(reverse poetry)

I don't think about you anymore.
I'd be lying if I say,
I miss every inch of you
Because
You are nothing to me now
And it's not true that
My entirety
Gave life to
Your love—
Always remember that
The pain we've caused each other
Is greater than
My love for you

my                                                 heart?                           mind
    

                                           mind
    is
                               P L E A S E                                           never
      
              silent

                                                 please                               D O N ' T
help
                             me                    
                                                               I
        am                                                                 lost

                                  gone
where                                                                       G O


                                            have
you
                                                                         gone

gone                          gone
                                                                                                   gone
                                                      P L E A S E
try
                                                    to

                   find                                                                me


I                                                          can't

                 see                                                                    it

                                     is
dark                                                    D O N ' T        


help                                           help                                     help


                       my                                         thoughts


are                                                      too
                    G O



              scattered                                                      to
                    

          
                                       understand


I'm                                                                 t i r e d

                     can't  
                                                           sleep
  

               please                                
                                              don't


                              go                                               go  



don't don't don't don't don't don't don't don't don't don't don't

                                                  don't

P L E A S E D O N ' T G O P L E A S E D O N ' T G O P L E A S E D O N ' T G O P L E A S E D O N ' T G O P L E A S E D O N ' T G O P L E A S E  D O N ' T GO P L E A S E D O N ' T G O P L E A S E D O N 'T GO P L E A S E D O N 'T G O P L E A S E D O N ' T G O

The magic of the mentally ill
Is the ability they master, with time,
To continue on and thrive
With a hell built into their mind.
I sobbed so hard they thought I was laughing
And instead of screaming, I whisper, silent enough that only
The weak of mind can hear.
And there's something to be said for
The weaker than the average human
And how I have to say they're different from you-
in a negative tone-
Just so you'll comprehend the difference
Between us and you.
Truth is we are stronger than anyone
Will ever give us credit for
And in our solemn solitude
We find ourselves wishing for release
Through whatever could get us out the fastest
From this hell built into our minds.
Truth is we are never going to escape.
Instead we adapt, we tie the knots between hell and heaven
And we thrive
Despite the hell built into our minds.

I am so much more than I ever expected to be
Despite drowning in this insufficiency
A chorus of deafening inadequacy
Proving myself and others wrong,
So deliciously

I never expected to be so far
I expected to be much farther
I never expected to be alive
I expected to be demising

I know I’ve hurt
I know I’ve broken others
I know I’ve bruised
I know I’ve used others

Regretful I suppose
No
Just reactionary behavior

And I have succumbed to my darkest depths
Though they have never won
And I have fallen back 12 steps
Yet still, I scale the rungs

So when I say “I’ve given up”
Never do believe me
I am capable of getting up
Love, I’m just that crazy.

I fell in love
not with you
but the way
you validated me
when you grew tired
and could not hold my sorrows
in your shaking hands
I felt nothing
I laid my worth on you
full forced and terribly
I loved you not
for who you were
but who you let me be
and I am sorry

How to conquer the world when you are manic and preserve it when you are depressed.

I had a close friend send me a text a few weeks ago
Reminding me how to breathe and that I had to get out of bed,
I thought if she could have read my mood from the west coast
As I rotted in cotton comforters in the east, I must have been pretty obvious
Maybe it’s because we have been friends for ten years or because
I plaster every up and down online to vague audiences, I cast out my emotions
Like frayed fishing line, trying to catch even a glimpse of someone who relates.
But when this friend texted me she said something that might help balance out
The high-highs with the unbearable lows is writing how I feel when I am both.
I did my best to put the feeling of flying at 100mph upside down with wings made of silken sheets into words but the minute I did they turned into wings of concrete and I lost my focus again. And so I went to answer my friend and I said ‘here is how to conquer the world when you are manic”

I am caffeine therapy,
I am engulfed in energy
I am yellow, I am green
I am everything all at once,
I feel everything all at once.
I’m gonna save the world,
All of it.
Today.
try and stop me.
I woke up at 4am to watch
the sun swallow the indigo horizon
One last time before I go out and save the world,
Waking up early always gives me so much more time
To save the world, and I want to save the world.
I am yellow, I am green. I am everything at once.
I wash down amphetamines with coffee and I am
Narrow energy. I am traveling a perfectly paved road
Home to a messy room but that is okay because I’m
Going to save the world today.
I am a math equation stuck inside the text book
From the semester I dropped out;
I am heat energy dancing inside shattered beakers,
I am potential energy ready to become kinetic,
I am energetic and today, I have the heart to save the world.
I started by reenrolling in school because you need a degree
To save bees. That line might have been a joke but I did sign back
Up to finish my degree and this time I won’t ever feel low again,
How could I when there is so much to be happy about?
I am laughing so loud my neighbors are asking questions
And my friends think I am doing better and I tell them I am.
I feel it in my skin that I am better and recovery feels like
Holding hands at sixteen and iced tea in the summer,
And this is easy!
I am yellow, I am green. I feel everything all at once.
I am floating between causes and altruism is an ideal
Slithering its way through my veins, and today I am going to save the world.
After signing back up for classes I spread out my day like magazine clippings
I might never put onto a dream board because I will most likely forget about them
And my dreams make better notes in my iphone where I can see them
As I obsessively check my contacts to see who I can talk to today.
I am yellow, I am green. It is noon and I am flying.
Here is how else I will save the world.
I will clean my room and I will go to the gym
And work off three weeks of sweets with three hours on the treadmill,
I forgot how good it feels to run and I know that this is the last time I will ever give up.
I run on a track that loops back in on itself because I know that if I were to run outside,
I would get lost because I am everything all at once and there is just so much to look at.
I am yellow, I am green. And today I am going to be a wildlife photographer,
And an artist, and when people ask me what I want to be I tell them
I am going to work for the United Nations and that I am going to save the world,
And they believe me and it’s almost funny for a minute until I realize
I have yet to start saving the world. I woke up at 4 to save the world and I was sure today was the day, I felt it in my heart like poprocks the very first time or your first real kiss, I felt it and it was real and I lost track of that feeling and now I am scared that I might never save the world,
What is happening?
I am yellow, I am green. I am potential energy locked inside a pendulum
Hanging from a chemical tree that only grows each time it loses a leaf,
I am staggered progress dressed up like empathy,
I am yellow, I am green.
I am fleeting energy
The kind you watch spark a few times
On telephone lines turning pink behind July sunsets
And its gone before your friends can see it too.
I am yellow, I am green
I forgot to shower every day this week but
I am too tired to get out of bed,
What is happening?
I was supposed to save the world today
I’m so sorry.
I am drinking as much caffeine as I can without
Making my heart feel like it will push its way
Through my bones and out of my chest
Though being able to feel in my chest again
Might not be so bad. I am stuffing smoke  inside my chest to fill it up
I am doing my best to keep feeling inside the skin I wear when I can feel it
Going numb
I wish
You could inject caffeine right into your veins,,
I reread texts from last night where transitioning
Felt like fist fighting recovery, her having one up on me,
I am crimson, I am silver, I am fleeting energy.
I’m so sorry. I thought I said that before
And I might have but I forgot, today I feel cloudy
And I stumbled through steel wool tall grass to make it
Out of bed today and the weight of every single mistake
I have ever made feels like it is going to break my spine
Right in half, I don’t know if I will make it through today.
I wish someone would save me today.
I am crimson, I am grey. I need someone to save my world today .