Alphabet

First one is a mountain, tall and strong and pointed

Second is a worker, with honey, anointed

Then we have the ocean, to some, though, it’s the “sea”

Fourth one is for canines, ’cause cats just make me sneeze

Elephants come stomping, with our fifth addition

Next one marks a failure, red-pen repetition

This one means a thousand, in common street parlance

Happy is the next one, holding out helpful hands

Icy and iconic, ninth right here on the list

Tenth brings jubilation, jumping on what you’ve missed

Now we’ll have a royal, with title known as “king”

Love can bring you problems, but time heals everything

Hanging in the night sky, look up and see the moon

Night time brings us quiet, with things not seen at noon

Here’s an exclamation, for when you cry out “Oh!”

Sixteenth brings us peaches, all planted in a row

Queens pass by serenely, it’s quite a lovely sight

Robins build their nests up, and place the twigs just right

Sinuous and slender, the Nineteenth is a snake

Tremulous and tender, your time, feel free to take

Twenty-first’s uniquely ubiquitous in shape

Next one’s veracity brings vigor to this race

Twenty-third’s wonderful, a double-winner, wow

Difficult one follows, play xylophone sounds, now

Yell for joy we’ve almost now finished the whole lot

Zooming, zipping quickly, this last one’s all we’ve got

These many lines I’ve written in awe, respect and love

Now can you tell me, reader, just what I’m speaking of?

30 Day Disease

​The blood infects my brain

Creeping claws in the dark

Driving the strongest insane

Private tears fall like rain

The red-on-white, so stark

The blood infects my brain

Body taut with strain

.Like a cornered wolf I’ll bark

Driving the strongest insane

Like it’s emptied every vein

This organ leaves its mark

The blood infects my brain

Doubled over in pain

I’d gladly swim with sharks

Driving the strongest insane

Suffering that’s inhumane

In a rough 30-day arc

The blood infects my brain

Driving the strongest insane

ADHD

there is constant noise

there is constant noise in the back of my head at the bottom of my skull and up around my ears and it’s on loop loop loop

seg

ments

repeat and skip over each other like a finger is holding down the “next track” button on an ipod

when you speak to me, song lyrics underline your words

when i speak back, i’ve had this conversation already but it’s going differently this time

put on the brakes

pput on the brakes

and i am stuck with the sudden quiet of the moment

i know where i am, what i feel and i own it

i enjoy the peace this silence will bring me

it’s cool and it’s calm but it doesn’t come easy

 

click click

clickclickclickclickclick

cl ick

my mind flips channels, rapid-fire

sounds first, images, color

smells

tastes

the brain in my head is someone I don’t trust

I think, “Alright, darling, someone is speaking to you

now listen. “

while behind my eyes,

lyrics scroll past

memories are picked up, turned over

plans are made

the music doesn’t stop

well-meaning people tell me that I should be medicated.

so I let the pill leap down my throat

and it brings the world into painful brightness

everything i and I can see and hear and remember and I can’t breathe and my heart wants to burst

and the music has stopped

No.

my world won’t go so fast, at such a ludicrous pace

I’ll keep channel-flipping, this suits me fine

click click click