Mt. Laundry

Mt. Laundry looms above me
All shades of off-white and mud brown
Grass stains on lace
Socks dangling limp and grey from the summit.

I stare up at it and plant my feet
And with a sigh, prepare to haul myself
to the top once more.

Past the grubby T-shirts I climb
Over the towels used to wipe dog feet
clotted with mud
Past the unreported ketchup stain
on the white jeans
And finally, perspiring heavily as I brush
socks from behind my ears
I collapse, having reached the top.

With a howl of triumph,
I stab my flag into the soiled ground.
Mt. Laundry has been conquered--solo!
But in three days
It will rise again...

Icarus

restless, jagged energy
lightning storms my brain
too much energy to contain
within the fragile shell of my skin
i leave it behind,
i am a bright shiny being of fire,
no longer contained, restrained
move move move
sing sing sing
fly fly fly
like a star going nova, burn bright white flight
like Icarus dancing to the height of the light
burn and crash, crash and burn
wings melt, dreams felt, pills dealt
burn and crash, crash and burn
groping for my pills i turn
amid the ashes alone and cold
nightmares and half memories
of flight limned in gold
etched into the stuff of my soul

In Pieces

Who am I now?
Fractured, splintered
In pieces, I stand
Behind the glass wall that separates me from the world
Wondering who I am now...

I am and have been
(in no particular order)
wife, mother, sister, daughter,
friend, DM, yoga student,
writer, artist, musician,
manic depressive,
chief cook and bottle washer,
PhD candidate, graduate student,
NMR jock, pyrotechnician, radiation worker,
unmedicated bipolar,
poet, dreamer, tree-climber,
insomniac, dancer,
zombie (file that under Big Pharma, baby)

But right now
Just for right now
I'm trying to figure out who I am today
And who I want to be for the rest of the journey