Seasons

This was written five or six years ago, when I was living in Alaska and going through a period of immense suffering. Bipolar disorder was really kicking my ass, as per usual during the long winters so far north. Also I was in the midst of a breakup from a relationship I should never have gotten involved into in the first place, and felt a tremendous amount of guilt over. I was suicidal, remorseful, and longing for the heady days of summer, i.e. mania. Looking back, I'm mildly surprised I survived the several attempts to off myself. I was so low-energy, however, that even dying seemed hardly worth the effort.


Winter is a tree on a barren hillside
a wind that cuts between buildings to find
the unprotected places at your throat and wrists.
It is a quick slap to the nose; no embrace here
no warmth of a hand in yours.

February finds your bones.
All the fiery, effortless grace of summer
all that unbearable lightness
the giddy hollow in your belly
Seem now like a distant dream.
It must have been someone else
ticking along with a restless, hungry
try-anything-twice spirit
that had you defying gravity
convinced you were flying
when like Icarus, you were picking up speed
headed for a blind wall of ocean.

Come home, baby
is all you want to hear; come home
and you might have
but winter slaps the words away
so you cannot hear them
(even if someone says them to your face)
until it's too late.