It is 5:16 am and I’m sitting, smoking a cigarette out my window.
I’ve barely slept in days,
Everything around me is quiet and serene, not a single soul awake,
The only sound is the wind rustling the leaves
But my brain is on fire.
I don’t know if it’s from the sleeplessness or the million thoughts all at once swirling around attacking my mind.
But it hurts. A searing pounding in my head.
I want to do something fun
I want to do something reckless
I want to do something dangerous
I want to do something that’ll send adrenaline racing through my body just so I can feel alive.
I want to run away
Go on a ******
Party for weeks
Fill my body with drugs
I want to risk my life
Feel blood dripping down my skin
I want to do anything to feel my own morality.
This is why at 13 I was binge drinking every day and popping pills,
The substances were enough to keep the voices quiet for a little while.
But tonight I stay at my window,
Chain smoke another 4 cigarettes,
Thinking of all the juvenile things I could be doing.
This is what mania is like for me.
There’s little warning, just an itch under my skin of feeling stuck, or unreasonably bored.
When it hits it’s not like a ton of bricks,
There’s no immediate realization I’m manic,
It feels more like neon shadows slithering towards me,
scratching and seeping themselves into my body
Whispering, but still screaming, directly to the source,
Invading my peace,
My stability.
******* just let me ******* sleep.