It’s a light touch
Because I didn’t sleep.
I’m like a fairy on my feet,
Buzzing as I run these halls.
Try and keep up as I speak.
And they always told me
What goes up, it must come down,
But I just note the world
Endlessly goes round and round,
And please don’t call me
Back from this ledge, from the edge, this epiphany.
Mania is like all the world shone a light inside of me.
It’s too bright.
I try to close my eyes but it’s too bright.
Someone say the party’s over.
Send the voices home.
I don’t like the way they sound.
I’ll be better
6 to 21 days from now.

365 days since I thought
The afterlife might be a more welcome stage
For the stale antics of my bipolar fairytales,
How Brother's Grimm only seemed to fall grimmer,
And I was oh so tired
But too wired to sleep.
365 days since the end neared
As I recklessly abandoned hope that suffering might fluctuate
And stole the heartbeat from my own chest with bottles of pills,
Leaving only a trail of words amidst chemistry and calculus to
Explain what could never be explained.
It's been 365 days since and I died
And 365 days since they breathed life back into my body.
It's been 365 days since I forgot why I had ever intended to live in the first place,
And I have spent all 365 days picking up the pieces.
Those first weeks were brutal.
10 days in a coma so deep they suspected I might never awaken,
And the first hours without the tube,
Struggling for air in a world full of oxygen,
Whole body exhausted from fighting so hard for what should come so naturally,
Until they put the tube back in,
And I wished feverishly they had let me slip away under my haze
Into the blackness I had planned for myself.
No better metaphor had ever existed for the mental state I had occupied,
Surrounded by people and resources who could not or would not help me,
An outside world that demanded I apply more willpower or skill to beat an illness I did not know I was suffering,
Sick mind and tortured soul unable to see in a deeply fogged mirror.
I can honestly say 365 days later I am grateful they didn't let me die,
But that gratitude is bitter and sharp to the tongue.
It aches with deep shame and regret,
Of never being able to undo that night but being unwilling
To part with the lessons I've learned.
I am glad I did not die.
I hurt, though, because they could not let me go.
And even now, with wonderful girlfriend and newfound explanations,
With EMT class and badass haircut,
Solid housemates and a clearer mind,
Even with so much good in my life,
When I find myself thinking of the pain of teaching myself to merely stand on my own two feet
Or the loss of my voice and change in my body,
I sometimes wish that the coma tunnel had not opened up.
When I find myself thinking of my roommate and the paramedics
Scooping me off the floor or mother's anguished face,
I wish at times that I had not been around to see it.
It is with a heavy heart and guilt in my bones that I say this,
And YET!
There is more new joy to be had.
There is some peace to be found.
There are thoughts to pursue and ideas to be contemplated,
The gentle and loving embrace of my partner.
There is music and rhythm to run to.
There are people to help and cupcakes to be baked.
I must not forget that being saved does not happen all at once.
365 days later, I am still being saved, everyday.
Yes, by medication and therapy,
Yes by the people that bring me joy,
But most importantly by myself.
I worked hard to celebrate 365 days,
Even if it is painful,
Especially because it's been difficult.
I've spent 365 days finding a new me
And learning to accept her.
She is new, a young and sometimes delicate version.
It is hard when her foundation is built on ashes and blood.
I am not pleased with why I ended up here,
But I am proud to have survived the journey.
After all,
A lot can be accomplished in 365 days.  
I wish I had known then how much can change.
I am glad I know now.

I long for the day when
I will be able to sleep
Without the memories silhouetted
Like silken slinking specters  
Across my barren walls.

I am but ashes
In your fire,
Consumed,
Until I stopped providing you oxygen
And fizzled you out.

I am queen of internet research,
Of "questions to ask on the first date"
And "when is it appropriate to 'make it official?'"
"How long should I wait to say 'I love you?'"  
I am queen of second guessing what my heart is telling me
Because I never learned the rules everyone else seems to know.
I never learned that there was a time frame
For missing the way you smell as if I am missing a star of the universe
Or the way your eyes are alight with excitement
At the mere mention of our winged and feathery brethren.
I never learned that there was a 'too soon'
To losing the mask I have reserved for so many
Or how it would feel like breathing not to wear it around you.
You asked me what I thought love meant.
I told you,
"Love is when you care about someone so much
You want them to be happy and healthy and full
Even if it doesn't serve you.
Even if it doesn't include you."
There is no beginning or expiration date
On wanting you to be happy and healthy and full.
There is no appropriate time to say
"Fasten your seatbelt!"
"Please drive safe!"
"Make sure you eat!"
"I hope you get some rest."
"Please be careful!"
"I really like you in one piece!"
"You are a good human with nothing to be ashamed of!"
To me, there is no appropriate time to say "I love you."
I've been saying it in more words,
In the way we talk about 'attack chickens' at 2am
Or bringing you a stuffed moose to prevent you petting a live one.
It is playing in snow in pajamas because I love how you glow
With childlike wonder.
It is dancing in the aisles of Target
And how much I enjoy simply buying laundry detergent with you.
My "I love you" is three words
And a million tiny ways I've been saying it otherwise
Because I had always been told that now was 'too soon.'
It isn't.
I am just in time to love you!

I am so tired
Of swinging from the vines
Of mismatched emotions
Until I,
Not unlike Tarzan,
Collide with the tree trunk
And remember why
I was not given wings in the first place.

I wish *** was as simple as your mouth on my skin,
As the mountains of knees and valleys of hips,
The friction of your body against mine.
I wish *** was as free as the movement of your hands
Strumming my body to this new and unalienable tune.
I wish that *** had only ever been how it was in that moment,
Raw and sweet,
Approaching the crescendo with the safety of your trust,
Teetering on the edge of the precipice,
****** feeling not like the destination but part of the journey.
I wish *** was not my haunted house,
That I did not have to work so hard to stay on the front lawn,
Leave the demons inside to be exorcised.
I wish my memories were all lamplit and rain on the windowpanes
Of the backseat of your car,
Huddled in the blanket fort you made,
Tenderness.
I wish I could say my previous partners all cared whether their beds felt like
Silk to my emotions,
Not sandpaper to my fight or flight,
Grating on the nerves as I tried desperately to lay still.
Shhh, little girl, anything that happens in your silence does not exist in the morning.
You will not exist in the morning.
That version of you, so young and naïve at 19, will no longer have a name when the sun rises,
Washed like the blood and sweat and his calling card from your skin,
Washed from your mouth like the taste of the alcohol from his breath
As it hangs above you with the realization he has driven with you drunk,
Lost like the innocence as his mouth woke you before he entered unwelcomed,
And you cannot say “no,”
The scream frozen to your lips like the snow on the ground that December,
Your psyche the balloon floating on the horizon,
Pain the only anchor to this moment,
Gone like the idea that you could ever be clean,
The bite marks faded but his hand prints still linger on my nightmares,
The way he used *** the same as the sword wedged between the box spring and mattress,
Weapon.
*** should be beautiful,
The symphony of your skin taste of you on my lips,
The sounds of your climbing ever higher.
I want *** to be the Garden of Eden,
So comfortable we have forgotten we are not clothed,
Lost in the pleasure of our existence,
But even the Garden of Eden has a snake.
I wish that *** was not my haunted house,
Not a list of landmines longer than my forearm,
And though I have spent a year now opening the curtains, clearing the dust, and airing out the closets,
Sometimes I still ask you to please, leave the light on when we sleep.
Sometimes I can still hear the door closing with no hand behind it and acidic “You’re one hot *****.”
But you have reminded me why I fell in love with *** in the first place,
As a thread sewn between two people,
A connection of beings,
A safe place of exploration and expression.
I don’t always have the words to tell you what it means to me
That you honor both my love of *** and the haunted parts of it,
Create safety for me in the sheets,
But as we lay in the darkness,
Skin to skin,
“Thank you” will have to be enough.