Two / FacesMaria Amparo Warren

Note: I will be the first to say that I am not naturally gifted in artistry, and all accompanying illustrations to the poems (edited by a program called Snapseed) are the products of speed sketching in an exercise of trying to capture the imagery of my mind – especially when, with regard to the phenomenon of my bipolar disorder, I am on ‘fast mode’. It is my greatest wish for the illustrations to be good complements to the affect factor of the poems.

50mg (L)

Nothing much happens:I pocket the pill at the sideof my mouth and breathe inwith the water.

Two hours passand on cue, I remember—

God of Sleep

In ancient myth, the Oneiroi:

Morpheus, popular, sower of dreams.Hypnos, less popular, hiding in dark.Phobetor, deathless and animal-like.Phantasos, deathly and still as a glass.

Lethe in the cave and the murmurs (which god?) to conceal and forget.

These were the things that I readin fifth grade, absorbed in my booksand the words and the picturesspringing out of a nowhereI thought was a world.

I’m not sure I remember. I’m closing my eyes

~

The pill is so safe, when you wakeyou’ll feel clean. But I told youdon’t play with your phonein your bed, close your eyeswhen you lie, you’ll see diamondsof candy and plants versus zombiesin deathly slow motionwhen you finally dream

~

The show changes rhythm

I hate all these channels I’ll just buy the seasons

and watch DVD’s

My friend said watch this

you’ll stay in pajamas

till episode 5. I believe you

right now, I need something

to do, I have time now

to spare. Do you know

I don’t sleep? There are

no funny characters

when I’m manic depressive

but everyone’s weird

at this time of night.

~

I do many thingsas I fall into sleep.

I fill myself fullwith such empty distractions.

The books I read are useless.The games I play will finish. The shows I watch will rerun.

I distract myselffrom sleep, no captiveto its power. Therefore,I starve. Therefore other things into which I still fall.

Bipolar / the Madonna and Child1

1 If it means that, between art and life, the former is the better.

Is Mom bipolar? She’s said as such, so confident that the world can be divided into halves like apples broken from windfall – half of us in the world can be considered bipolar if we are not the ‘norm’ in normal, if more than one voice is rending at our minds and fighting for consciousness. Mom, am I bipolar? I ask as she claws at the walls where she hangs phantom photos in fits of unworldly white energy. Half of us in the world are bipolar so we are different from what are standard, she’s said, as she sinks, from a hard day, into stances of prayer. But God does not mean for us to be writhing and frothing in all sorts of places, living half-lives as wild spirits.

Mom are we bipolar? Is there such a thing to be construed as togetherness, we can ask, as I roll in the dark by the light of a candle that tells me I must fall asleep before the clock strikes into mania. Half of us in the world are halved maybe sky high like the split ends of light, or heaven knows what it is below where we cannot tell if it is hot or cold. Mom, what is bipolar? Bipolar is like, she will say, rending into the air between us: bipolar is like the two of us are singularity, the child and the womb, the needle and thread, the lion and cub, falling loose in their boundaries. Bipolar is here in the absence of nearness, or the closest to where that the air knifes your face. How does one speak of bipolar? One paints, perhaps, for the love of a moving picture with two sides in the style of a mosaic of two shades of colors – perhaps fitting, perhaps contrasting. Why am I bipolar? Must we ask many questions to find more than one answer?

~

I’ve been here and quite where, making patterns out of poems.

I know what’s it’s like. I’ve discovered as much.

10mg (P)

stop it I don’t like I’m too fast can’t do this stop it I need you but please go away

stop it I don’t want I can’t breathe supposed to justhyper but goes low when sometimes does not work I need you but stop it it hurts me when I knowI’ll crash soon supposed to raise levels don’t want to

stop it I trusted I screwed up I’m sad nowwhat if I stay here I don’t like I’m too slow

it’s noisy please stop it it’s quiet what reallyyou want me to do what to bear it to take you

stop it I’m tired please stop or I’ll die

Reasons

I couldn’t deal with thingsoutside my envelope

I burned enough bridgesto topple the waters

I consumed things that turned my stomach outside in

This polemic becamea mental fever of sorts

My speaking is fastbut my language is slow

I hesitate muchat the deadliest moments

I don’t want to singwhen I talk with my voice

I destroy everythingthrown in my path

2

My friend has two faces: one is the angel who flies with iron wingsto a whirlpool of sky and one is the demon in a sinkhole without fire

Two faces: the clock when it ticks by the milliseconds bursting into lightand the clock when it breaks from the weight of all the hours, hands closed

The thing has two faces: coffee burning from machine, waves from the dripsbut the empty cup sinkhole that pulls from the dregs.

The world has two faces: it skips revolutions in the grip of its speedor swells from its underbelly, ancient craters downturning

My friend is two faces: the laughter and music that runs off its stavesand the frightening silence that leaves marks on my ears

Two faces: my hands when they’re swiping to write, into gripsand my hands when they fall into water, feel dead

These things have two faces: the heart when it pumps bloodto keep at high levels, the heart when it slows and refuses to run

The world is two faces: the place where I run when my legs are my mindand the placelessness rooting my feet below ground

My self is two faces: one is the angel who flies into deathby smashing its head into whirlpools of iron,

one is the demon who hides in the sinkholeswithout knowledge of fire but harkening death.

175mg (L): An Assay*

after Jane Hirshfield

The blood level should stay steady all throughout(I should get better soon) and you’ll definitely feel somethingafter the first quarter tab and maybe the first half(how will I start feeling again) we have to observe these thingsin fractions so that your body doesn’t fall into shock

How are you doing? Better?

The pills are orange and will even things out.A thought of yours might spill out of depressionand into either side of your two consciousnesses,if that makes sense, and you have to choose the middle(the middle, as you say, are where things shouldn’t happen)

The middle is a straight thing that to you will feel(like hell and heaven) to be very high or low. How are you doing? Better? Should we stay thereor go higher? The generic name is Lamotrigineand it stops convulsions (then why am I always movingand feeling movement even when still?) which is whyit’s used to treat epilepsy (like Jesus and the little boywho threw himself against the walls and couldn’t speak,couldn’t speak)

How are you doing?(Well, I could be betterand with these I will try.)

as·say[v. a-sey; n. as-ey, a-sey] verb (used with object)1. to examine or analyze: to assay a situation; to assay an event.2. Pharmacology: to subject (a drug) to an analysis for the determination of its potency or composition. noun1. A substance undergoing analysis or trial.2. A detailed report of the findings in assaying a substance.3. Archaic. Examination; trial; attempt.

* from dictionary.reference.com

Sun and the Illusion of Winter

Here in the Philippines we have two regular weathers:if we imagine the West, we think tropical, temperateto make light of field fires and hefty monsoonsthat smother the people with the power of God. I need more of the former – at least wherever I gothe sun will be real: my death would make blossoms, at least, on the ground. I dream only of snow:the flakes peel away at the crown of my head,remembering life at the frosting of windows, rewriting stories of two weathers in my head.

Human Interaction

You have to meet me at an endpoint. It is urgent.

You have to make promises to me. Even if the promises forget, with time, to last, just the fact of their utterance –

You have to meet me where the mouth will swallow. Even if the elements yield different tastes, the fact that your tastebuds are still fractions –

Meet me where the clock strikes. Even if you are wasting time, the clock has two hands and it is comforting, perhaps, that they can weave anywhere terrible –

You have to meet me where our fingers touch. Even if you beat me can there still be love in your hands –

Meet me where I am broken. Even if, by a line. I am broken. The glass case will crack, at least unwhole.

2.5mg (A)

“This one will be the smallest yet,some people say that as early as thisand as little as the edge of the cutterwhen it’s covered in baby blue powder

something will happen”

--

Breathe a littlesomething will happenstop beating your legsagainst the wood of the tablesomething will happen

Put down your knucklesand wrap them in paperice your head so that it’s numbsomething will happen

Sing a song and write a poemgo outside and get some sunpeople in temperate countriesget winter sickness when it’s darkfight your way out of the darkwith your vanilla scented candlesomething will happen

Your pillbox is a rainbowbut sort out the little capsulesby colors and wholes and quartersso that you can be organizeda little, for once, in your lifethere they are, powder blue,yellow and green, peachand scary milk white,but it blanks you into sleepand though you don’t dreamsomething will happen

Talk a little before the last resortNothing will help you betterthan a little release, believing a littleby every deep breaththat something will happen

something should happensomething will happen

Promise Thread

for Nica.

The other endon the crook of your finger,enough to mean nearness.

--

What is the point of living, then,if you wake up every daywondering will I be happytomorrow?

Hold me and tell me all over again,you are loved, which is nearnessthat complements distance.