July 23, 2001
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Today’s poem: trying to describe what bipolar disorder was like in childhood.
Wild Horses
I had a strawberry mare with birthmarks,
a pitch-black horse with a temper,
wise white stallions, bright-eyed palominos
blue winged unicorns with silver hooves.
Sometimes they ran in daylight.
All my friends could see them.
We pranced and played.
But whenever the fog rolled in they ran away.
Friends and horses both left me alone
in the cave where I stayed lost
two steps from the door.
It was always the palomino who came back first,
sun leading me out to run the green meadows again.
Palomino with the white mane, coat glowing gold
over her night-dark skin.
