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

I broke again today.
The earth shattering at my feet
became a mountain beneath my toes
of all the things I should try to hold back.
Hold it back.
Deny yourself the freedom of expression
because it will linger upon your wrists.
Stop yourself here.
I try to stop myself in my tracks
but I end up getting stuck in the mud
and there's no one here to help me out
so I end up sinking again.
As the waste reaches my mouth
I am silenced.
The will I had to bring myself out of this mold
has vanished and I am a sinking ship once again.
No one ever tells you how to cope.
How to trace your fingers across scares you've made for yourself-
how to turn this madness into something so beautiful.
No one knows what it's like.

I was 17 when I discovered I had manic depression-
the words left my therapists lips like they were an execution notice.
"This isn't a diagnosis" she muttered
"This is who you are, who you've always been
it's not a death sentence".
But why did I feel as if I was being sent to death row-
to be hung by the noose I had made myself
out of tragedy and molestation and abuse.
There were no flowers at this burial.
Just a long awaited sigh of relief.
I always knew I wasn't like everyone else.
She drew me a picture of what it was like-
there were five stages of the imbalance living in my bones.
Major depression, dysthymia, normalcy, hypomania and mania-
she drew me a picture like she was trying to map me out
like she was drawing a Ned's declassified Bipolar Survival guide-
She explained it well.
How the days of normalcy tend to come and go again and again
but the mania and the major depression
pack their bags and stay awhile.
The major depression is like
a visit from a mentally abusive family member
that makes a point to tell you what the **** is wrong with you
when you already know, you tell yourself the same things everyday.
But the mania is like you're fun aunt that buys you beer
and tells you it's okay to **** whoever you want.
Get that piercing, dye your hair, who gives a ****?
The world is yours and the endorphin high you're on-
yeah that's your best ******* friend.
That's the aunt you wish you could be-
and sometimes they take you out on dinner dates-
they'll tell you how horrible you are and remind you
of all the things you have to be worried about.
They fill your head with nonsense and anxiety-
they convince you life would be better without you.
But then you remember what the mania feels like
when it's just the both of you bonding over ice cream
and spending too much money on thing you don't need-
you don't ever want her to leave..
"The mania is why most people don't get help" she said.

Mental illnesses are like actual illnesses-
they're a chemical imbalance in your brain
and you don't tell someone with diabetes
"Oh hey, just think that you're insulin is fine and it will be"
It doesn't ******* work like that.
See the Norepinephrine ran away when I was young
and the lack their of decided to hangout with serotonin.
They became best friends-
so I became the third wheel
and suddenly they both just stopped coming around.
I found a journal from when I was seven-
It said, "I don't want to be here anymore."
Most seven year old were taking care of furby's
or watching saturday morning cartoons-
But me? I wanted to end my life
like it was another ******* rerun
of the same episode you ******* hated
and all you want to do is turn it the *******
but there's really nothing else on TV
so you watch anyway.
Idly sitting there as you're hating every second-
But I'm still alive.
And these hands have dealt with more than just cuts
and pills bottles that became empty with mania that became worse-
I'm staring blankly at this page she drew for me.
Mapping out my mania like it's roller coaster tycoon
I think I'll call it Avalanche because ever since
I was labeled as having "Manic Depression",
I've been climbing my battles ever since-
even though some days, they try to fight back.  
There was a word to the way I was feeling
and a map to express it.
I felt like when I was young and I led Dora to the correct place-
all because of the map guiding her to her destination.
My therapist gave me the map-
she drew my way into understanding.
I haven't found my way home quite yet-
but at least I now know where I'm going.

I forgot to take my medicine.

Don't freak out, but I forgot to take my pills.

My veins are not swirling and dancing and wait actually the pills probably slow them to stop swirling and dancing so I guess now is the time for said swirling and dancing, is it not?

I can feel a bit of mania in my head, so excited and so alive and so real. I can tell because there goes periods, out the window, never to be remembered or recollected or what was I talking about?

Its twitching and hopping and like Wonderland and here we go, no ashes, just painting the roses red, painting the roses red, here comes the queen of hearts and off there goes my head, we're painting the roses red, until we end up dead.

Am I somberly manic, or maniacally somber or am i even sad? I don't know its just the twitch, I can feel it, so Chesire under my skin, the smile is coming through and my head is racing and my focus is wasting away under the hot spotlight of my own personal theater. Bravo, Grace, take a bow!

Letters and figures and math and language, so different but so funny because people speak both, why do mathematicians not count as fluent in another language, because its certainly foreign to me.

Ooh, I probably should alert the one I never expected, tell him how my head's a twitching and my fingers a fluttering and all of it a maddening. I missed this, I'd hate to admit, with the progress and the productivity and the beauty and the wonder and the land and the magic carpet ride. What land am I in again?

How funny it would be to see an intoxicated me. Am I intoxicated now? I don't know, I act like it but nothing's in my veins to even the pills am I born intoxicated, am I intoxication incarnate, am I addictive, am I a problem?

I like my sweater today, its got words that I love and words that I feel, to be or not to be, that is the question, **** it feels like I'm on fire, my limbs are burning and I am flame reborn. Maybe I should take off my hat and let out some heat, but its a pretty hat and it might feel bad if I ignore it.

Time to go back to busy life, where the life is dull and i am the fire but I love the dullness and the normativity because it involves my wonderland friends and the one I never expected. They make me happy, which lets me fly like this. The flying fire is me.

Pull your hair out, pull your ******* hair out.
Punch yourself in the face you ******* deserve it.
Can't breathe again.
Weights pressing down on your chest.
**** not again, no not again.
Gonna say something you regret-
Don't ******* text him, don't do it.
******* did it.
Great, now your relationship will probably be over.
Everything feels over, everything is ending.
I want everything to end...

The tears stream down my face
the lungs I use to breathe are the only things holding me back
these hands I use to write are gripping the pavement again
because I don't think I've ever felt so low.
But just yesterday I was on such an endorphin high
I was running in the rain until my socks were
just puddles below my feet
the sky was just an outline of the child I used to be
and now everything feels so ******* temporary-
you can't catch your breath long enough to tell yourself
everything will be okay and somehow earlier today
you were doing just fine.
But these hand clutch your skull again
as you pull your hair-
hoping you are ripped to shreds
because you are trapped inside yourself
a prisoner of your own body and it will never leave
everyday you fight harder to survive
but it seems like each ******* episode gets worse.
Every mistake makes you feel worse-
every mis-autocorrected word on your phone is like
someone punching you in the throat
and you somehow let that control you and you breakdown-
throw your phone and it crashes at the wall again.
You hate yourself for these things you can't control.
Everyday is a battle you can't win
and everything falls to the ground again-
including yourself.
There is a city upon your shoulders now
and it seems your mind is only building it even higher-
you wished you could throw it off but it's getting too heavy now.
All you can do is sit and wait for it to crush you from the inside out-
slowing breaking you down one missed phone call
and un-replied text message at a time
you are breaking down.
All the help you once searched for has gone out of business
and the man on the inside ran away because it was too much to handle-
you've always been to much to handle.
But those days when everything seems wonderful come-
those days when the hands you possess seem like shooting stars
making your every wish come true again-
you are invincible.
Nights spent laughing at four walls encased with your sense of humor
and indulging yourself because everything seems so good again.
But you remember this won't last too long and your back-
back to agitation inside your bones and the war inside your head,
city on your shoulders you are crushed under the weight.

Some days it feels as if all I need is myself to make me happy-
some days it's this same self that brings me so much misery.
Other days I'm just myself, getting by like everyone else.
Then on the worst days, they all hold hands and become friends
they all form a clique and I become a target for misplaced aggression.
My manic depression is a bully, 6pm traffic jams-
and spills on your new t-shirt.
My manic depression is a sugar high, 3pm mid day naps
and waking up just in time for McDonald's breakfast.  
My manic depressions is nirvana and insanity
it holds my hand across busy streets-
but will also never let go of me.

waiting in the queue for heaven..
dying for the moment
sweet bliss in the
waiting
clouds of white in roads of diamonds
raining ecstasy
blue tabs onto the damp of my rough tongue
eyes closed
sensing the quiet and the stillness

waiting in the queue for heaven...
angels passing by
just regular people
and jesus walking his dog
waves pink sweet colors
onto the requiem for a dream
lost on the back of my eyelids
forever

waiting in the queue for heaven...
music playing
just the silence of a circling record
magical
rich in its fullness empty
whilst i'm waiting in the queue for heaven.

and i struggle to find the words
when normally they grow
like weeds in fertile land
choking out the crops
the sustenance to feed the frenzied masses
calling for blood
and crucifixion of an idea
they don't understand.

and then the words are too much
they fall in torrents
raindrops bigger than beach *****
patter like needles onto my head
each one an explosion of liquid
courage to feed my disembodied mind.

and i fly.

I. Am. Bipolar.
I have my highs
I have my
                    lows
I will be laughing about my life one minute
And crying about it the next
My switch is one or the other
But sometimes the switch breaks

And that is the scariest part

The numb feeling
Senseless
Hopeless
Unfeeling
Dead
Wanting to be nothing at all for a moment
So I don't sleep
Or eat
Or sometimes even move
I am a slave to my mental illness
I sometimes watch my friends lose interest
In anything I have to say
Until something knocks the edge and the switch is adjusted
And so is my mood
Then everything is fine
Or ******* awful

I. Am. Bipolar.

I have a heavy heart.
and there are days it's so hard to hold on to
that I want to just jump into a river of regret
and let it weigh me down to very bottom
so I can find peace again.
I wondered why you push away?
Why my ups and downs make you feel
like your world is being shaken upside down.
I guess, I'm just hard for other people to deal with-
it's funny because imagine actually being me.
I have a hard time dealing with myself-
dealing with the other side of me
that begs to be seen in mirrors and photos
and inside the hearts of others.
Why can't I find a good manic depression spoken word poem?
I ask myself as I search the youtube tags
and all the button poetry videos coming up with
only "The Future" to satisfy my thirst for validation.
I have a heavy heart-
some days you feel it's too hard to carry
and I begin to wonder if i can see a future with you-
but I can't even seem to see a future for myself
because I don't think I actually want one.
I don't want to die-
it's actually, I want to live
but I feel like I'm dying everyday
because my emotions take a noose
and tie it around my brain
and make a mockery of my self control-
I become a puppet to these emotions
and no matter how hard I try to pull away-
make something of myself and take over these emotions
they just push me down-
making a mockery of my heavy heart
and my control withers.
I sit alone in my room crying until 5am again-
convincing myself not to touch the razor
trying to convince myself not to take those pills
trying to reach out to someone, anyone to make it all feel okay again
but I come up empty.
So I called a hotline-
6am secrets syruping over my cellphone
into the receiver
into a complete stranger...
I had wondered when I lost everyone-
I had wondered where I lost myself.
See I sent out a search party for my self-control a long time ago-
but all they could find were empty pill bottles
and empty alcohol bottles lining inside my closet
but they never found me trapped there
underneath everything I've been hoarding inside my memory
for years now, I was buried there.
Some days I feel like I never escaped
like the old empty bottles are still weighing on top
of my heavy heart making me incapable of
seeing the light I have turned on for myself.
My manic depression
is like your favorite toy left in the basement
you get excited thinking about having that joy back again
but as soon as you try to go towards it
you're scared and panicked of what could come after you
and even when you get that courage to step foot onto
those stairs leading you to your happiness-
you stop, look at the darkness
and slowly turn and run the other way.
I will take back control eventually-
I will take this illness one step at a time
and hope someone will be there to hold my hand along the way
although I know this heart is heavy-
I am capable of carrying it alone.

I always enjoy flying high, but many things bring me back down, so I grow a beard
I am up to see another adventure that I indulge as I shave.

My heart beat drops, of memory of you, and what should have become, so I grow a beard
I converse with new souls that pick me up , shall i shave.

As all things, life complicates and freedom of thinking is defused, so I grow a beard
I overcome the difficulties and see new opportunity, only to shave.

Once again the thought of you, and stress lowers me to a place where I grow a beard.
I only shaved a little as I know what means to me.