It’s almost my birthday. I’m going to be 34, a year by which it feels like I should have had things “figured out”. Of course that’s not how things work. I do not have anything figured out. I get through each day, week, try to take care of myself, to find pleasure and make meaning. The future is not clear but I am trying to feel hopeful.
Here is a poem I wrote a few months ago when switching medications. I hope you are all doing well, and I am looking forward to a lot of snow tomorrow.
—
A self portrait
of inconsistent capitalization
names, symptoms
stretching back to 2014
longer
Littered across google docs
named for new psychiatrists
who promised new hope
and took hundreds of dollars
up front
I am standing in a house that isn’t ours
it’s mid-2020
kids books and toys on the ground
stick insects in a terrarium
proving their animation
when sprayed with water
I can’t stop moving
when everything else has stopped
Is that really me?
Are those my legs?
Squirming endlessly
in dozens of beds
across continents
The timelines do not match
I do not remember how long it was
that I was on that one
I don’t remember that one at all
I don’t recognize myself
in these lists of medications
I don’t remember
myself
Happy (early) Birthday!