Mania

Rhythmic sing-song chants
In my head
Wordless whispers urging movement
Progress
Accomplishment
Frantic lists of lists tick off
What must be done
What could
Should
Might
Ought
Must
Must
Must
Thoughts jump from person to place to thing
Like flies at the kitchen table for Sunday dinner.
No swatter big enough to smack them down.
My mind races marathons moment to moment
Trapped in a speed three times too slow
For me
Ten times that too fast
For anyone else.

Wide-eyed, trembling hands, heart pounding, sticking, in my throat
Pulse throbbing in my ears like impatient fingers
Drumming a table top.

Noon or nine or midnight,
Wide awake.
As if espresso via IV were my drug of choice.
No speed for me.
No heroine
Or cocaine.
No “E”.

My ecstasy is fresh air and sunshine and
Sleep deprivation and adrenaline
And too much stimulation
And lies I tell myself
To make it OK
When I leave the lithium in the bottle.
And walk away.

I need no manufactured elixir. No synthetic savior.
I exist on a chemical imbalance,
Riding the waves
The rolls
The curves
The cliffs
The deep abyss.

Today I’m in my head. I’m up.
I can do anything
Say anything
Be anyone
Go anywhere,
Perfectly. Righteously. Fantastically.

My smile serves as window dressing to pretty me up.
Stark,
ugly,
freefall awaits.
Tomorrow.