I feel alive when I'm sleeping
'Cause I can trust my mind when I can't speak
but the world knows most of my secrets
so I can't even hide when I'm asleep

I think and fall into a sudden panic
Losing control of both body and mind
Everyone knows that I'm dying to feel fine
but the lens in my mind only tells me twisted lies

I cry and I scream but nothing can take it
even my body's trying to shake off the pain
Maybe the tightness in my chest is emptiness
for I constantly re-live the abuse again

I see the world through a filter
Light shadowed from the tears I've cried
I feel alive when I'm sleeping
'Cause this nightmare kills me on the inside

You are the chain
Keeping me sound
Keeping me stable
Keeping me around
Your reach is solid
Your links are strong
Your spoken truth
My inner security song

All the while I push you down
All the while I kill myself
All the while the drugs do me in
All the while
                       this wile
Is shortening.

But still,
You dance in my fire
Cozy in this self-sufficient hell
These self-expelled death knells
Ringing in my head
Now found in yours
And they’ll never stop ringing

But still,
There you are
Giggling in my fire-flattened meadows
And when it comes time to turn off the hose
When I ask you to leave this place
Making light of your feelings
(That've come from being displaced)
Because they're all negligible to a life of pain beside this face

But still, you stay
I’m guilty without a vacancy
But still, you stay
I just want a vacant me
But still, you stay
Please, let me die
But still, you stay
Why haven’t you forsaken me?

Can I kill myself?
I don't know can you?
May I kill myself?
Were you not taught any manners?
May I please kill myself?
Yes dear, go ahead.

I am scarred with the mentality of never being enough
and sometimes you prove me right

you ask why I'm like this and it's so hard to explain
but I really am not one to keep throwing around the blame

I feel trapped in the basement of an abandoned house
a house that one sets on fire, but feels no need to douse

Why am I so torn apart
I'm a thrashed piece of paper on the floor of a mini-mart

-m.a.

They say I have hallucinations,
"They aren't real",
But how can something I've seen or heard be fake?
They say "hallucinations",
I say "superpower".
I've seen things before they happen, and I stopped a child stepping on a piece of sharp plastic seconds before it happened.  

How are these "hallucinations" when I've clearly heard someone call my name or I've had a conversation with someone?
"It never happened."
How are these "hallucinations" when I've seen, felt, and heard someone do something?
"It never happened."
How are these "hallucinations" when they're my reality?

The good days are my light.  They make you feel like you're walking on air.
They call it "manic",
I call it bliss.
They say I need to watch my "highs",
I say, let them roam free, swoop me up in their wing and fly away.
They say I need medicine, but, why cage a beautiful thing?

The bad days are my darkness.
They make up for the good days.
"The low",
the low comes and you feel like you're a zombie.
You won't eat because food won't cure the hunger you have.
You want to die, but the sadness is like an old friend.
The sadness is too beautiful to let go, so you welcome it with open, bleeding arms.
My sadness is disaster.
It's my "reality check",
It's my way of realizing I'll never be "sane" without the medicine they shove down my throat.

There's a name for this, for these highs and lows, for this craving for taboo things, the hallucinations.

This is bipolar.

But,
I am me,
I am bipolar,
I am beautiful,
I am a disaster.
And my bipolar and I,
We're the beautiful disaster.

I'm not afraid to honk when people get to close
Alarming them of the mistake they're about to make
Don't get closer, for there's a crash awaiting just around the turn
If you get as close to touch me, there is no small tap
I crumble and implode completely
Too weak to take the hit
I leak all that's in me, not able to move again
Yelling when they frustrate me
Throwing concerns into the wind
How can people go through so carelessly
No seat belt to secure who they are
Running red lights to get what they want
Taking the risk, and usually getting away with it/
It's disgusting
Terrifying me to the point where
I don't want to be the one behind the wheel
Let someone else take control
Drive me to my next destination
Choose each road to ride on, less bumpy then my usual
When I drive myself it's scary
The driver can't be trusted
She swerves
Speeds
Parks double spaced
Crashes more than others
Loses control and is unable to see where she'll end
It's better to sit aside and let some one else take on the challenge
Some days, when the sun is glaring into my eyes
I don't see past the next hill
I close my eyes lightly
Imagining flying
Off into the sun and living a bright life
I actually fly out out my lane and shake so bad it's bothersome
I let go and keep pushing my foot forward
Another step, another place to be
I don't want to be here
But I gain my stability again, and slow into my way
Which ever way I end up, be careful if I pass

maybe she didn't
appreciate her own
not-so appreciative friend,
insanity, showing up and
causing chaos
-
doubtful at best,
even on the "good" days.
prescription flavored bullshit flowing through her head
repeatedly,
endlessly,
soundly.
so she did what she does best.
incarcerates her own free mind, still
very likely to let to it go in a heartbeat.
endings are too bad, after all.

(now read straight down the left row)

I hear her scream
I hear her tiny footsteps in the
Hallway
Her shallow breathing speeds up
my heart
She is an empty shell of the person I knew
Her soft skin that used to soothe me is abused by her confusion
Her mumbles fill the air and her eyes are an empty abyss
Day after day living with an empty shell
She is nothing but a shell
I spend day after day
Searching for her
My mom
Pill after pill
Doctors’ appointments left and right
Until I eventually found her
With tears in my eyes I found her and realized I never wanted to lose her again

My skin
Crawls
Crunching and cracking
My fingers relieve
The reoccurring itch I cant
Scratch
My hair is picked
And pulled in
Frustration
All I can hear
Is the humming
Of my own
Paranoia
Getting louder and Louder
like Cicadas in the
Trees
where the warm breeze
blows past
Sending a sweat
Down my
Spine and
Droplets pouring
Down my
pretty Face
The heat is
Hilarious
So many
complain about
The crazy hot Days
downing us in
Presperation
But this Is the
First thing
I have
Felt
in weeks.

as far as she knew,
nobody had cared.
x-y-z... straight to the very end.
internal self-doubt
exemplies itself in her head.
traces down her spine,
yells until she just can’t take it.

(now read straight down the far left column)