Written in 2008, Journeyed in 1989-2006

The bipolar disorder
finally diagnosed
is soused with all 3 prescriptions
succumbing to one of them
though no one can agree on
which pill - blue, pink, or white -
has done its magic.

Symptoms subside
to be followed swiftly
by anxiety disorder
treated, set aside, making way
for panic disorder
which is a bit more troublesome
but nothing the pharmas can't handle.

Thank God there's been
no obsessive compulsive disorder
or everyone has been too kind
to mention it to me.
The screaming and silences alternate
in the windowless room.
I just want to wake up.

She's catatonic.
Perhaps it's adult onset autism.
Perhaps it's early onset dementia.

Though I may not know the answers
I can finally say that I am free
and if the questions led me here
then I am who I was born to be.

From 2012

The loss of Loss

As each breath goes in and back
it's pace constant, not permanent.
so too is the pendulum
as it swings from end to end.
there is no light without the dark
up without the down, in without the out;
gain is loss, death is life
letting go of the holding on
brings blessed peace, making me strong.

On first reading Seo-Young J. Chu

My garden, browned and bereft

brought no life to its dying sight

no hummingbirds hummed

no bluejays nor sparrows 

nor woodpeckers cavorted

no bulbuls sang their songs

and I sat in the garden 

waiting for my end in

it’s dying light.

Numbed in body

awakened in mind

ran the movies of 

everything

I think I thought 

had happened. 

The grouse has come today

to take my grouse away

so I may know the day

when joy enters

to green my broken garden

and my shattered heart.

Changes

He left me alone on tear soaked sheets

in a room, in a city, in a country I did not know.

I stayed, loving him was all I knew.

He left me alone on blood soaked sheets

surrounded by children I brought into his barren world.

I stayed, loving him was all I knew.

He left me alone on urine soaked sheets

my shattered childhood hitting me in unrelenting waves.

I could not stay, loving me is all I know.

Who's to Say

Battered woman

It is not a moniker that applies to me

I tell myself.

I have not been hit or hurt

or beaten into submission.

The slow neglect was consistent,

till I was ground down

from diamond to dust.

He never needed to put

a bullet through the heart,

there are more ways to skin a cat

than heaven ever dreamed of.

Memory

They don’t come back like you think they will,

the memories.

Not like flashing images in a kids’ flipbook

or photos in a faded album, or an 8mm home movie.

Bruises on shoulders, swollen genitals

skin eyeshadow blue and concord-grape purple

arm frozen into an L for for days together

pain that you have not known even in childbirth

drowning in terror without end.

And always always the infernal itching on your back

which you cannot reach, or get respite from.