Poem 82: Maybe It's A Personality Disorder

 Maybe It's A Personality Disorder

We don’t know what we’re capable of.

We do not know until we’ve done it.

The only one who knows is God somewhere above

and it stays that way no matter how we’ve spun it.

I woke up one morning and thought I’d die.

Just the day before I had been happy.

I had been bursting with the high.

Now I was just feeling crappy.

I took an overdose of sedative medication

and thought “At the very least I’ll get stoned.”

I had an increased appreciation

of death, but it scared me, so I phoned

the suicide hotline. They called the cops.

The paramedics came, then the fire department.

They were there in five minutes tops.

crowding into my apartment.

I went to the ER and drank charcoal that was activated

and saw yet another shrink.

I tried and as best as I could related

to her what the depression had made me think.

It was my first suicide try

and it may or may not be the last.

I trust myself a lot less. Why?

Because it happened so damn fast.

I’m happy now, but will it last?

I have rapid-cycling bipolar disorder.

If you doubt I’m having a blast

I dare you to record me with your tape recorder.

My mood will go down once again

and with it will go my sense of self-preservation.

I’ll believe that I’m a pain

and that I’m the worst thing since creation.

Then up I go, from filthy pigsty

to fancy condo-like apartment.

No mood I have has a reason why

or can be fit in a compartment.

Yes, sometimes I do get triggered

by things outside of my head-- that’s true.

But the way my mind is jiggered

I won’t be able to tell you.

Because I’m so ashamed of my real issues

that I hide them under layers of personalities

that peel back like a box of tissues,

and is like multiple nationalities.

Don’t ask me why. I will not tell.

I don’t even know myself any more.

I’m too afraid I’ll go to hell

if I spill my secrets on your floor.