BIPOLAR POETRY

Have You Ever Felt The Rain

Inside

a quiet roar
internal earthquake
shaking hands
spinning minds
hollow ache
aimless energy
exhaustion
the storm front
for surfboard or shelter?
body?s voice-?lay low?
but unwilling
desiring
distance
what between?
sprinting the shadow
an inner duality
paradox of self
have or not
don?t and do
being, but without
it bubbles up
I scream

Written by Jeremy

thursday at 4:00

i call my psychiatrist to tell him i have my life on my mind
and that i need to see him; need direction.
he responds that he can't see me until thursday at 4:00.
i go to him in hope that he will listen and offer guidance.
maybe he listens...
i talk too much; perhaps i feel as if i tell him
everything there is to know about me
he will discover a miraculous treatment
to make me healthier.
forty minutes pass...
he doesn't expose anything profound.
i leave the office still a bipolar,
still shattered, still confused, still lonely,
still angry, still paranoid, still sad.
is this progress?
an invoice in one hand,
newly signed prescriptions in the other.
and now what?
(drive off the the pharmacy, pick up the meds, swallow pills...)
my doctor asks if i'd like to see him two weeks from thursday,
is 4:00 fine?

Written by mi-1996

The Dance Marathon

My mind is racing
I'm dancing around
Into the sunlight hours
There is no slowing down

I've called my doctor
at least 4 times
He's changed my medication
He's fooling with my design

Try this and try that he says on the phone
I take these pills but not one
settles me down
My husband says to me "you know you need to be slown"
I'm spinning around like a ballerina
on stage, rapidly changing, irritiated and erratic
I haven't been to sleep in days and days and days
And I cannot seem to get out of this maze

My silhouette is dancing as fast as she can
She keeps up with my frolicking into the twilight
Swirling about in acrimonious fright
I yell and scream in fits of frenzy
Dancing again with endless calamity

Juliet Wilkerson

mania

flying high for a week
euphoria
intoxicating and addictive

owch
this time i "slammed into a mountain"
"hang gliding"flying...so UP
"crashed into a stone mountain."

"bruised, aching, swollen"
thought i'd have to claw my way back up
i fell so low, so quickly!

thank god my support system heard my cries
they picked me up and carried me.
now i struggle back up,
not alone
but on my own.

mania, the thing i hate to love.

written by mi 1996

Nobody Home

There are times when no one
remembers
that we exist;
when life shrinks
and is too small for us
when it is hard to arouse
the blood in our veins every morning,

Days of talking
with our skeleton, folding inward,
and weeping in the dark
over these sad bones,
of wearing our own skin
for a shroud, and telling
life there's nobody home:
come back some other day.

Roque Vallejos
translated by John Upton

Sunset Artist

When she laughs-
She paints yellow-
Her innocent looks-
Brings out her mothers pastels.
Her pale purple
Soothes troubled souls
And once in awhile helps one become a rainbow.
When she acts younger than her age
She paints a wild orange
Which for her takes a lot of courage.
Her deep black
Brings out her loved ones white
So she'll have strengh to fight.
Somehow this young artist
Forms human sunsets.

Written by Whitney Lyons

When Others Sleep

in the darkness
when other's sleep

she needs to buy a canvas
to feel the brushes in her hand
delight to the colors
feel the texture
in manic fascination

the vivid images
dancing in her head
writhe and struggle
to be born into her art

in the darkness
when others sleep
i've taken your pills
yet lay awake
her needs
obsess me
as i lay awake
and imagine her colors

By Suzan

More Poetry Back to the Yellow Brick Road