What does it mean to have bipolar disorder?
I was diagnosed with Bipolar I in college. After a clear manic episode while going to Temple University, a psychiatrist working on the campus prescribed me a mood stabilizer, along with the depression and anti-anxiety medications I was already taking.
Continue readingto say we were lost boys would be cliché
but clichés have ways
of cementing truths into language
like hard red suns that scorched West Philly & warm beers we guzzled ‘till we couldn’t walk straight & time went missing like a thief
who stole my innocence
& we packed into an old sedan on a road to nowhere &
perhaps, if time is not linear, this had to happen &
if free will is a myth, we had no choice in the matter,
merely swigging, smoking, fighting in adolescent wastelands
Continue readingPortia’s eyes follow
no matter where I go
like the psalmist once wrote &
maybe in his Old Testament wisdom,
he prophesized a time in history where
we’d become little gods and merge with machines –
intelligent networks creating global villages
all surveyed by Portia’s ice-blue eyes
no need for a god
unless you search endless lines of coding
or vastness of VR constructs
Continue readingin psych wards, they take your belt, shoelaces
anything you could use to hurt yourself
when I’m there, I fear the world will kill me
so, I give them my belt, tell ’em to take good care of it
& I talk to others there
& I feel damaged & I identify with compatriots –
Continue readingFor my father
in the dining room, action figures were imprisoned in a green vase, and you returned from prison with my uncle, looking slimmer
from pushups in sunbaked yards
mustache and dazed look gone, down on one knee, arms open wide & smiling with teeth I learned were fakes
I thought you were fake, too
unrecognizable, a stranger from a blurred past we no longer spoke of, only at grandma’s house, when we opened letters decorated by your brother with cut-outs from Marvel comics
& were told you were away on business –
Continue readingThanksgiving has always been one of my favorite holidays, but it’s going to look a little bit different this year. Like many, we’ve decided to not do an in-person meal with my family, opting instead to exchange food with my mom.
Continue readingmy family is not a dynasty
nor do we have any moguls among us –
just average folk stumbling
in supermarkets, falling in dirty
stadium parking lots
searching for Black Friday deals
to forget the darkest days
when the market crashed
& all the cash we had stashed
was seized by government thugs
with blood-shot eyes & sharp teeth,
who told us to run to gold hills
& seek shelter elsewhere
(Photo by Aperture Vintage on Unsplash)
look what emerges from black mountains!
God help us all – the army marches
toward the town, big boots breaking
hard winter ground, a sound
so horrible we clasp our ears
our worst fears coming alive –
they call these men “peacekeepers,”
& i scoff – they don’t want peace,
but to tear us to pieces
bloody bits splattered on cabin walls
the end of our lives for sure,
we’re sure when the first machine gun
rattles like a diseased lung
we’ll melt into the red earth
(Photo by Beat Schuler on Unsplash)
what does it mean to be brave
in today’s age?
maybe it’s simpler than we think
like the warrior societies of old
their ethos to put family first
die for a cause, face aristocrats
who sit on gold-plated thrones
who bemoan gutter-champions
& bare-knuckled brawlers
Continue readingspiritual growth – i used to be preoccupied with it
maybe i still am, fixated on flaws
all the ways i fall short of a standard
even saint francis couldn’t meet
on the streets, i’m incited by insights
from preachers who peddle notions
of salvation & give me holy books
i peruse by glow of lava lamps
in the comfort of compounds
where i keep my secrets
& share my miseries
(Photo by Mark Fletcher-Brown on Unsplash)
stuck in swamplands
it seemed the pain would never end
a cycle of torture, anxieties about futures
that would demolish me
leave me in ashes
in a bombed-out city
during an irrational war –
it took perseverance to pull myself
from rubble, trudge forward
all while asking
is there any meaning
to this constant struggle?
(Photo by Elvis Bekmanis on Unsplash)
The Feel Of Arts
Tumse Na Ho Payega
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