I tell you I have bipolar
but that word feels too small.
It doesn’t hold the way my brain
hurls me between fire and ash,
between running at full speed
and collapsing under the weight of myself.

Mania feels like flight
I am invincible,
wide-eyed, sleepless,
hungry for adrenaline.
I spend what I don’t have,
I touch what I shouldn’t,
I say yes to everything
because my brain has no brakes.

Sometimes I burn so bright
that anger bursts out of me.
I throw, I break, I spit words
that cut deeper than I intend.
And then, silence.
The shame arrives like smoke after fire,
choking, bitter, clinging to my lungs.
I replay it over and over,
hating myself for the ruins left behind.

Then the fall comes.
One small trigger
a canceled plan,
a disappointment too sharp for my skin.
And I am swept under.
All the joy evaporates.
I am heavy, numb,
pushing away the people I love
because I can’t bear to drag them down
into the wreckage of my own making.

I see myself in the mirror
the weight on my body,
the weight on my heart,
and I believe the lie
that I am less than,
that I am unworthy,
that the world is better
with less of me in it.

Last night I drowned.
I went to bed early,
rage flooding my chest,
tears too heavy to swallow.
I stood under the shower
hoping cold water could save me.
Instead, I collapsed.
The floor caught me,
my sobs echoed,
my parents came running.
But nothing could touch
the emptiness pouring through me
as the water slid down my body
like proof I was still here,
though I felt like a ghost.

Bipolar isn’t curable.
It lives in my DNA,
wired into my brain.
Mania makes me dangerous,
depression makes me invisible,
and regret chains me in between.
I don’t want to live
in this cycle of destruction forever.
Some nights my darkest thoughts
aren’t about wanting to die,
but fearing who I’ll become
if I keep living this way.

And yet
I am still here,
telling this story,
searching for air
even as I drown.