creative writing thursdays...

drifting
slowly floating
then i realize i must soar
up
higher
faster
slicing through the sky
the wind rushing by
arms outstretched
i am superman
i giggle
climbing higher
then plunging fast
low
hovering just outside
the window

**********************

once upon a time...
there was a little girl.
she did have that cursed curl--you know the one, right in the middle of her forehead.
and it was almost true, that nursery rhyme.
when life was good it was very very good, but when it was bad it was awful....

but they called it manic depression, then later decided on bi-polar disorder...
the name they gave it didn't matter to her.
she had the highest highs and the lowest lows, but they were the ones who were scared of it.
not her.
she revelled in the beauty of the grays and blacks of the lows.
the shadows, the pain.
she exalted in the joy of the highs, the brilliance, the thousands of dimensions.
she loved it all.
the pain was sharp and clear or, sometimes cloudy and aching, dull.
she always dumped out the little green pills they gave her.
she had tried that route, once.
it was not right for her.
what is a world without laughter, without tears?

they thought she was sick.
she knew.
she knew that she was only sick if these changes kept her from operating in their world.
by their rules.
in their neat orderly little rows, boxes, patterns.
it was their dance, not hers.
she had her own drummer and the beat was glorious.
if they could hear it, they would join in, she just knew it.

she didn't understand why they were so afraid of feeling sad.
feeling sad was almost as wonderful as feeling happy.
it was the blankness, the nothing--the balance, as they called it--that was frightening.
the void.
that made her feel like her self was slipping away and she might not find it again.
those green pills--
they stole her ideas, her dreams, her vision.

she would not win the race, however.
even if they were wrong, she was not right either.
the lows were getting deeper, so dark and haunted that she might not make it back sometime...
her highs were growing to the grandest heights, towering her above all others, as she burned through canvas, painting furiously, feverishly.
trying to grasp each and every picture that darted around her head, like a thousand lightening bugs.

she was a genius, they would all lament, sighing and shaking their heads.
on the outside, greiving--the proper thing to do.
but on the inside, they would be chanting "i told ya so" like a spoiled 8 year old.
they would reasure themselves and each other that they had tried to save her, had tried to harness this mad woman.
they would talk themselves out of feeling responsible for any of it, and sell her work for enormous profit.
and they would never know how the world looked through her eyes.