I'm pretty excited to kick off the month with a publication. "Everything Is Clear" is in the Spring 2020 issue of The Indianapolis Review! In terms of providing commentary on the bipolar experience, this poem is much more about mania than depression. Mania can be a pretty lovely change from the depression that defines most of my bipolar episodes. Obviously, it can go really awry—especially the longer you're stuck in a manic phase—but it does often feel like a respite from the normal weight of depression.
Here is the paragraph from The Waves I used to write the poem with the words I selected in red:
"'I have won the game,' said Jinny. 'Now it is your turn. I must throw myself on the ground and pant. I am out of breath with running, with triumph. Everything in my body seems thinned out with running and triumph. My blood must be bright red, whipped up, slapping against my ribs. My soles tingle, as if wire rings opened and shut in my feet. I see every blade of grass very clear. But the pulse drums so in my forehead, behind my eyes, that everything dances—the net, the grass; your faces leap like butterflies; the trees seem to jump up and down. There is nothing staid, nothing settled, in this universe. All is rippling, all is dancing; all is quickness and triumph. Only, when I have lain alone on the hard ground, watching you play your game, I begin to feel the wish to be singled out; to be summoned, to be called away by one person who comes to find me, who is attracted towards me, who cannot keep himself from me, but comes to where I sit on my gilt chair, with my frock billowing round me like a flower. And withdrawing into an alcove, sitting alone on a balcony we talk together."