The Roller Coaster

(By the end of April 2002, I had been diagnosed with both severe bipolar disorder and OCD. The week following my Spring Break vacation along with my father to Tampa, Florida, to spectate New York Yankees Spring Training Games was a matter of when and not if my mental health would decline permanently, as severe depression had already plagued me for more than a year and a half and I had experienced a series of panic attacks and severe anxieties without my knowledge of their identity or of their natures. As such, much of my memories of those events during that first year of my illness is at best vague and to a large extent, non-existent.

I recall during the summer, however, that I authored this poem at my grandmother's house in the suburb of Chattanooga, Tennessee, called Ooltewah. Much of the time visiting her that time I spent to myself in either my appointed bedroom or hers, as was the case at home during the first year with mental illness due to my delirium and utter dissolution of the mind, and yet I was able to write quite lucidly of the thoughts permeating my soul. Troubled though I was, it perhaps served as my greatest period of personal growth by my having to mature in a much different fashion from a boy living in Middle America at the age of 20 into a man at 21 suffering from what few others I had ever known ever had or would. For many years, the lone fashion in which I communicated with the outside world the struggles I faced due to my illnesses was solely through poetry and, when I actually attended, whichever therapist I saw at the time. The therapists were worthless, unfortunately; the poetry was not. There was not one iota of demand by placing the tip of the pen to my pad for me to conform to society's whims, and yet with a therapist, it was always the consummate task to reintegrate me into the world since I had essentially been shut off and remained in my bedroom at nearly all hours of the day, usually writing, sleeping, or playing on the Internet. 

At the age of 21 and just months past my diagnoses, the following piece was one of my poetic products. We oft hear of people asking who serves as our muse(s), and in this case, it was my personal demons. I authored a piece a few days called "Unrequited Love" due to my believe that not only life, but women in general, continue to deny me love despite my displayed affections; mental illnesses and its cackling demons will never leave a poet without inspiration, albeit from a twisted and quixotic perspective. Thus, you have this piece, "The Roller Coaster," authored while I was at my grandmother's house and was followed by my mother having to drive my sister and myself home around 10:30 that night because I began suffering a severe mental meltdown. The piece was powerful at the time, and it evoked an emotion so raw and severe that it necessitated that we sojourn home to my humble abode to regroup and live to fight another day, a trip nearly two hours north on the Interstate. The poem as you see here has been altered a great deal, as I felt it was wanton of a little shoeshine and polish.)

The Roller Coaster                 Written in 2002 (Edited on September 29, 2013)

The thrills, the chills, and how my spirit the roller coaster kills!

I shall never know from one time nor hither! 
Speeding along to Heavy Metal's hellish songs, 
My mind seems to wither beneath its will. 

My back perpetually slaps the Yo-Yo'er's palm, 

Reminiscent of what Tomorrow may mirror of Today,
And Nostradamus' prediction as he chronicled my posterity
Until the day I walk home to Taps. 

Little children fancifully giggle and blithely play 

Whilst feeling the rush of a 60 mile-per-hour coaster of peril, 

Thrusting translucent fists of air into their garish faces, 

And twisting and snapping their necks like ragdolls

In violent contortions; they never mind baneful Ubiquity 
And Grace's angelic fall from Heaven's sanctuary. 

Can you not just listen to their mirthful screams as do I? 

I am the child of the roller coaster at the Yo-Yo'er's decry! 

It is my calling; 'tis what I am and my defining trait, 

And when the roller coaster ceases, I violently wail 
As did the squalls along Old Hickory's tearful Trail. 

I sob as a soul depraved of His Esteemed Comforts for His Creatures:
An inconsolable trekking into the emotional subconsciousness
Predicated upon the avarice of the Yo-Yo'er guiding me with a string.

I detest His grounding and my posterior's stinging sensation  

As I am being slapped by the Yo-Yo'er's nefarious palm 
Whilst The Control Freak is on His Attack. 

It makes me desire to shove a .44 Magnum into my mouth 

In one last tasty recollection between my dark, quixotic soul 

And its pals, Smith and Wesson, to their delirium and delight.
Lead poisoning would only be the least of my worries then,
As the Yo-Yo'er's voice would be silenced in recompense:
As the sponge would be relegated to the Presidential Motorcade's plight:
The Patsy was me: the Yo-Yo'er was the lone conspirator 
In Dallas by night prior to Big Tex's redneck crowing at the fair.