The first time I ever heard the term
"Manic-Depressive,"
I was seventeen.

I walked into Andy's house,
to see the oil of his father
splayed across the couch,
in a still pool of ink.

"That's my dad. He's
Manic-Depressive,
and just gets like that sometimes."

I painted that memory into the fire of my brain,
carrying with me the fever dreaming,
the terror,
the praying to never be
like Andy's dad.

I've collected Fathers like trading cards.
My first is the very common, "Abandonment Dad."
I've also got the "Distant Stranger and Sometimes Estranged Dad."
Then, I've got doubles of "Dead Dad."
If you have the rare "Decent Dad,"
I'd gladly trade a double.

Wrapped like candy in your skull
the skin crawling off the bone,  
exposing your white lie life.

"You'll end up the same as him, you know."

His cigarette burnt the faded complications of my life.

"Yeah. I know."

Weight presses
concludes everything,
decides what is nothing,
whips an errand boy to its whim.

Pressure,
withstood
at the promise
of jewels.

So long ago, useless digging down.
Will I find you here?
How much more could there be?
Here, I have to pull myself apart:
the only way I can come together.

Chew my scabs,
peel them back
(my paper mache skin).

Let the oil
of my life
flow free,
drink me up.

He was so far down, looking up the light was nothing.

"How dramatic of me," he thought "they can't wait, can they?"

Maybe if he just broke the rules a bit farther he could be
jonesing for that hit of pure white
Beachy Head again,
and everything would be gone.

The lumination was just that: fake.
He was just that: break.

"The only way out, is through," said Frost.
"If you're going through Hell, keep going, " said Winston.

"Well I'm not in Hell, Winston, and I can't move through it, Robert."

And so he scraped the ***** root-veined wall with his cheek,
rolled eyeballs down,
and started moving his toes into the earth below.

You’re basic,
a lengthy silhouette
miming the human experience.

Staying up late
to blind yourself,
blinking to the sounds of sleepiness
heart beating to Skinny Love.
What ifs,
pre-recorded scenarios
imagining that first hug.
Contemplate that bottle of pills by the sink
that new film that you want to see,
condensation in the lid of the teapot.
You’re candid,
unsure if all scabs heal
trying to remember when you didn't have a writing callus,
when you slept through the night,
when purple was the only colour you didn't use.

Purify infectious matter,
***** green-blue wine glasses overflowing.
Tinfoil vases and orchid flowers,
melting boxes of 64 assorted crayons.
You’re laconic,
often dying to create,
like the verbose and the wordy
sighing simply to translate.

Missouri gift exchanges,
loose blue jeans ******
stacks of classics.
Tales of the Jazz Age wrinkling
to a slow 50s song.
You’re a try hard
dying to knit,
only true fear is disappointment
burning in the lime light.
6000 voluntary hours
linking syllables to daisy chains,
dropping pesos to foreigners,
hands sandwiched inside
the front cover and the first page
of The Count of Monte Cristo.

You’re basic,
down for maintenance,
compressing the weight of the atmosphere.