Broken glass and cigarettes

I’m currently in a mixed episode so I thought I’d talk about it.

Some other names for mixed episodes are mixed states, or dysphoric mania.

You wouldn’t think it’d be possible to experience mania and depression at the same time but many of us diagnosed bipolar have.

It’s a strange state to be in. Feeling energised, wired, on edge, yet also feeling depressed and suicidal and a bundle of nerves. And irritable as fuck. It’s a hard state to be in and feels, well, horrible. You don’t feel comfortable in your own skin and want to crawl out of it.

I know you never meant to hurt me

When you slipped away like sand

But I don’t stay angry long because I always understand

So I’ll spare you the theatrics

But I’m told that I’m not well

Cause I’ve been writing out a bucket list that sends me straight to hell

Sometimes I look back fondly

On our wicked little crimes

Though I know it should perturb me and I pray it will in time

And I dread the empty mornings,

More than drunk and lonely nights,

Because there’s not much to dull the sense that I won’t be alright

I’ll have this little frightening thought

Before my day can even start

Today is now the longest that we’ve ever been apart.

So I’ll read over our messages,

My favorite way to die

You always seemed to tell the truth

Even when meant to lie.

Well I keep on marching forward,

But I don’t quite seem to move.

And my heart won’t go on healing,

You’re still pressing on the bruise.

I think you went on keeping

What you only meant to borrow.

This is the longest we have ever been apart.

I don't see your faces. Our relationship is nothing but words on a screen, punctuated by memes and emojis and gifs. But I hear your voices in the way you type. This one rambles about what she loves and this one is excitable and this one is often quiet but leaps into conversations with enthusiasm when she is invested in the topic and this one is slow to respond but always, inevitably does.

You say come, sit with me and nothing changes, we're both sitting alone in our rooms a thousand miles apart, and yet everything changes. I am curled up against you in some small way and we are apart-together and together-apart and it soothes the deep ache of loneliness for a little bit. You say my couch is always open for you to crash on despite the fact that I may never be in the area to do so and it is reassuring somehow. You say I am like you in not so many words and too many words and I tuck you under my wing in an attempt to shelter you from the cruelties that tore into me.

I can speak through words when my own voice stutters and dies. We offer small pieces of our lives to each other, snapshots of time caught in our screens. I am desperate for each and every one, hoarding them like a dragon does their hoard, more precious to me than gems or gold. I smile like an idiot every time I see a notification pop up on my phone, and perhaps this too is a kind of being in love.