POETRY | MENTAL HEALTH | BIPOLAR DISORDER

Wake Up Sleepy Dragon, and Fly Toward the Sun!

A mental health poem

You’ve slept long enough fiery beast the time’s ripe for another great feast unleash your radiant blaze ignite hearts with your gaze

Deploy your glorious wings and fly not low, not cautiously, but sky high only cowards glide at safe altitudes little timid dragons, full of platitudes

Wake up sleepy dragon, and fly toward the Sun! you’ve slumbered enough, you’re no longer fun let your inner fire burn bright again allow it to incinerate all your pain

Embrace your incandescent flames shatter lethargy’s numbing chains flee toward the Sun on your own like Icarus, eternally flying alone

Do not worry you ol’ mighty beast this time there will be far less risk do not resist the addictive fire it is after all what you desire

The high you feel is better than coke or it should be, for that you’re too broke feeling uncaged, untamed, unrestrained in no box, no social construct contained

So fly high, higher than the clouds high above all noise and crowds fly right onto the edge of space until no air blows on your face

Alas, dear dragon, you cannot fly higher it’s quite cold up here, air thin and drier you cannot glide back to safety either only if you fall you will take a breather

So come on, you’ve had your fun it’s time to step away from the Sun or you will burn out your wings you know well how bad that stings

It is time to slump into another slumber you have new debt to pay, a high number perhaps next time you’ll fly with Daedalia or, who knows, she might be called Natalia

I’m sure Ms Dragoness of a thousand names will fly lower or she could be a Selkie, and choose instead a Sea shower until you meet her though it is time to sleep you sowed a mess, which you now must reap

So sleep little dragon, and don’t worry about a thing you will fly in your dreams now, where you are king numb your pain and anxiety, make boredom your friend you merely survive, not live, but that is safer at the end

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Note: I dislike elaborating on poems, but in case some did not get it this was a poetic rendering of exiting depression, entering mania — the high or euphoric state of Bipolar Disorder — and falling back to depression.

A kind of mental Scylla and Charybdis, with ‘Odysseus’ trying to pass through the golden spot/mean between them — or beyond them.

This is a less visual and a bit sloppy poem I wrote while on mania (hence the sloppiness), where I conveyed the onset of mania more directly.

I wrote the original in Greek and translated it for Medium. Thank you kindly for reading my poem. 🙏🏽

Another poem I enjoyed by Ashllyn T.: