because some people build homes
out of their mental illnesses
and I think I used to do that too.
Homes are stable.
Homes are steady.
Homes are seemingly swell reasons not to go outside.
This poem is a plea-
Hey,
no matter how comfortable your house is,
please go outside.
BIPOLAR is a house with so many walls you get lost in it
every damn day.
it’s a house with two realities, see,
a home with two floors, see,
sometimes you are in the basement and you know there’s a party
right above you with your favorite everything
but those stairs seem so daunting
you can’t even fathom climbing them
so you stay in the dust and the damp
you stay in the mold,
dreaming about your favorite everything.
other days you’re in that party,
you are so in that party in the kitchen
and the attic
and the spare bedroom
and the regular bedroom
you are all over the place and you are so up
but the party ends eventually
and then the basement seems worse than ever.
DEPRESSION is the most comfortable house i have ever been in
it’s so comfortable it makes you uncomfortable
for not being comfortable within it.
It has jacuzzi hot tubs, memory foam mattress toppers and cupboards stocked with the absolute best kind of snacks.
see it never wants you to leave
and if you aren’t careful, you won’t.
ADD is a house isn’t a house or was a house
what a fucking word ‘house’
it’s like home but less intimate
intimacy used to scare the shit of me
sometimes it still does
houses
we’re talking about houses
ADD might have been a house but it’s definitely kind of functioning as though it were a house, or at least it should according to this poem because that is theme and sticking with the theme is totally vital it is absolutely crucial like kindness also crucial and this- this feels kind of crucial- where were we?
BORDERLINE PERSONALITY DISORDER
is the blueprints of a house in the suburbs,
it wants more
it doesn’t know what more means
but this definitely isn’t enough
and that over there should be changed.
erase that
add that
it craves neighbors-
there should be more neighbors.
there should be more something-
I should be more something
or less
or less.
ANOREXIA is the house before it is a house
or just a really drafty house,
windows unsealed,
foundation shaky,
it is trying but not in the way you know it needs to.
maybe there are termites,
maybe there are rodents,
we don’t know.
all we know is the absence and damn,
it is haunting.
OCD is the distant relatives’ house
that you know just how to play the rules in,
warnings painstakingly placed in every space
they read, “Please don’t touch.”
they read, “Please do touch.”
they read, “Please touch exactly three times.”
they are set against marble and bone china and other fine things.
you wish that you, too, were a fine thing.
but you are a fine thing
we build our homes because we live in them.
but I know you, like me, need some fresh air.
Look, I packed the picnic
Just open the door.
& 