Welcome to a 9-part poetry series where I explore my experiences with Bipolar Hypomania and Depression, using the imagery of the Phoenix burnt to ashes only to rise again...
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PART 1 - Again The Phoenix
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Burned by the eternal fire
Of my own funerary pyre,
On thermals rising higher,
To new heights I aspire,
Wingbeats never tire,
I'm no angel with a lyre,
And hear no heavenly choir,
Heed me I'm no liar,
My ascent will transpire,
My quill will fill this quire,
My path a drawn wire,
The heights my only sire,
The only thing I desire,
So far above the mire,
I strive before I expire
From invisible wounds so dire,
To be something I can admire.
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With my brain and blood afire,
My thoughts rush all haywire,
Ascent pauses for this flyer,
For this I must inquire:
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What does rising higher acquire
Beyond what I was prior?
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Perhaps better to retire,
Before I become a born-again fryer,
To the inner war I call ceasefire.
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As all my demons fiendishly conspire,
To drag me into the eternal hellfire
Of my self-doubting quagmire,
I stop being the amplifier,
And turn to the role of pacifier,
This fire is my purifier.
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Bang!
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A shot like sudden gunfire,
The thought that made my mind rewire.
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PART 2 - Burning Meat
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With each beat of my wings
The heat gets higher;
My own bellows, I bellow,
Fanning the flames of my fire;
A rising crescendo
From dull red glow to blinding white heat;
I burn away my ego,
And to ashes return, my maker to meet.
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PART 3 - A Cinder Before You Ascend
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The cinder crackle
You can feel in your teeth;
Only dull embers remain,
Concealing the ashes beneath;
All of joy and passion,
Burned away by its own force;
Only time now
For ashen reflection and remorse...
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As all the noises quiet,
And the light gives way to night;
Death taps bony fingers,
More chilling without fright;
All the thoughts sluggish,
Falling away one by one;
No emotion, hope or joy,
By Anhedonia undone...
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PART 4 - The Noise of Silence
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A wind stirs dead ashes,
As the last hope dashes;
Before the word there was the sound,
And before the sound the silence;
Trapped in a world of peaceful violence,
What was once so mighty now downed.
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When ashes to ashes return,
And dust returns to dust,
Even dreams and memories fade;
And life gives way to death as it must,
With all owed debts finally paid,
And nothing left to burn.
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PART 5 - The Rebirth
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Nothingness.
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And then a spark
In the nothingness of the dark;
At first a mere will-o'-the-wisp,
A firefly's wan glow;
Slowly brighter,
The light starts to beat.
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With light comes heat,
And a cold black cinder stirs in the ashes;
Brighter still, the light beats and flashes;
With movement comes sound.
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A heart thought burned to a crisp
Beating once more, though slow;
The eternal fighter,
Reanimating ashes to meat.
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And with this act of creation
Bringing back life and sensation;
There is death in life and life in death;
With a stirring of ashes, I take my first breath,
Reborn, renewed, remade, returned
To my physical state before I was burned.
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PART 6 - New Wings Never Tested
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New wings never tested,
Fresh mind and body rested;
The old thrill of fire in the veins,
The timeless urge to break free of these chains;
Such a magnificent creature was never meant to stand,
Rather to soar majestic, way above the land.
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I pluck a feather from my wingtip
And dip the quill in ink;
Writing of my life's winding trip,
What I feel and what I think;
My flights of fancy, seeking to rival the sun,
I am owner of and responsible for all that I have done.
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My past experience in a former life,
Cuts to the truth, sharper than any k.nife;
I write my story for myself to read,
Sowing in rich ashen soil a hopeful wiser seed;
For soon again I will beat my wings and fly,
Coming around full circle when once again I fry.
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PART 7 - Maiden Flight
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In a cloud of ashes, and with a mighty leap,
Wingbeats lift me higher above the blackened heap;
My funeral pyre, now my bed no more,
I feel the raging fires deep within my core;
A lust for life ignites my burning desire,
Ignoring the pain as my beating wings tire.
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The hard work done for now, I glide through the air,
Exulting in the freedom, without an earthly care;
My shadow trails below me, dancing across the ground,
Existing in the moment, I am both lost and found;
Below I see the bridges, the ones I built and burned,
All the possibilities and the lessons learned.
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Not time yet to test the heights, these wings are still weak,
Returned to myself, I am the answer that I seek;
The sights and sounds, the tastes and sweet sensations,
Made all the better by fantasy's creations;
Looping through the air in a barrel roll,
I love when all this power is mine to control.
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PART 8 - High Above the Mundane World
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The higher you fly, the more you can see,
With desire I cry, and roar, wildly free;
I join the dots of the people scurrying ant-like below,
Beneath my contempt, I soar above it all nice and slow;
Rising higher on thermals of my own making,
The giddy heights see me excited and shaking.
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Striving with wingbeats I reach for the skies,
As the landscape grows then shrinks from my eyes;
My moods and emotions burn hotter the higher I climb,
Freedom captured by my thoughts in forced rhyme;
The beat of my wings is the rhythm of my verse,
The gift keeps on giving, the obverse to my curse.
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High above the mundane world,
A fiery comet's trajectory hurled;
My tail by the cosmic winds blown,
These stellar heights never before flown;
The air up here is way too thin,
My fire extinguished, now my descent will begin.
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PART 9 - What Goes Up Must Come Down
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Looking down at the sun has struck me blind,
This biochemical boiling has broken my mind;
As thoughts rush faster and begin to fragment,
The limitless energy is finally spent;
A brain afire can no longer think,
Shutting down right at the brink.
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Gravity is a law that cannot be defied,
The call from the depths not to be denied;
What goes up must come down,
And each smile is just an upside down frown;
I have reached the zenith of this climb,
Revelled in the heights for a time.
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My last wingbeat spent, motionless I hang,
The silence still echoes with songs my heart sang;
As I fall and re-enter the atmosphere,
My wild abandon is replaced by fear;
For I've been here so many times before,
Eternally addicted to my power to soar.
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As my astral projection shoots through the air,
Again I ignite, a shooting star falling fair;
Faster and faster I continue to dive,
Contradicted yet balanced, both dead and alive;
I crash to the ground in a final flare,
And burn to be reborn, unburned by despair.
