Tag: lithium

Compliance

Published on by Sarah DruryLeave a comment

I owe my life to two things: my son and a drug called lithium. It is not an easy medication and comes with some harsh side effects. It can also be lethal. Here is my experience:

I chew the cud of psychological
plaster casts
A cow crudely masticating broken dreams
Oh, white lithium
Not so refined
as to be spherical
Choking the resistance
Laid dormant within me
Valiance succumbed by
radicalised defeat

My glazed eyes from
days of psychiatric praise
My mouth parched
Drinking deserts
Spitting out the camels
Yet feasting on the humps

I may be as animated
as a corpse
Chasing heaven
Yet pursued by fallen angels
My limbs may tremor
Swathed in tsunamis
as they tremble like
leaves tossed meaningless
in a merciless wind

And in my darkest days
I will be penning eulogies
Darkness clothes the weary
in roseless thorns
Yet when the leaden clouds
disperse
Joy becomes an ecstasy

“Euphoria”, sings the blackbird
delirious on Puccini
Taking flight on wings
of obsidian promises
Just as my mind
Grazes the stratosphere

The steady choke of conventional
pulses through my veins
A military equator
uniformly bleeding
regulated nonchalance

The tick tock passage
of the anaesthetised psyche clock
whispers in demands of compliance
And I dot the i’s
and cross the t’s
As the lithium punctuates my life
into fairytales
Not horror stories

©2020 Sarah Drury

Image by jessica45 from Pixabay

Lithium Mum

Published on by Sarah DruryLeave a comment

I have bipolar disorder and anxiety, which pretty much rule my life. I am a widow and have a tweenage son, who has Autism. I know it is hard for him, living with a mum like me. I know I do the best I can. I like to think we are souls and he chose this life and it is part of his life path. It feels easier that way. But it is no excuse for a poor childhood, so i just try my best to keep things as normal as I can.

I am sorry for you, son
Sorry that
Each and every day
You have to live
Your fucked up life
With me
Your screwed up
Lithium mum

Necking bottles of
The good stuff praying
It is magic, mending
Melodies I’m playing
On a broken record
I’m just sayin’
There are
Nicer tunes

Mood swings
Psychotic blackbird sings
Are we up or down?
Is it smile or frown?
Are we Happy Valley
Or are we paddling in
The sea in sodding
Suicide town
Or is it a
One way trip
To the
Psych ward?

Every day I say
Today will be a
Better day
Son
and I mean it
‘Til the moods
Fuck up the way
I’m feeling
Brilliant rainbows
Slaughtered of their
Colours
Blackened tempers
Stealing
Cursing, crying
Screaming’s
Just my way
Of dealing

I will try, son
I will try

©2020 Sarah Drury

Lithium Chick

Published on by Sarah DruryLeave a comment

I have a mental illness called Bipolar Disorder and one of the medications I have to take is lithium. My illness has taken me to some very dark places but lithium has been a wonder drug for me. I wrote this poem at myself, a sort of dark commentary of my illness. I must stipulate it is not aimed at other sufferers, for i have great respect for anyone who deals with a mental health condition day in, day out.

Pop them pills lithium chick
Pop them pills lithium chick
They’ll soothe your pain nice and quick
They’ll make you sane, they’ll make you sick
Make your daydreams milkshake thick
So, pop them pills lithium chick
Pop them pills lithium chick

You know you’ve no job, no money, no hope
No esteem, no confidence, no dreams
You mope, you mope, you mope, you mope
You think of life on the end of a rope
But that’d be like if you tried to elope
So you car crash along, you do your best,
You swallow the shit that is life, you cope.

Pop them pills lithium gal
Pop them pills lithium gal
Don’t want you jumping in no canal
Don’t want death being your penpal
Keep up yer pecker, keep up yer morale
So pop them pills lithium gal
Pop them pills lithium gal

You know love hasn’t found you yet
You cling to a heart that was struck by a dart
When the doctor delivered his black diagnosis
You’ve spent your adulthood swinging between
Being celibate like a nun and being fucked like a tart
And wondering when your fantasies would fall apart
When your roses and hearts romance would start.

Pop them pills lithium dame
Pop them pills lithium dame
We don’t want you fucking insane
These drugs fucking with your pendulum brain
No free prescriptions down the drain
A faulty gene on the family chain
A train of crazy you couldn’t feign
Never mind the fucking pain
The psycho strain, the trash mind sprain
The shameful mental illness stain
Don’t have the complacency to complain
Don’t blame me for the bloodstain train
So pop them pills lithium dame
Pop them pills lithium dame

You know you’re not like the other girls
You’re not thin as a lath nor dripping in pearls
Your hair doesn’t fall in locks of sanity or wellness curls
You don’t walk with the sheep
For their wool isn’t hoodwinked over your eyes
And their normal ways are not ones you can keep
The mountains are too steep and the valleys are too fucking deep.

Pop them pills lithium bitch
Pop them pills lithium bitch
A female in the sanity glitch
A loony machine without a switch
A girl the other girls want to ditch
A girl to shag but never to hitch
A monster, a demon, an unhinged witch
So pop them pills lithium bitch
Pop them pills lithium bitch
Pop them pills…

©2019 Sarah Drury