patchwork guilt
Manic episodes are like parties. Some are great, but slowly quieten after midnight, until its just you and some strangers chatting in a room full of empty cans, delaying as long as possible tidying up a bland normality with a sore head. Some are just terrible, but you're powerless to stop them so you lock yourself in the bathroom with your hands clasped tightly over your ears. Some get wilder and wilder until you black out and wake up in a room of soulless corpses with a blinding hangover and a will to die.
This episode was one of the wilder ones.
I wake up in a world of stone. Concrete presses against my spine. Leafless trees hang like statues in the dead air. Squeezing the first thoughts from my brain is like squeezing a rock. Accessing memory is both hard and undesireable.
Need to pee. Need to stand. My bones grind, chipping flecks from one another. My head is a boulder and my body bears and rolls it's burden around to assess it's surroundings. Trees on left, water on right, road in middle. I'm on the waterside pavement. Pee in the sea or pee in the trees? The sea is closer, but the sun and it's reflection are too bright. I hide in the trees and poison their roots and I scream in pain and look in horror at the stream of mushy green dripping on the bark. I shut my eyes against the pain and horror and see flashes from the last few (days? weeks?) of skirts, thighs, bellies, breasts, eyes. I resist the memories, but guilt is now unavoidable. I pee harder, deserving the pain, but unable to stand it I collapse to the ground with tears in my eyes, sobs in my heart and green mush on my thighs.
I lie crying for (minutes? hours?). My dear wife has put up with so much. Every time I promise I will stay on my medication, I break that promise and promptly disappear in a blur of excited chatter leaving a trail of chaos behind me. And every time she takes me back with a warmth that that never fails to amaze and soothe me back into normality. It's now at the point where the promise is merely that I dread the next episode as much as she does. Because I do. At least for the moment. Given a couple of years of stagnant sanity and pill gobbling I'll be craving a euphoric release from reality, and let my personality/illness run its natural course. Forsaking responsibility. Embracing opportunities. Spending so much money my wife has to work overtime while I lie in bed wallowing in regret and self pity. Cheating on her repeatedly and lying every time because I believe it's the one thing I can do that she will not tolerate.
Because this is not the the first time I have been unfaithful. Oh no, far from it. Several times I have assured her that even in madness I could never do such a thing. But this is the first time the proof of my faithlessness has burned red hot in my guilty member, making it a lie too hard for this broken man to spin.
It's cold in the shade. I crawl from the forest, over the road, down the grassy embankment and onto the pebble beach. The sun shines unconditional love from a cloudless sky, and I beg it to save me, but its light only lands on my skin and squints my eyes. It's powers of regeneration are limited to the physical world, from which the psychic world is created but largely estranged. My soul still shivers dark, cold and lonely inside its warmed shell. Regardless, I inch along, laying my head on heated pebbles until they cool, then inching along some more. The pebbles get smaller and colder and wetter, until tiny waves reach out from the sea and lap my head. I empty my pockets. Phone, switched off and oblivious to likely dozens of missed calls and concerned texts. Wallet. Keycard to Lakeside Hotel. More memories threaten to surface, but no, not yet. I throw these items onto dryer pebbles, safe from the tide, strip to my boxers and sling my dirty jeans and body odoured shirt after them. I lie on my back and dig my heels into the beach, propelling my body backwards into the water, tiny pebbles scratching my back.
I float. Arms spread, legs straight. The sea is my crucifix. If the sun cannot heal, I beg it to burn up and engulf me, evaporate the sea beneath me, lift me on a salty cloud into it's sky until it's fiery arms can reach me, consume me, burn me, save me. First thoughts of suicide. I anticipate the weeks of morbid contemplation that lie ahead. I dread them. (Just fucking do it). I float. Out to sea? Shhh.
Remembering mania can be genuinely hard. Who I am today is the farrest cry from who I was yesterday, making memories distant and hard to envisage. Even once remembered, they have the quality of belonging to someone else. Also, they require thoughts, and in my present state, thinking is slow and painful. Then there's denial. By forgetting, I can bury chunks of guilt. After all these years, my subconsciousness is now peppered with half discovered skeletons that I refuse to dig up. But it's the undiscovered ones I fear the most, for they are buried under the deepest, hardest layers of madness and denial.
I open the memory gates, not brave enough to venture in and explore, but hiding just outside them, fearing what may come running out. Necks, lips, tongues, intertwined thumbs. Features belonging to such a number of women it's no wonder my penis didn't escape unscathed. I sense a monster of a memory making a beeline for the gates and slam them shut. And float.
I empty my brain of thoughts and emotions. I'm a floating stone. My eyes are closed. Sunlight casts a red glow on my eyelids. Heat above, cold below, tinkling all around as the water level rises and falls above my ears. I'm just a red glow in the middle.
Out to sea? Shh.
HotTinkleRedTinkleCold.
I come to. Beached. I can see my belongings 100 metres away. I walk to them. Unable to fight gravity's pull on my heels, eyelids, or the corners of my mouth. Scuffing, scowling, I get dressed and begin the long walk back to reality.
===
the life of a wife of a madman
is the life of a wife of a sailor
every year he sets sail on oceans with gales
and demons and whores
drugs, thugs and jails.
my worries are endless
my wallet is not
a stop must be put
to his adventures at sea
i set off with my phone
ringing banks overdrawn
and speed to the hotel
where i've tracked him down
i jump out my car
and run though its not far
cos im sickened with fear
of the scene of i might find
but neednt i worry
for as i run in a hurry
a stone falls on my head
and my world disappears.
===
As I walk into the hotel room, the monster memory bulldozes through the gates. A large, homemade easel leans against the entirety of the back wall of this executive suite. On it is a patchwork quilt of female faces, all in the midst of carnal pleasure, all painted with startling detail and artistic flair. I would be proud were it not for the fact that every one of them passed through this bed recently. Drunk girls from bars and hookers from streets. In the centre is a blank space, the whole fucked up point of this piece and the secret to my mysterious awakening this morning. Last night, after screwing and painting the last patch of my promiscuous quilt, I tried to run home to fetch my wife, to paint her loving watchful face in the centre, and so to complete my full confession of my insane infidelities. My celebration of her unconditional love. My incomprehensible insult to my only happiness.
Face to face with the sheer warpedness of my own ideas I run to the bathroom and vomit bile. I'm hyperventilating. I need to pee but I can't face the burning guilt so I run to the fire escape sprinting up stairs not thinking but KNOWING it's the end of my life I reach the 10th floor find the first giddy window and launch myself through it sending shards of glass flying ground rushing towards me I can't wait for the end the off button the switch the darkness my friend as the ground rushes nearer I close my eyes tight think thoughts of my wife.
Completely unknowingly I land on her head.
===
Hospital beeps. Oh god not hospital beeps. I'm either alive or satan's torture methods are more cunning than expected. I open my eyes. A doctor stands at the foot of my bed. He actually smiles at me. I ask him how I survived. Well an innocent women cushioned my fall. Exponential guilt. I will my heart to stop beating. I ask if she's ok knowing fine well she's dead. My life is a nightmare. My wife will never forgive me. The psychiatrists will never let me finish the job. They will stubbornly enforce this world on me, and me on this world. Eternal hell. He asks if there is someone I would like him to call. I give him my wife's name and number. His eyes widen.
There are no words for what I feel after this.
This episode was one of the wilder ones.
I wake up in a world of stone. Concrete presses against my spine. Leafless trees hang like statues in the dead air. Squeezing the first thoughts from my brain is like squeezing a rock. Accessing memory is both hard and undesireable.
Need to pee. Need to stand. My bones grind, chipping flecks from one another. My head is a boulder and my body bears and rolls it's burden around to assess it's surroundings. Trees on left, water on right, road in middle. I'm on the waterside pavement. Pee in the sea or pee in the trees? The sea is closer, but the sun and it's reflection are too bright. I hide in the trees and poison their roots and I scream in pain and look in horror at the stream of mushy green dripping on the bark. I shut my eyes against the pain and horror and see flashes from the last few (days? weeks?) of skirts, thighs, bellies, breasts, eyes. I resist the memories, but guilt is now unavoidable. I pee harder, deserving the pain, but unable to stand it I collapse to the ground with tears in my eyes, sobs in my heart and green mush on my thighs.
I lie crying for (minutes? hours?). My dear wife has put up with so much. Every time I promise I will stay on my medication, I break that promise and promptly disappear in a blur of excited chatter leaving a trail of chaos behind me. And every time she takes me back with a warmth that that never fails to amaze and soothe me back into normality. It's now at the point where the promise is merely that I dread the next episode as much as she does. Because I do. At least for the moment. Given a couple of years of stagnant sanity and pill gobbling I'll be craving a euphoric release from reality, and let my personality/illness run its natural course. Forsaking responsibility. Embracing opportunities. Spending so much money my wife has to work overtime while I lie in bed wallowing in regret and self pity. Cheating on her repeatedly and lying every time because I believe it's the one thing I can do that she will not tolerate.
Because this is not the the first time I have been unfaithful. Oh no, far from it. Several times I have assured her that even in madness I could never do such a thing. But this is the first time the proof of my faithlessness has burned red hot in my guilty member, making it a lie too hard for this broken man to spin.
It's cold in the shade. I crawl from the forest, over the road, down the grassy embankment and onto the pebble beach. The sun shines unconditional love from a cloudless sky, and I beg it to save me, but its light only lands on my skin and squints my eyes. It's powers of regeneration are limited to the physical world, from which the psychic world is created but largely estranged. My soul still shivers dark, cold and lonely inside its warmed shell. Regardless, I inch along, laying my head on heated pebbles until they cool, then inching along some more. The pebbles get smaller and colder and wetter, until tiny waves reach out from the sea and lap my head. I empty my pockets. Phone, switched off and oblivious to likely dozens of missed calls and concerned texts. Wallet. Keycard to Lakeside Hotel. More memories threaten to surface, but no, not yet. I throw these items onto dryer pebbles, safe from the tide, strip to my boxers and sling my dirty jeans and body odoured shirt after them. I lie on my back and dig my heels into the beach, propelling my body backwards into the water, tiny pebbles scratching my back.
I float. Arms spread, legs straight. The sea is my crucifix. If the sun cannot heal, I beg it to burn up and engulf me, evaporate the sea beneath me, lift me on a salty cloud into it's sky until it's fiery arms can reach me, consume me, burn me, save me. First thoughts of suicide. I anticipate the weeks of morbid contemplation that lie ahead. I dread them. (Just fucking do it). I float. Out to sea? Shhh.
Remembering mania can be genuinely hard. Who I am today is the farrest cry from who I was yesterday, making memories distant and hard to envisage. Even once remembered, they have the quality of belonging to someone else. Also, they require thoughts, and in my present state, thinking is slow and painful. Then there's denial. By forgetting, I can bury chunks of guilt. After all these years, my subconsciousness is now peppered with half discovered skeletons that I refuse to dig up. But it's the undiscovered ones I fear the most, for they are buried under the deepest, hardest layers of madness and denial.
I open the memory gates, not brave enough to venture in and explore, but hiding just outside them, fearing what may come running out. Necks, lips, tongues, intertwined thumbs. Features belonging to such a number of women it's no wonder my penis didn't escape unscathed. I sense a monster of a memory making a beeline for the gates and slam them shut. And float.
I empty my brain of thoughts and emotions. I'm a floating stone. My eyes are closed. Sunlight casts a red glow on my eyelids. Heat above, cold below, tinkling all around as the water level rises and falls above my ears. I'm just a red glow in the middle.
Out to sea? Shh.
HotTinkleRedTinkleCold.
I come to. Beached. I can see my belongings 100 metres away. I walk to them. Unable to fight gravity's pull on my heels, eyelids, or the corners of my mouth. Scuffing, scowling, I get dressed and begin the long walk back to reality.
===
the life of a wife of a madman
is the life of a wife of a sailor
every year he sets sail on oceans with gales
and demons and whores
drugs, thugs and jails.
my worries are endless
my wallet is not
a stop must be put
to his adventures at sea
i set off with my phone
ringing banks overdrawn
and speed to the hotel
where i've tracked him down
i jump out my car
and run though its not far
cos im sickened with fear
of the scene of i might find
but neednt i worry
for as i run in a hurry
a stone falls on my head
and my world disappears.
===
As I walk into the hotel room, the monster memory bulldozes through the gates. A large, homemade easel leans against the entirety of the back wall of this executive suite. On it is a patchwork quilt of female faces, all in the midst of carnal pleasure, all painted with startling detail and artistic flair. I would be proud were it not for the fact that every one of them passed through this bed recently. Drunk girls from bars and hookers from streets. In the centre is a blank space, the whole fucked up point of this piece and the secret to my mysterious awakening this morning. Last night, after screwing and painting the last patch of my promiscuous quilt, I tried to run home to fetch my wife, to paint her loving watchful face in the centre, and so to complete my full confession of my insane infidelities. My celebration of her unconditional love. My incomprehensible insult to my only happiness.
Face to face with the sheer warpedness of my own ideas I run to the bathroom and vomit bile. I'm hyperventilating. I need to pee but I can't face the burning guilt so I run to the fire escape sprinting up stairs not thinking but KNOWING it's the end of my life I reach the 10th floor find the first giddy window and launch myself through it sending shards of glass flying ground rushing towards me I can't wait for the end the off button the switch the darkness my friend as the ground rushes nearer I close my eyes tight think thoughts of my wife.
Completely unknowingly I land on her head.
===
Hospital beeps. Oh god not hospital beeps. I'm either alive or satan's torture methods are more cunning than expected. I open my eyes. A doctor stands at the foot of my bed. He actually smiles at me. I ask him how I survived. Well an innocent women cushioned my fall. Exponential guilt. I will my heart to stop beating. I ask if she's ok knowing fine well she's dead. My life is a nightmare. My wife will never forgive me. The psychiatrists will never let me finish the job. They will stubbornly enforce this world on me, and me on this world. Eternal hell. He asks if there is someone I would like him to call. I give him my wife's name and number. His eyes widen.
There are no words for what I feel after this.