Folie circulaire is bipolar in French.
I turn the word over in my mouth,
when in reality the word turns me over.

Folie circulaire has more syllables than bipolar but still not enough for me.

A hurricane of light and energy is pretty enough until it crashes through your house.
—and that needs more than 15 letters

Spending 9 months building another brain out of ice with a toothpick, being given a slightly larger toothpick when you agree to take medication that makes your hands shake, only to find that global warming is about to melt your new icy neural network anyway,
—needs more words.

I need more than a medical dialect to speak to my fiancé.
I need them to tell her that I think I’m the titanic, right before the moment Leonardo Di Caprio makes you cry.

I can’t say: I woke up this morning and I can taste shades and hues in this coffee you’ll never imagine.

I can’t say: I will never be the right kind of happy, sad, or be patient enough to deserve you.

I can’t say: you’re the only person that makes me feel coherent enough to be alive, I just don’t want to live with my brain anymore.

Instead I stutter: ‘I have bipolar disorder’


First published in Anti-Heroin Chic (August ‘21)
http://heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/poetry-by-jack-molyneux