This is a good day to start a habit called, I am Poetry. I plan to write, or at least post, one poem each day.
Since this is the introduction to this experiment, I feel it is important to explain my purpose in trying it right now.
I am really struggling with mental and emotional distress, which I have been battling for decades. I have been diagnosed with bipolar disorder a few times in my life, and I mostly do not think it even begins to explain what is happening inside my brain, or how it gets translated into my behavior. However, it validates my experience in some ways. I am acutely aware of both weaknesses and strengths I have, and this leaves me feeling very lonely, like walking on a constant tight rope of hiding and expressing -- often stumbling between the two.
I mostly feel like I am a burden to the people who have to interact with me. Sadly, this now includes how I feel when I interact with my three teenagers. I am painfully aware of my inconsistency, the way my anxiety is difficult to contain, the way I lack filters to limit what I say -- when all I want is to be silent again. I miss the very experience that may have led to my madness in the first place, which is that ability to maintain composure and hide my anxiety in a way that others could take my peaceful nature for granted. I do not miss pretending I was well, but I miss the ability to control my behavior -- particularly that of talking.
Over the last six years or so, it has become increasingly difficult to hide, contain, or maintain much semblance of calmness in most situations. Thankfully, I am still able to be calm as a therapist, but it is not a given -- I still have to deliberately focus on it to be what the clients who see me are needing.
The first poem in this series is a meta-analysis. Well, at least it is meta regarding my inability to stop thinking in poetry.
Also, you may notice an allusion to how these words came to me. They truly woke me from a restless few hours of sleep, when I should have been completing a deadline for work.
But the real origin of this poem is a result of accidentally writing "I'm poetry" while texting a friend.
16.12.20
I am Poetry
I have lost track
of everything
except for timelessness.
All that seems familiar
calls from space
unseen
Now and there,
untouched here
One language
I do not forget
is nature
wild in her composition
peaceful in her
dance
Quiet in her exclamation
of barely different
shades of white, separated
only by one thin
not frail
horizon line
Whitest white
on
mountain ranges
with their edges
and their lonely
Peaks
watching over ones
who are lost beneath
and surrounded
by their sacred
by their sacred
Presence
Let me know
this stillness
Still
I am weary of this
Act
I am weary
of attempting to meet
demands of the sinking
now of time
demands of the sinking
now of time
as something tangible that needs
a force
to pull it forward
My mind will not match
or march to the
rhythm
of time or the
logic
of rhyme or the beat of a drum that
is metered
It only knows poetry
songs and souls
unbridled and unveiled
It seems to only know
the ones I have known
forever, the ones
I will always know
These words spill
out and spiral forth
this morning
Just before I enter
what some call awake
from that place some know
as sleep
So I succumb to this
Creativity and wild
curiosity
only to keep
discovering that time
and deadlines
still exist
running faster and farther
away from me,
faster than I can bear
Someone,
please
slow me down
soften the impact
loosen the grip
on this rope that confines me
and reminds me
I am not home
I
have not yet
the
wings
to fly there
It seems to be
only madness now
to open so fully
my heart and mind
to dimensions
my
body is not
yet
allowed
to
enter or ready
to
abide
It is nearly perfect
Insanity
to think in poems
so urgently --
hoping they will anchor me
while
they invade,
unravel the night
and day of
this
seemingly endless
space
where time is set
and defined
I
begin to detest these words --
even the ones
that should leave me
speechless
Yet here
beside me, single
unadorned and loyal
Fir tree
standing straight (not tall)
inside our house,
in its lack of trying
is not concerned
about being confined,
in its simple
confidence
Completes
my incomplete
It knows me,
and it whispers
Solidarity,
telling me
I will be
as I was
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