In the End

I don’t live with consequences

Not in my bipolar world

Whether I’m manic or depressed I either don’t have the need for them or they don’t even exist

I’ve never worried about what happens next

Or if next even happens

When I’m manic everything is so vibrant and loud and brilliant and lovely that nothing can go wrong

I’m an electric genius who is always right and always beautiful and every decision I make, every short cut I take, is driven by my divine design

No step is ever a stumble, no question ever goes unanswered, I’m confident and cocky and delightfully crazy

So crazy that it’s a compliment because I’m better and beyond everyday people and everyday ideas

I know what’s best for everyone and everything

The universe is my instrument and I know what songs to play and when to play them; how often, how frantic, how fevered; which voices to drown out and how loud to sing my solo

Nothing I do is a mistake, everything is my intentional spectacle

There are no consequences because I am always, always, alive and on fire

Dazzling and crackling and sparkling and shining

And I am always convinced I will always be this way

Mania has no need for a future when the right now is so violently heavenly

I’m not at the mercy of human aftermath

Consequences need not apply

Too perfect to be punished

When I’m depressed there are no consequences because I don’t care what happens next

Consequences are inconsequential

I don’t care if I live or die, I don’t care if I drown or dehydrate, if I burn to death or am buried alive, I don’t care if I’m trampled or abandoned, if I’m full of sorrow or empty and aching

I just don’t care about tomorrow

Or the next day or the day after that because I will always feel this wretched and worthless, this disgusting and devalued, and there is no world in which I will ever be ok

I don’t care about consequences because I am a mistake who will always slip and trip and fall into miserable nothingness

I’m stuck in a mire of hopelessness and self-loathing and even the thought of getting a tomorrow is a sign of grace I don’t deserve

And I am always convinced I will always be this way

With depression consequences don’t exist because I can’t escape the pain of right now

Too destroyed to deserve a second chance

Consequences mean nothing and everything

Manic or depressed I’m stuck in my madness

Perpetually captured in one cycle or another

There are no consequences

There are no changes

There is no what happens next

There is only bipolar

And me falling apart at the poles