i must have let go too soon
the ride hadn't come to a full stop
though i felt as though
the ground beneath me was
hurdling at the speed of light
oscillating with such intense frequency
that it didn't move at all

like your face where typically
i can see the movements of
the corps of your features
and the play of the light
with the uncertainty dancing in your eyes
watching me watching myself
following the face that is mine
the razor sharp features
that not even time
can erode
and dull

spinning in fields
or a whirling dervish in my
bedroom by candlelight
when my grasp on reality
is at its weakest
and i relinquish any tie
that anchors me here
swimming with the school
of bait fish who inhabit this
geological prison

i let go too soon
and now i'm flying
my talons rip chunks of your skin
and my beak pecks at your
resolve and erases that
image in your head
of me
sane
grounded
real

blinded by my assault
that you welcomed home
like a weary war-torn soldier
deplaning onto the soil
of his homeland
there's something intoxicating
about watching a fire burn
cracks and whips
flames licking at my ankles
as they burn me at the stake
but the joke's on them
because i'm already on fire

and you can't burn what's already smoldering

you say it to me all the time
so quotidian
it simply falls off your
carefree laugh
and do i see the remnants
of a fear
clouded by memories of another
woman you loved
who brandished knives on your bed
carving the evidence of her inadequacy
into the skin your fingers caressed
the body whose every crevice you had
explored for eight years

you must see some of me
in her
a peppering of her in me
like the seasoning that the creator added
as a dash of spice
to the primordial broth from which
we both crawled
spoon to his lips and a
contented smile turning all his features
up up up

you blow it off
but she must come to mind
every time you hear
the diagnosis
the label

"Oh, she's bipolar?"

the explanation for every
single
*******
aberration in our behavior

but you know it's not just
a "Hello, My Name is _" badge
it is days without sleep
paranoia-fueled delusions as we
diverge from your reality
and exist on a plane that
you cannot access

we go to Away.

but you know
that somehow we are eerily present
at least to you
from your perspective
when inky black voices
scream terrifying bile
and a bloodlust builds in the center in our chest
and we can smell the metallic whiff
of every single knife
each nectar-sweet blade
in the entire world
and you want to be there

you want me to call you
so you can see me
writhing on the floor
unable to rise from bed even fueled
by that insatiable hunger for
my blood
to die
to not die
to not be

can you live with a ghost again

Last night, whilst I was sleeping,
my dreams were turned into
bubble gum rivers
cascading from my mind in
fruit winder waves, infecting
my body with
artificial fructose and
awakening my reverie
with a sweet
burning desire to
Go!
Do!
Live!
So I follow my instructions
and hop on this candy-covered
illusion and travel,
to a place where sugar can
sprout from my fingers and a
thick toffee sauce
can cloud my brain so I can't
hear the screams of paranoia
that come with
all beauty, and I delude
myself into thinking that
this is life.

Instead of spending nights
filled with laughter
and the taste of a strangers tongue
I'm stuck attempting to remember the taste of you
When did alcohol and drugs become better companions than people?
When I should be confident
and careless
I am insecure and belittled
Where did the years go?
When did happiness become a fantasy instead of a lifestyle?
Teenage years were supposed to be
full of stupid mistakes
But somehow
I'm the only stupid mistake

OK, the depressive part
can be a problem:
nothing to do but lie around,
immobile, counting ceiling tiles,
waiting to die, and afraid you won't.

But mania! Oh, sweet muse!

The gods kiss you with fiery tongues;
they burn their hissing brands
into your gelid, grateful brain.

Volcanoes of metaphors;
tsunamis of words;
earthquakes of images.

Every moment pulsates;
every instant an ******.

Shrinks agree that
most artists are
manic-depressive
to some degree,
but to us it is a portal
to the godhead.

Give the meds to the rest;
the agitated, anxious sheeple
striving to be normal:
to them it is a disease.

But for those of us
who lust for Art,
it is the necessary,
not to be missed,
divine, exalted,
madness of creativity.

Consummate
Promethean
benefaction.

   - mc

I guess I will never really understand
The maniac ups and downs of my moods
Like a rollercoaster that can never make up its mind
But how it differs from a theme-park ride
Is that it never stops, it never rests, it just keeps
turning and spinning 'round one corner to the next *****
And I am constantly dizzied by this notion that
I can never gain control
I can never find rest

And look now, as we stroll to the gallows,
How my harsh laughter suddenly mellows
And from a whimsical immunity
Turns into a hellish reality.

And as I know not of what will follow,
With eyes unclear and a gaze so hollow,
My mind turns into a cacophony
Of endless screams, that speak uncertainties.

And, with a tearful eye and a smile so grim,
I turn to this rope, that so final seems.
Smiling anxiously and suppressing a scream,

Forward, in obedience, my head I lean,
And turn to the roaring crowd, with a raised chin.
Knowing I lived, I grant them my final grin.

my body is an
electron multiplying charge coupled device
and the burning photons
browning my skin
tinting my hair to an effortlessly highlighted hue
are absorbed
shooting out electrons
from the arching potential
running just under the surface
like my skin is some insulator
to protect other’s touch
so my electricity doesn’t
stop a beating heart
has my heart somehow turned into a generator?
pumping out electrons like
some sort of continuously accelerating
perpetual motion machine
i tremble
the noise from the signal emitted
static snaps in my hair
and imaginary wildfires dance forth
ripping and roaring in my head
the tinder of my thoughts
feeding their starved pallattes
and they need more and more
as the flames call to me and weep
the goddess of electrons
with voltage running through every vein
and amperes arching through arteries with the energy of my heart
the exception to the notion handed down by Newton
energy and matter are neither created nor destroyed

I'm manic, and so is everyone else around me. We are drowning in our self prophesied nadirs; enraptured in the drama of our lives; enamored with the devils we chose to let live.

We reasoned "What harm could come from this spirit which suffered to bring me such joy, which rose from the depths to meet me in the eye and kiss me on the tongue?"

And we know, the floorboards are soon to split, that the world was not meant to drown all at once.