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.