Intrusive Thoughts

Glittering shrapnel claws deep in my mind,

embedding vicious thoughts caught in my hands

like a virus,

like a child leaping into my arms,

like a newspaper thrown against my door by a brat.

Why can’t I expel the mental graft and gristly slander

that permeates myself?

Does gold feel worthless when desperate divorcees toss

it in the sea

to forget?

To remember rage?

Art History

Quiet art history is just as dazzling as fireworks,

the artist’s eyes fluttering open in the morning an explosion of a bomb.

See the veracity of the paintbrush,

The verifiable anguish in colors prone to roam the white space,

the place where luck dies.

What arguments have painters had with invalid ideas,

high on their laudanum and making no sense to anyone but

the artist, a doctor for chartreuse concepts that long to be a lively lime.

What canonical cloudscapes inspired the Sistine chapel?

What childish memory provoked David?

World of Color

A world of color is rich,

is all I need in this fog as heavy as maternal malevolence.

What I need is a glass of hot pink,

an elixir of glowing purple,

a tincture of pool blue,

languid and electric.

My atrocious capsules of snow lay beside my ginger ale

on my bedside table

while a documentary on contemporary

art stabs me in shades of black and white,

Sound muted.

Clamor Clatter Calamity

Clamor clatter calamity

a huge purple spill

generous to an idea getting drunk in the corner.

I am an absence of air.

Paris writes me telling me not to come.

Many things have fallen

into the gaping O of love.

 

My sick senses stretch like a violin note over

a ghostly concert hall.

Halls are caverns.

I have a hall inside my city

And he waits there.

He has a bomb wrapped like a gift,

I the suction of quicksand.

Depression and Anxiety

I had a hard weekend. Saturday it was difficult to get and stay out of bed. Sunday was slightly better, as I was able to go out to lunch with my husband and daughter, but I still struggled with depression and anxiety all day. I haven’t been doing well since I was in the hospital, but the situation became more acute this weekend.

Now I am taking double doses of Prozac and waiting for my new antidepressant to arrive. This past summer I was on Prozac but asked to switch to something else because I felt like it was burning out. I wanted to switch to trintellix but initially balked at the price because it’s not fully covered by insurance, so I went on Zoloft instead. For me taking Zoloft is a lot like eating Skittles.

So when I realized last week that the Zoloft just wasn’t going to kick in and do anything I called my doctor back and requested a prescription for the trintellix. But to save money I’m getting it through Express Scripts Pharmacy and they are taking forever to fill it. They got the order last Wednesday and it is now Monday and they still haven’t filled my order so nothing’s even in the mail yet. So I’m just hanging out with my old Prozac, since it’s better than Zoloft, and waiting.

Everything feels like it takes so much energy when I am like this. Getting out of bed, brushing my teeth and my hair, driving, housework… The list goes on.