Baking Mad

They used to call it a nervous breakdown
but now they have more specific names for each part-

acute stress reaction
major depressive episode
delusions
auditory and visual hallucinations

I had them all

Stephen Fry aptly calls it being infested with a demon-
On television he looks like he’s tamed his well

I wish I could do the same with mine
instead of worrying about how deep the despair will be
this time

Textbook bipolar they told the medical student,
it only took twenty years to diagnose

With a litany of past initials, ADD, OCD, PSTD
I thought I was just lazy
unable to get out of bed for weeks

Turns out the grand dame has been with me all this while
and it scares me to now know she will never leave my side.

Living Hell

It will find you

in every beautiful song
in your most flattering clothes
in the scent of your own perfume

it watches like a specter

feeding off the guilt that has infested you

lurking in your memory
waiting for the subtlest trigger
to spawn its leathery web-

Once in its grasp it will strangle every
drop of sense from your mind
until you succumb willingly to
its excruciating embrace-

Hell comes in small doses
over months and years
making sure you can never quite forget
your transgression.

Faracy Grouse is a poet, screenwriter, mother and European traveler, currently in London completing a MFA program. She may be reached at alumine3@yahoo.com