Liza Sparks

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Love Letter to My Antipsychotics for Bipolar I Disorder

Beloved, you are my limpia. You have exorcised the demons and spirits that have haunted me most of my life. You have kept them at bay. You are my jewel. Every night, I take you into my body—a holy ritual. You are my eucharist. My polyamorous lover, you kiss the lips of many others. You know the sensuality of many wet and pink tongues. You know the inside of many mouths. I am not jealous, and I do not blame you—there is work to be done; you are a giver. Is it sacrilege to say you are a Christ? 

In some cultures, a fat wife is a happy wife. I have put on fifty pounds since being with you. I do not lament the weight; I feel tethered to this earth, less likely to be pulled like a tide by lunacy. I look at the moon and see the moon and not a devil or a bad omen (common specters before I meet you). 

Dearest, there are people in power who want to take you away from me. They say I don’t need you, but you and I both know better. I want to tell you something about the Before Times, my life before you graced my lips.

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I am a teenager, and I cut myself with a shaving razor. There is nothing romantic about it. There is blood. How can I describe the emotional pain? There is a poem that ends with a blue bowl full of dead bees. 

I don’t know the reason for this hurt—only that it stretches itself inside of me. I imagine an animal skin canvas stretching across a wooden frame—only, the frame is my body, and all I want to paint is the word “sad.” 

This is my first visit to the underworld. I am Persephone, and there is the promise of a manic spring right around the corner.

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Mania blooms in me with vibrant colors, and all the bees that were dead come back to life. They buzz in my brain—they are a symphony, a torrential rain, a tsunami. I have so many ideas and things to say, and everything is good. 

I blast through a red light because I will never die. I am invincible. I get a ticket and I don’t care. The police lights are not blue and red, they are purple, the color of royalty, and I am queen. 

I buy everything because money isn’t real. It’s only coins at the bottom of a wishing well, and I am wishing for everything: perfume that smells like tobacco and wood, a floral dress that fits the curves of my body, high heel shoes that I will never wear, beauty products to slather on my face, art by Basil Kincaid, a very expensive lamp. 

I am the greatest writer of all time. I am the next Toni Morrison, Jane Austen, Ernest Hemmingway. I only need to be discovered. I am a pearl hiding in an oyster shell. I write and write and write—every word shimmers like fish scales; I am swimming towards greatness.

I have sex with every body that will have me. 

I have sex with a man I do not love or care about or even like. I am so eager to be touched, to be devoured by another human being. I am a red, ripe raspberry waiting for an eager, hungry mouth. I don’t care that his hands are like bulldozers. I don’t care that he pushes the lovely earth of me like a machine. I don’t care that his lips are mechanical. He fucks like he is building a house, and he has never seen one in his life, only a blueprint. I tell him I love him. It is a lie, and I don’t know why I say it. Maybe I am in love with the whole wide world, and he just happens to be in it. The world is a bright, yellow mango, and I am taking an enormous bite. Everything is splendor. Everything, divine. 

I am special. I am chosen. 

Manic Pixie Dream Girls are all over movies and television. We are funny and cute. We are adorably eccentric. We are endlessly endearing. We will walk into a river with all our clothes on. We will climb trees barefoot. We will dance a jig on a grave. We will recite sonnets in a burning building and not even notice the fire.

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Psychosis comes after days of not sleeping. She is a volatile spirit—she rattles her chains. 

I see the color purple on the ceiling, on the wall, in the sky. I attend telepathic writing classes in my brain. I wake up before the sun to meet with Tiana Clark and Maurice Carlos Ruffin. I take notes in the dark. I look at Nick’s toes while he is sleeping. They transform into little sculptures, little statues—there is a birth, a meal, a wedding, a funeral—scenes in a diorama. I hear coded messages on the radio. Satan speaks to me in the flashing street lights on campus. I drive myself to the E.R. on Destination Drive and can’t breathe—deaths from Final Destination blazing in my periphery. They prescribe anti-anxiety meds. I don’t take them. I am a robot and only survive on Coca-Cola and bananas; the dream world is reality and reality is the dream. I have to save the world from pedophiles. Voices from the future speak to me and tell me what to do—knock on your neighbor’s door, spin around five times, break a picture frame. I call the number on the dumpster outside our apartment and leave a message. A fly is a camera. It is the literal end of the world, and I wait for the fire and brimstone, for the sirens and screams. I wait for the Earth to open up and swallow me whole.

I am a raw thing, and I can feel every subtlety, every shift. I hear every sound, feel the energy of every lightbulb. Psychosis moves the curtains and the furniture. She opens every cabinet. She makes the plants and animals speak. The moon looks at me with an evil, sneering eye. 

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I know something is wrong. I am like Nancy Drew looking for clues. I self-diagnose: I have an iron deficiency, a mineral deficiency, I am dehydrated, sleep deprived, it was my childhood, I have PTSD, I need to exercise more; I need to do yoga, meditate, eat right. I do a cleanse. I only eat raw food. I take all my food blended. I take supplements. I drink tea. I cut out coffee. I write. I express. I sing. I take melatonin before bed. I take a multi-vitamin. I see a therapist. It’s the patriarchy, it’s racism, it’s homophobia, it’s capitalism, it’s this world—shaped like a fish hook, it’s reeled me in and gutted me. Shouldn’t everyone feel this way, and doesn’t everyone, on some level, want to die?

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I first met you at the behavioral health center. You were given to me in a paper cup. I didn’t know if I was alive or dead. A man named Aerik or Sharif told me, “We knew each other in a past life, you were a dragon and I was a phoenix,” and I knew it was true; I could still see the smoke in my breath.  

It was July 4^th, and the nurse said, “All good Americans line up for their medication,” and I wasn’t sure if that was me or not. 

When I asked for something to read, they gave me a Bible. There were no answers in there for me.

I didn’t know I had been looking for you most of my life. 

I was given a diagnosis—bipolar I disorder—and I felt…relief. Poet Reginald Dwayne Betts writes, “Naming is the first kind of prayer,” and it did feel like something spiritual when the doctor said, “We think we know what’s wrong.”

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All love requires sacrifice. Every six months, they take my blood to see how my body is reacting to you. You are worth the risks and side effects. I am happy to bleed for you. 

Sweetheart, little pill, you have given me a life. I know you are not for everyone, but you are for me. You have changed me. 

Did you see how I crawled on the ground? I was a wretched thing. I wanted to die. Did you see me there—suffering? 

If RFK Jr. wants you, I will not give you up. I swear to the moon, the stars, and the sun, if they want you, they’re going to have to fight me. They will not pry you out of my cold, dead hands. Because now, with you, I want to live. I am serious about living. Look how hungry I am for this love, for this life.   

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Banner Art:
Lilla Cabot Perry, The Pearl, 1913, Wikimedia Commons

Author Photo:
@nvthepix