One for the morning.
Instructions in the same print
as the side effect warning.

One for the pain.
Another into the vein.
And another,
just so every day stays the same.

One to fill sunshine
In days consumed by rain.
And another
as you lay in bed cold & slain.

Overdoses- the closest
You ever came to seeing it.  
You're able, already a being fit
for purpose.

He sits next to me in the waiting room, his breath labored. He’s good looking, in his late twenties, wearing a red vest.
“Hi.” he says.
“Hello.”
His face is suntanned, but one electric white spark splits the colour of his forehead like a bolt of lightening. It confuses me for a moment, until I realise it’s a frown line that hasn’t tanned.
“Listen, mate...listen, mate. What’s your name?”
“Arthur…”
“Listen Arthur, can I call you Arthur?”
“Of course - Art if you like.”
“Listen Arthur – what are you in for?”
I put down my copy of ‘Perfect Home’ as the water dispenser blows a great gasping bubble.
“Bipolar.”
“Yeah? You being sectioned?”
“No, no. I’ve just come out of hospital. I’m having a review.”
“Right.” He chews his lip. “Do you reckon I’m gonna get sectioned then, or what?”
“Well - I don’t know. What are you here for?”
He sighs darting his eyes sideways, and his frown deepens.
“When I was sixteen I was at this party, right…”
“…Right…”
“And I was drinking. You know how it is. Few beers, bit of fun. You know how it is, right?”
“Yeah.”
“Yeah, so I’m at this party. And I feel sick, ok? So I go to the toilet. Nice toilet, friend’s house, pink bath, air freshener, nice. And I’m sick all over the place. What do they call it? Project summat...”
“Projectile vomiting…?”
“Yeah yeah, projectile vomiting. And then I gotta take a ****.” He lowers his voice, leaning into me. “So I’m all beery and I feel kinda terrible y’know? And I unzip my jeans and go to pull the old fella out…”
“Uh huh…”
“But there’s nothing there.”
“What do you mean there’s nothing there?”
“Exactly what I ******* say. My **** is just…gone. And I realise, right, that someone at that party has chopped it off. One of my friends. One of my friends has chopped my old fella off.”
I lock eyes with him.
“Jesus.”
“I know. One of my ******* friends.”
“And this was…?”
“When I was sixteen. Anyway. To cut a long story short – I went to Thailand a few years ago and I took this drug over there, some party drug. And my **** grew back. Everything’s been fine since then. But on Monday, well, you can imagine can’t you? I wake up and my **** has been chopped off again. Again. God knows who did it, but I've got a good idea...”
“And that’s why you’re here.”
“I’m here because I want them to find out the name of that party drug, the drug I got in Thailand, the one that worked. It worked. It actually worked, mate.”
“Was it ******?”
“**** knows, but it worked.” He rubs his face with both hands, sighing. “So, what’dya reckon? Do you reckon they’re gonna section me?”
Of course they’re going to ******* section you.
“I don’t know, mate. But I thought that my neighbours were poisoning my cat, and they weren’t too pleased about that. Do you get what I’m saying?”
My psychiatrist interrupts to call my name, standing at the mouth of the waiting room with a smile. I shake the man's hand and wish him all the best.
I look over my shoulder as I go down the corridor, and he picks up my copy of ‘Perfect Home’.
He puts his hand down his jeans, adjusting something.

You make it seem as if you dont really want to see me
Even though it is your job to do this
What in the hell do you want me to do if Im a psychotic depressed teen
Im oh so sorry for needing you to do your job

Ughh

The clock gets me.
It comes to me in the middle of the night
Pulls back the sheets and says, "Hey fucko."
Then it lifts open my sobby wet sand-encrusted lids,
It knows when I'm trying at sleep, pumping quarters
Like I was swallowing yawns, sometimes I try to squint
Harder and take a dream to the next level, whatever
The next level is. It's like Friday night when I wanted to go
Out to do something, whatever something is.
Because I know that if I don't I'll miss that thing that's so
Important that if I were to miss it the clock wouldn't come for me

Again.
And on Tuesday's when I'm knotting a dream around 2 o' clock
In the morning, my web-footed adventure, say, killing your

Boyfriend, say
Fighting the Nazis, say,
Rediscovering that you sent nudie pics to
That rando guy we met in that club that lives
in Prague-
I throw the clock at the ******* wall.

Because who knows, I make the bed wrong
Or maybe I don't cook right, or look right, or
Smile the right way at the right

Time. And you start thinking that I have to die.
The bane of my existence is an imagined feat in your
Walnut-sized brain, slowly numbing us while we're
Supposed to be, say

Listening to the rich, Oxford voice of
David Attenborough.

Instead you're thumbing through that index
of CVS cashiers, just trying to find a scruffy face
To flip your digits to, your homemade justification. It becomes
A feat, an unjust cause of mine to

Get it right, that imaginative and artificial bit you've
Been sewing up Monday twilight.

That's when I go out and jaw your sister, somewhere between
A smirk on your face and a bit of anger at the end of your sentences.

i am tired of talking to adults no i do not want to see a dermatologist or a psychologist or a psychiatrist or a nurse no school counselor i am definitely not having suicidal thoughts and no doctor i do not want to talk about the results of my mental health survey. of course dr. cook i am totally open to the idea of taking an antidepressant dear god i am tired of talking to adults do not want to be diagnosed i do not want to talk about it stop worrying about me, no, 'i am not depressed,' this is my life so thank you for not making me sign a life pact but leave me alone i am not going to cry in front of another strange adult. do not diagnose me. all i want is to be normal, i am tired of the pills. i am done with talking to adults

Water seeps into my skin so quickly
Pruning my little feet within minutes
of soaking in the warm water.
That's a lie actually- my feet are not little, they are quite adverage for my height but I've always viewed them as too big.
I bruise at the lightest of touch
And they stay for weeks*
Everything I eat rips and claws through my body- just to come crashing out moments later
That sounds rather graffic doesn't it?
And they wonder why I don't eat.
The pain in unbelievable  
So dramatic poems, aren't they? I suppose that's the point though? To e able to exaggerate thoughts without judgment.
My body breaking down
Screaming with every move
Maybe not screaming. That would be strange, wouldn't it? Tiny voice resounding from your pores.
I'm still waiting- waiting for this *medication to work. Or for them to say "Let's try this instead. "
I really appreciate all doctors, they are amazing. But sometimes I feel like a guinea pig. It's been sixteen years- dont they know what it is yet?
I'm tired, so so tired.
*A dead battery *
I really am. Getting sick like this completely drains me of every once of energy I have.