I'm laughed at for my tripling, my quadrupling,
I have to recheck myself because it's called major anxiety.
I've screwed up too much from depressive and hypomanic
storms
And blacked out memories that I can't allow,
Can't handle, or give up the need to perfect;
Too much has been ripped from my control these last few
years--
And in these last nine months or so,
My mental
has felt so topsy-turvy,
Side-screwy.
How would you like hallucinations jumping in,
Seemingly
ordinary
That you're rocked off finding out
Reality
isn't
Is not
Yours anymore?
Accidental gas potions brewing like cauldrons,
Threatening
to kill your lungs,
Or flames licking your kitchen ceiling
Slick with
perfumed oil--
All of these are your mistakes
And none of
these registers until it's almost too late?
You laugh at me for my counting.
My pacing.
My
hand-wringing.
My
fast-talking.
You see these traces,
My
different faces.
But you've never seen me fully relaxed.
You don't get that I'm not making myself paranoid,
I live with
paranoid.
One error, I fail.
One error, you move on--brush off.
It can eat
me for days.
Even if everyone says things will be okay,
Unless I have a one hundred percent
I cannot
give you the guarantee
That I'm not going to recycle:
One...
Two--
Three,
Repeat. Maybe?
