lips.
    If nothing else, at least I can be proud to have made it home once
again.
    It's a jungle out there, but in my den I am the king who controls
the input.
    Tomorrow I have daylight with which to dilute this nightmare.
    A respite in which to focus and point myself where I want to be
going.
    Then its only a mater of time.
    Of putting my left foot out then my right.
    Keeping my chin up.
    Proving that I have the will.
    The desire.

  Life.
  Don't ask me why
  But I try to comprehend.
  I reach out for help when I least need it.
  I pull back when my struggle is the deepest.
  And then I blink
  Looking forward blankly.
  And I wonder why...

Glancing back, I see I strayed from my code of watered down madness
The self that keeps me awake at night seems to have stirred again
Not a schizophrenic paranoia as it may first appear
But a suppressed ball of hypertensive emotions and memories.
Things that though frightful are admittedly tied firmly to my soul.
Cut them out if you deem it necessary
But recognize that I too will be gone.

Email Reba Warbington

Hello there Leslie,

Here's a poem I wrote back last June.... Normally I don't share them on 
the net or cyberland, but thought you might appreciate this one.....


Reba 

------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Who"

Who is there to talk to when no one can understand?
Trying to explain is only arranging words for effect;
Not conveying all the pain that ebbs deep inside.
Who is there who can truly listen and care
When so much burdens each of us in our own lives,
And rather than feeling we can only compare scars
Like the veterans of wars long past telling our tales
To the stranger behind the bar with the plastic smile
And impatient eyes?
Gone now are the dreams once held dear and true. 
Crushed and ground into the dust of midnight stars
Blown across the night sky to unreachable heights.
Desperation too easily found prevails in dreams.
Emotions unexpressed bury themselves deeper,
Tearing their way slowly through the soul
Leaving trails of dark emptiness behind
That can never be repaired.
The mind betrays the body, plays tricks,
Hide-and-seek with thoughts, facts, ideas;
Keep-away with the serenity of sanity.
Who can reach inside and see all this and more
And not be blinded by the pure helplessness found?
Who is able to stand and be strong watching shadows
Dancing through eyes dulled
By sleepless nights and endless days?
Hear the silent screaming within the mind
That refuses to be silenced like a rebelling child?
There is such loneliness here. Such isolation.
The feeling of cold, cold steel against hot flushed skin.
The walls are too tall, there are no doors, and the windows...
Oh, but the windows show the world outside
Far from reach, exaggerated in its illustion of beauty,
Locked away behind indestructible glass bars
That won't even shatter in the hand
And allow the life to bleed. 

(C) Reba Warbington 
June 1996

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