Lock up your daughters.

I feel each equinox

and solstice

like a crowbar

to the head.

I always have.

Sometimes,

the degree to which

the seasons affect me

is a surprise.

I never remember.

Each time my

reactions are new.

Each season,

my brain receives

new orders

from Hell.

I get to be someone new

every four months.

Santa Clause

comes to town

and sucks all the

dopamine

out of my skull.

The Tooth Fairy

arrives

and rips me off.

I become the

Great Pumpkin.

I never show up.

Last Fall I didn't sleep

for eight weeks.

I walked around all day

with a ball of energy

in my torso.

I fed off of the

sleeplessness

like it was a

soft, ripe peach.

It was weird to

get used to

living in a state of

constant anxiety.

I took pride in the fact

that I could put it to good use.

I started writing again

after several years of

nothing.

It was like the leaves fell down

onto my shoulders

and changed who I was.

I was tugged apart

by the motion of the earth

and my brain chemistry.

We are,

after all,

captive riders on a

chunk of

Oxygen.

Iron.

Silicon.

Magnesium.

I became the oranges

and golds.

The leaves and

the hot

spinning core

of the Earth.

A few Winters ago

I was bogged down into

a deep darkness

I couldn't shake.

My brain does this thing

where the world

looks like fog.

My body temperature

dropped.

I couldn't see clearly.

My emotions were dull.

Apathy and a

mild,

blunt,

droning

headache.

The Spring that followed

was a wildfire.

I woke from my hibernation

to find myself burning.

Imagine sitting dead still

with nothing but your heart

running at full speed.

The sun draws me out of myself.

I become wide eyed

and the place

where my thoughts come from

insists on screaming.

My brain questions

all of my actions

and replays each

move I make

on a constant feed.

A grease fire,

and I just kept on

throwing water.

Incessant motion

was the only way to

drown out the din.

Keep

fucking

rolling.

Talk a lot.

Tonight is the

longest day of the year.

My heart is full of

more energy

than the sun.

My head is a swirl

of color and worry.

Teal.

Grey.

Bile yellow.

Tomato.

There is clarity,

but no focus.

There is no peace

for me

to hold.

This Summer will

not be a wildfire,

but a lantern

throwing off sparks

under the dark humid grey

of an incoming July storm.

The kind that turns the sky

funny colors

and knocks down

enough trees

to be a pain in the ass.

The kind that

shorts out electronics

when the lightening

hits your house.

We'll see if it can

blow me into the street,

or make me

overflow my banks.

Shutter your windows.

Lock up

your daughters.

Buy a canoe.

Let the horses

out of the barn.

Insure your shit.

My gut says I am

capable

of inflicting damage.