Bipolar and Acceptance

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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.

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We Ain’t Perfect (a poem)

We made this damn house into a home
It wasn’t easy – cross-country stress
Highways blurring together and
Fast-food at rest stops hunkered down
With the animals in the backseat
We did it because we had to but we build
And we move on – it’s the only thing you can do
When shit hits you in the face and you’re left
With unappealing options – but regardless
We are here and we did it and damn things
Ain’t perfect but love never is and people never are
And we got holes in our souls and carry those
Generational traumas like battle scars
And we’ll never entirely heal or be perfect
Until we’re six feet under or incinerated into ashes
And we see the face of God and damnit
It will all be worth it

Heavy Death Vibes (a poem)

Heavy death vibes permeate time chasms
This is not where I thought I would be
Approaching the middle, the nexus of love
All these liminal spaces make me tired
And those doors to other realms take
The fun out of all the misery wallowing
Once upon a time, in a city far, far away
I was close to what kept me centered
But I’ve never been centered, really
Always a few points off here and there
The geographic coordinates of mental health
More like spending life wandering in deserts
And dusty backrooms of my psyche

Soon Enough, They Came for You (a poem)

You can run and hide
But soon enough, there’s no place to go
So, we stick our necks out
Fight the good fight
Knowing that all’s not lost

You can’t hide from the bullets, that’s for sure
And if you keep looking over your shoulder
When you’re at a public gathering
Brother, I don’t blame you

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A World Without Sound (flash fiction)

All the sound was gone from the world, and it had been like that for a while. At least as long as Darius had been alive and many years before that. The Great Event happened more than a century ago, the story repeated so many times that it had become a legend. It was a pandemic, an infectious disease that altered the course of human history and turned everyone deaf.

The sound never returned, but humans are resilient creatures and found a way to persist and keep society moving. Sign language became familiar and more complex, and there was still the written word. But to live with no sound? Many grieved the loss deeply, and things such as music ceased to exist.

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Fried Chicken at the Monastery (a weird fiction story)

“Religion is a unified system of beliefs and practices relative to sacred things, that is to say, things set apart and forbidden.” – Émile Durkheim

The monastery’s library was always the place to get the best-fried chicken. Father Julian felt terrible about eating there without a napkin, but he knew it was the only way to get to Heaven. All the monks and friars would show up in their swimming trunks on hot summer days, talking about the latest fashion trends in Catholicism.

Father Julian was tired of fashion. He wanted something more, like experiencing a religious vision or finally reading Moby Dick. But ever since the Russian invasion of outer space, the monastery had been very strict about what books he read. They knew their phones were tapped, and the Russians watched them constantly.

Living in a police state wasn’t bad for Father Julian until it made him itchy. He had no trouble praying to Putin in the morning; he liked it. The only problem he saw was that his roommate, Father Billy Bonzi, never washed his armpits. Billy Bonzi was a garbage man before joining the monastery, and the smell never left him for some reason.

It was almost Holy Week, and the monks knew what that meant: cleaning the bathrooms from top to bottom. The President would visit soon, along with the Pope and a limousine full of circus performers, and the place had to be spotless. Last year, when the President choked to death on a chicken bone, the monks were at the center of a global conspiracy.

After saying his last prayers, Father Julian finally got ready for bed around midnight. Billy Bonzi put his telescope away and cleaned his underwear while Julian got under his sheets. The moonlight peaked through the window, such a beautiful sight that Billy Bonzi cried and reminisced about the time he met Neil Armstrong. They knew everything would be all right as long as they kept their faith in nuclear science and kept exercising.

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Game Theories (a poem)

I am in a spiral of silence
Descending into a massive crater
Of television tranquility
Did you lock the door?
Better double-check
Before the traveling salesman
Kills the entire family
There was once a time when I was younger,
That the words of a mathematician
Made my heart go a-flutter
Now I no longer believe in God
And all your game theories
Seem like child’s play

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Thomas Aquinas on a Horse (a weird fiction story)

“I can write no more. All that I have written seems like straw.” – Thomas Aquinas

It was so cold just a minute ago when Thomas stopped by the side of the road to vomit out his breakfast. But it is like that in this universe – the moon hangs in the sky, desolate and lonely, and then it peers down at Thomas and tells him everything will be all right.

Thomas is on a journey to get his dope. He has ten dollars in his pocket, the worn jeans that feature the face of God. There’s a stain in the center of his jacket that looks like a mandala, and he’s afraid to brush it out because if he does, it will mean certain death.

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Holding the Universe Together (a prose poem)

What captivated me most was that the town was soundless. They say time moves in a circle and that, at our core, our souls are eternal. I could only believe this once the moon and two red suns rose in the blackened sky. There was never a time I doubted the majesty of God, but there were plenty of nights when the devil spoke thunder in the underground. This was the hardest part of the mathematical equation that holds the universe together.

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