Voices from the Heart

This month's featured piece:

Bipolar Disorder

Bang!
Fist hits wall

Tears streaming
People screaming
Chaos in the hall

Diagnosis after diagnosis
Do they even care about me?
Pills shoved down my throat
Psychiatrists to see

Line up for your meals
Make sure you are on time
Can’t trust anyone there
But have to try to survive

Problem people
Messed up humans
Projects to be worked on

Why not Special
Brilliant
Or Creative?
None of those words come to mind

It’s sit down
Be quiet and don’t over analyze
Learn from the higher ups
They know best
This cognitive behavioral therapy
Geez just put it to rest

We aren’t idiots
I promise
Or dumb little beings

You’d be dumbfounded
At all our achievements

Something wrong with your brain
I heard on repeat
Hospital after Hospital
The exact same thing

Getting out was an act that you had to perform in
A play for them to say “you’re okay”
The disease though never goes away

You’re manic!
Depressed!
We found the cause!

Putting me in a study
A rat to be watched
“Tell us about your life”
Which one I inquire?
The life I spew to all
Or the life I truly desire?

She seems so happy and bubbly all the time
No one knows about the dials to the suicide hot line

Manic-depressive disorder
Had a switch of names
The pain will forever
Stay the same

Medicine!
That has got to do the trick
The cycle repeats
“I don’t feel like doing this”

“You’re getting better”
“We’re proud of you”
It’s almost laughable
Spend a day in my shoes

Five mental rehabilitation centers
A fancy name
How crazy do you have to be to get to that place?

People throwing around the word bipolar daily
The weather is bipolar
Bipolar people are crazy

Stabbed with needles
To calm me down
Men in all black
Literally
Holding me down

Pretending to live like this
Doesn’t matter
Smiling always
Lots of chatter

Always chatter in my brain
Thoughts spinning round the bipolar train

People think it must be happy then sad
Because everything has to be simple
Is this disease instinctual?

Tried to deny its existence
For as long as I could
Put bipolar in a compartment
Scream, “I’m done”

As you can guess
That didn’t go well
Like a lion busting out of a cage
My life went to hell

Medical bills still hit the doorstep
Never will feel normal
Usually just upset

Tried so hard to be the perfect child
Knew something was different
Unaware I could be wild

Just when I thought I could handle it all
I ditched the supplements
Powders and pills no more
I felt brave, courageous
This only took me so far

A high that went on for a while
The crazy girl
Unorganized and wild

My world once again came crashing down
Back in a cop car
Not my first time

Handcuffed to a bed
Begging for applesauce
Transported somewhere so much worse

People telling me to end my life
“Shut up White Girl”
Their rallying line

When someone asks what it is like to be me?
I lie and say life's a breeze
No one wants to sit for the full answer

A broken, traumatized girl seeking answers