We Don't Talk About It.
2016?
I’m sorry, but we don’t talk about 2016,
The year of Harambe memes,
The divorce of Pitt and Jolie,
Death of Alan Rickman, Carrie Fisher,
And David Bowie,
Soooooo many things gone wrong politically...
Although we did get new Star Wars movie,
And the creation of the supreme OTP--Victuri.
What did that year have to do with me?
I told you that we don’t talk about 2016,
But if you keep insisting,
I’ll humor you.
I guess something
That happened was the whole discovering
That I have a knack for slam poetry?
Not that I’m a winner by any means,
But if I speak with confidence I become a God,
And to be told that as a teen,
By a stranger at Mackinaw
…was kind of odd…
Not good enough of a story?
Alright, let’s keep this going.
I had my highs and lows
That year as a whole,
After all, I attended a new school and didn’t make
Friends until a month before the last,
And then came summer vacation,
With a sweeping lack of motivation
For my education,
And, much to my frustration,
For fulfilling my passions.
I moved back to my old school,
Where there is no creative writing
Or Coffee House Workshop poetry gatherings,
But where I rejoined my old group of friends,
And I appreciated them more than I ever had,
But despite not feeling as lonely as I had before
Something felt wrong.
I was in a state where I wasn’t sad,
But where I wasn’t ever happy,
Where I’d give everyone a goofy grin
And declare jokingly,
But truthfully (and metaphorically),
“Inside, I’m dying!”
2016 was a year of lows and highs
And extended periods where I thought I might just die—
I couldn’t physically get myself to do what I loved,
Which is to work on my fiction novels.
I had plenty of time but zero motivation,
I had too much motivation and not enough time,
Two parallel lines meeting somewhere at an intersection
That the common man can reach,
But I’ve always been a little weird,
A little quirky.
I was called a procrastinator,
I was told I wasn’t trying,
And though I wanted to succeed,
My Straight A’s had been dropping to B’s
For a few years in a row now,
So I convinced myself that I was doing it purposely,
Because it was easier than admitting
That I was trying--
That I was just failing,
And failure, for me, I’ve always taken pretty badly.
I would brush it off and shrug and claim
That my grades weren’t a bother,
Because I’d rather be smothered
By my parents’ chidings than admit
To myself and to them that I had a problem.
That it wasn’t laziness or mediocrity,
That this was just…me?
I had every reason to hate myself.
Before 2016, 15, 14,
Before my teens,
This me had never been me.
I had always been the one who strove to achieve;
A know-it-all, learn-it-all, crazy
Book freak,
Something was wrong.
But if I looked for an answer,
I also felt as if I was searching for an excuse,
And that if I found nothing,
I would have to face reality,
That I was actually okay,
And that my suffering was normal,
And that I didn’t want my life to go on another day.
I went to the psychiatrist,
And as it would be,
I might have a wrong little something
Passed down from my mother’s genes,
And I am currently under the process of being
Diagnosed with a kind of
Bipolarity.
We don’t talk about 2016.
I didn’t know then what I know now as I’m older,
And though I’m still riding on this emotional roller coaster
Of depression and irritability,
By acknowledging my feelings
And with more extensive testing
Hopefully, in 2017,
It’ll be goddamn new year,
With a goddamn new me.