I seize in the day, I seize in the night

Convulsions plague me throughout my life

  The stiffness comes, And then it goes

But the worst is afterward, when I’ve discovered that my friends can turn into foes

The mere sight of it has scared them off

As a result they laugh, taunt and scoff

I seize in the day, I seize in the night

Medicines plague me throughout my life

The neurologist says “Let’s try this one”

Dilatin, Depakote, Tegretol, Topamax

They try my last nerve, Until finally I say

“Haven’t you tried enough on me, you quacks?!?”

I seize in the day ,I seize in the night

Must I wear a “dogtag” for all my life?

This little tag, on my necklace, it labels me

Can’t you see the medical symbol and on the other side in big bold letters “EPILEPSY”

It’s a ****** on the self-esteem

It’s a reminder that I belong to a different regime

One of a nature gone to extremes, If that is what I let it be

I seize in the day,  I seize in the night

I don’t give up, I say to my brain and my soul, “Fight, Fight, FIGHT!”

I’m frustrated and don’t give up
Although there are times when I want to, I don’t.

I’ve been a fighter from the day I was born

And in the heat of this battle of neurons and neurologists

My determination and perseverance were forged.

The more I seized, the more I fought

Through the trauma of it all, lessons were learned and taught

And the more I seized, the more I realized

  That Epilepsy was a lesson in Serenity.

If you stare out of a window
Across a bleak garden some September morning
If the neem tree in the garden reminds you of home
Vast, old, timeless
If you remember playing under a neem tree in Allahabad
And you can almost hear the laughter of children as they play
In the heat of a sultry afternoon in June
And because the window is small and barred and cannot open
Because you want to breathe freedom
Because you want to shower without them watching
Because you silently swallow your screams
Because your mind is starting to get fuzzy
Because your tongue is starting to slur
Because you have started drooling
Because your fingers shake when you write
Because the words Ritalin Prozac Depakote Lithium
Have started sounding like poetry
Because you feel your resistance slowly dying
Because you start to say the words they want to hear
Because you know the glazed look in the eyes of others
Is in your eyes too
Because this confluence of muscle and bone is wasting
Because you sleep for hours
Because you now smile at your doctors
Because you scream when the ECT paraphernalia is wheeled in
Because no one cares
Because once you’re labeled, you will be forever
Because asylums were once freak shows
Because asylum is not what it means
You go back to staring
Staring
Staring
Staring
Staring
Staring
­ Staring
Staring

I cry myself to sleep thinking of our last kiss
dear god I hope I've never made someone else feel like this 
I once thought I found god in the bend of your spine
I don't know why but you're the only thing that's ever made me feel alive
there's a pack on the counter and it keeps screaming your name 
my comfort is empty hallways, I know they feel the same
everything I write has your name between the lines
the only days I could breathe right were when you were mine
sometimes I see your ghost laying in my empty bed
for all of this pain, I think there's something to be said
the echo of your voice is a reminder I really hate
when I hear it I know I better call my shrink up before it's too late
depakote, klonopin, ambien, prozac
dear god if you're there, tell me where my head's at 
do her hands feel better in yours than mine 
I'm sorry this is so messy but I have to get it down in time 
I'm sick of people on main street asking me what I'm crying about
I make a fist and tell them a loves a love until it burns itself out.

Anthony and the depakote
Intensity and the words I wrote
joy at times, but then the blue note ...

                      I believe in God!

India and the Jesuits
$3.73 and Depakote

No one else, No one else
Like the letter that I wrote

Now i sit and now i wait
Only she can vote

It's love; it really is.
Disguised, but still devote.

so I wake up from this dream in the summer of 2015 with a poem/song in my mind or at least the first stanza and I go down into the lobby of the hotel where we are staying my family and I in Charlotte and I write the rest of the poem all day I try to remember where the tune comes from and then at night I walk out of the elevator and it hits me - Ms. Suzy Had a Steamboat - so I hesitate but eventually I send it to Wendy Doniger at the divinity school and she likes it but she doesn’t know that I’ve been listening to Lost Boy by Ruth B. (Wendy Darling) or that my high school girlfriend who broke up with me yes there was another guy at the end and I’ve been thinking about her every day for literally 30 years and then because Wendy likes the poem she calls it fine and thoughtful it gives me confidence and I keep writing and posting and sending for example I put poems on the altar at Georgetown and near a Madonna and Child statue and then the Secret Service visited me and asked me if I had a gun which I am not legally allowed to have because of the bipolar but if they gave me one and the monster of the American Unconscious with the orange hair was across the table from me would I shoot him and I said yes because he is evil and embodies all of our country’s worst qualities and they were honestly intrigued by my ideas and my reminder of Virginia’s motto from George Mason - sic semper tyrannis! - which usually translates as thus be it ever to tyrants but they didn’t know this so they took my picture in my Moby **** House of Kebab T-shirt and the picture of the depakote and risperdol I take for the anxiety and psychosis and mania and now I’ve written 4000 poems approximately in 4 years and can’t stop and keep attacking the white racist trumpfucks that have brought fascism ******* you ignorant nazis to our country and I told both Wendy and Susan that I love them both and i cant stop writing but I better now because it might be rhyme time ...