Disappointment Part 2.

There is a cheap smattering of snow on the ground this morning
The kind that looks pretty but makes mud
And I want to feel its magic but
Mostly I feel disappointment

The other day you hid in your laundry closet naked
And when I came in the door you poked your head around the corned and said
I don't like that look...
What look? I said
You said - you always look disappointed.

I hear it from my daughter too: mom you look so disappointed in me

And it's funny because I am the opposite of disappointed in everyone

I see their smoldering potential oozing from every pore of their bodies

It's me. See.

It's me that seems disappointing.

That face isn't for you, Love. That face was never for you.

Numb-less

I thought Autumn was supposed to bring the sweet relief of mania
And now
With these meds
I feel
Empty
Paranoid
Nauseous.

Is it that the light hasn't shifted quite far enough toward Equinox?
The air yet too hot for me to feel satisfaction
Quicken my heart's pacing
Allow me to shed this heavy coat that is never ever winter

I sit quietly in the shallow water
Wishing it were deep enough for drowning.

On The Bravery in Taking Medication for Your Mental Illness #1

This is the first spring when I haven't felt
Dragged through slush under truck tires

When the trees blossom and pear flowers sprinkle the grass like strange snowflakes
I normally sink into a slow and oily pit of blackness:
Backward hibernation,
I don't want to see the way the world creates a reflection of new-life when I
Feel dead inside,

I prefer Autumn:
Leaves peeling from the trees and scattering their beauty beneath them -
I leave a trail of Beauty but my branches are empty...

This year is different.

For the first time since I was fifteen I have been able to appreciate
The purple of the violets
As they protrude passionately from the neighbor's knoll-y yard,
I breathe in annoying pollen and somehow the smell is fresh
Instead of obnoxious.

I don't know what healing looks like,
But maybe it feels like seeing spring.

Boundaries.

I don't take it lightly -
Holding your face with my hands
Pushing your hair from your eyes
Carefully
Because I know -
Too close will break you.

I throw up these steel walls
Because
Not close enough
Will break me.

The moon was full
Two nights ago,

You weren't with me,


But I saw it.

Dailies

My general practitioner said
I am so high functioning
And I don't "need" meds

That most of her bi-polar patients
Are in the hospital every two weeks
In the psych ward
And since I have never been

I do not need meds
Because my bi-polar disorder
Must not effect my every day life
Enough

She said
I am doing so well
With diet
And exercise
And therapy: unaffordable

And I have such a healthy relationship
With my husband
On whom I am supposed to be
Completely dependent: yes?

I don't need meds
Because I am so good
At closing holes
And hiding wounds

I don't need meds because
I tell myself to
Get my shit together
Three hundred times a day

I don't need meds because
I am able to get out of bed in the morning
And get my kids to school
Pack a lunch

People on meds don't do those things
People on meds can't do those things
But
She doesn't know

About throwing up going to school anyway
I can get through anything if it means
Someone will think I am worth something
What if I should be staying in bed all day?

What if I should be not functioning
But the only way I know how to
Get through a day without
Killing myself is

To get through the day.