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How would I know if I was having a breakdown down or

a crackup up, or an episode (to be polite)

Is the world weird weary and wiggly swigged out?

Can't be. Must be me… an artist… as erratic

as this punctuation

Oh art! A famous excuse for madness loosely dangling.

A bit off, a bit eccentric… anachronistic bohemian

beat and beatific

Art poem, not greeting card, belies the alienation

prerequisite of beauty—that notorious joy forever—

just a bit outside always, always

always bipolar ups downs, romancing depression

Always an observer absorber feeling into my skin and then

standing apart peeling to subdermal layers with the

precision of pre-med biology lab

Ah ha! Reveal some truth

to be sculpted with an editorial scalpel (run-on sentence

be damned, grammar police be gone).

Sounds real real (real?) crazy to me—the blood of it

the dissatisfaction of just being—just being

a pen that is never ink-full satisfied with

the words or the music that no one else (those just be-ites)

even thinks about

And, don't these nervous breakdown (the one's courted by

shrinks or exiled to bricked places by courts) those

sensitive unsane people hear voices, see words

dance, twist their meaning,

squeeze them into too tight spaces where they

can't fit and don't ever seem to belong

to themselves? others?

And, don't the crazies lose perspective on social

morays? Aberrant sex and adultery for

redemption and purity. Extensions of childhood.

gloriosky luminous adolescence. It's the normal natural

not even worth an eye blink.

My brain is wired different.

The things that alarm me, everyone else takes for granted.

The things everyone else takes for granted, alarm me.

That's my norm; Right on my bell curve bell jar.

The analysis of logic-defying deft geometrics:

You long to get outside your box.

My box is so far outside your box that

you don't really want me to get outside those nine dots

even though you say you do.

You look my way and think hysterics, histrionics,

diva gestures when I think romance or principle.

I would believe I was crazy if I took Jesus as my savior

or if I took a pill to confirm and lithium level out.

I would rather howl at the horse-faced stars because I

peeled at the sycamore tree than take prozac to be

someone else's sexless

well.

Beyond this voice in my head, I would not know maturity.

I would worry.

Get me lit on another cigarette and a diet of fizzy caffeine.

Get me quiet smoking dope without giggles.

Get me sleepy on speed.

But, before we give me that label—k-k-k-katy

I mean before you call me k-k-k-krazy

how about we review that vein

I ate for lunch today.

Poem Written While Feeling Strong and Sane

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