Psychosis

I wrote this poem when someone I loved was psychologically drowning, and no matter how hard I tried I could not save them. I nearly lost myself in their downward spiral. This was one of the worst periods of my life, but in the midst of so much that was heartache and pain I could not bring myself to give up on living. In recent weeks, I have spoken to number of people (whose presence I treasure), who are going through difficult times. I wish I could wave a magic wand and make it all disappear. Instead, I offer this small token....for everyone, who has known this struggle...for everyone, who writes to survive.

 

 

Not too long ago to remember

I was sitting on the periphery of insanity

I found myself locked in rock

rigid with what comes next

I knew if I dropped my vigilance

for even a second

I might uncover me on the opposite side of this galaxy

exhaling sulfur visions

of a world ruled by fractures and fissures

seismic tremors tearing reality into split personalities

and I see you in splintered shatters

down abyssal trenches swallowing psychosis

like sugared water sweetness

but not enough to disguise bitter signs posted

by enemies real and imagined

Because this is a sliced out section of space

where reality lies in scattered flickers

bytes and bits of chance and choice

so terrible and terrifying

you would shut down your mind’s madness

and it doesn’t matter if that means

you must clip your own wings

at least then you can’t fly blind

but open your eyes wide and fall fast

to feelings of vertigo turning

the whole world upside down and inside out

and you have still got your heart hanging

on the outside of your chest

so someone meeting you for the first time

knows what color you bleed

and sees you’ve got scars

carving your body more than skin deep

But the worst part of these wounds

is knowing when you look at everything

between your thumb and your index

you’re looking at the hand that did this

whittling your own flesh

with razors and words built for waging civil war

Because I see you swimming in a straight jacket

with weight in your back pockets praying

the next time you breathe will be the last

and when you take that gasp

all these fractures and figments will settle

into a film flashback

a montage of moments that mattered

in each second you and I talk

I have to wonder

which one are you running faster from

the death that inevitably someday must come

or this life you have with a gun in your hand

aimed in a thousand different directions at once

like you can turn annihilation

into some kind of map

that might make sense someday

but that’s after everything in your path

is blasted or burned away

because your side of the galaxy

is so far from where I am

as I stand right next to you in this ten by ten room

so scared your predictions are a taste

laced with some mad apocalyptic truth

as if in your delusions

you have drunk the fruit nectar of providence

dined on a divine destiny of destruction

inextricably coupled with love

So how do we finish this

because now I’m caught up in knots tied so fast

I can’t loosen

tearing them with teeth so desperate

I might dine on my own flesh escaping

this prison

where you are the warden the guard the keys

the walls the catcalls calling echoes

through blacked out halls

playing connect the dots with bullet shots

aimed at strategic places mapped out across me

wondering which bulls-eye

will make me bleed the most

and now I see me breaking free

throwing myself in a thousand directions at once

because I’m a ricocheted prayer

falling down to my hands and knees

begging you to please breathe

because maybe just maybe

tomorrow you’ll be able to say to me

and anyone else who can listen or pay attention

today I did not find joy bliss or happiness

but for one second I knew I’d miss being alive

and baby sometimes that’s the thought

you need to survive