Bipolar

By Angel T. Dionne

“But you don’t look bipolar,”
as if bipolar
is screaming at cars from the sidewalk
as if bipolar
is hopping up on tables
to proclaim that I’m the Messiah
as if bipolar
is no career
and no relationships.

“But you don’t look bipolar,”
as if being happily married
means I can’t struggle
as if an academic career
means that the ups and downs
hurt any less
than they would
if I were jobless
as if leading a normal life
invalidates my illness.

“But you don’t look bipolar,”
meaning that they think bipolar type II
should be easier to deal with
than type I
meaning that they don’t see five days up
and two weeks down
as a medical struggle
meaning they can’t see that although the symptoms are different,
they’re nonetheless painful
meaning they don’t see why it’s necessary
for me to take two little pink pills
one little white one
meaning they view my psychiatric medication
as a crutch
a weakness
meaning that they view my cycles as romantic
creative
eccentric.

Angel Dionne is an English professor at the University of Moncton Edmundston campus. She finished her PhD in creative writing at the University of Pretoria in 2020, and she is the author of a chapbook of strange flash fiction entitled Inanimate Objects (Bottlecap Press) as well as co-editor of an anthology entitled Rape Culture 101: Programming Change (Demeter Press). Her work has appeared in Chicken Soup for the Soul, JAKE, Sein Und Werden, The Molotov Cocktail, The Missing Slate, The Peculiar Mormyrid, Crack the Spine Anthology, Everyday Fiction, Narrow Doors in Wide Green Fields, Surrealists and Outsiders, Good Morning Magazine, Garfield Lake Review, and Litbreak Magazine. She currently lives in Canada with her wife and cats. Learn more at angeldionne4.weebly.com.

Photo credit: “State Normal School” in the public domain via Salem State Archives.

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