Between Depression and Mania

Light the daffodils that strike me teary,

Spring. Get on with it. I resent your joy.

I won’t cupboard my winter clothes. Each spring

dress that dances down the sidewalk destroys

 

a mind with delight. Every song is wrong.

These fragrant blossoms and reappearing 

birds aren’t evidence of the earth’s rebirth

but worse: they are earth’s forever birthing.

 

What can you hold when you’re always giving?

You Icarus me each first equinox.

Get on with it. I can’t prevent your joy,

your light. Your endless day is endless night.

Hypomania

I glimpse my frayed tether in a friend’s face—
I’m losing time, but the clock's hands are not 
yet amputated. I attempt escape
into everyday faces and side-street 
 
bars, get lonely cornered and whiskey grinned.
I’m getting thin. Months collapse disordered.
My celestial sunrise writing, winged
and away, lifts me out of endless days.
 
I’m untethered and confound family.
“A prophet is not without honor, save 
in his own country, and in his own house.”
Outside of time, how can one not be brave?