Seventeen.

When I was seventeen, I lost my mind for the first time, and the world became a frightening place.
I lost my understanding of reality,
when the bipolar beast reared its ugly face.

Suddenly, my brain malfunctioned and made me paranoid,
I no longer trusted anyone, and believed they wanted to ruin me.
It was like my life had been destroyed,
and I was living in a post-apocalyptic, nightmarish dream.

Attempted suicide so many times the hospital staff all knew me by name,
oblivious to reason, I was convinced a microchip had been implanted in my brain.
I watched afraid as everything I knew and loved went up in flames,
in order to refrain from harming myself or others, I was placed in restraints.

Traveled across Canada by bus in order to escape and get away,
running away only made it worse, and I was locked away again.
Days turned to weeks then months, as I slowly returned to the me of yesterday.
There is nothing in this life that compares to the anguish of mental illness and its pain.

Family Feud.

One loose thread is all it takes
for an entire tapestry to unravel.
An entire year's labour of love
can come undone in seconds.

Emotions change as quickly as
colours in kaleidoscopes,
a single misperceived look or pointed barb
can turn the comfort of calm into an atomic bomb.

When personalities can range
from laidback to neurotic and back again,
there is no guessing when moods will sour
from resentments repressed for far too long.

Like earthquakes that strike unexpectedly,
and level entire cities in an instant,
the ego can take control,
and tear families apart in minutes.

Strong, silent matriarchs are reduced to tears
by their ungrateful children,
siblings, once inseparable,
act more like polite strangers
who tiptoe around politics or religion.

Effective communication
is the only tool capable of
scaling the walls we build when we are hurt.
Alas, it is a rare talent that so few of us possess.

Unless assertiveness is an option, conflicts will snowball
until they are impossible to resolve.
Until we learn to let go of past hurts
that weigh us down, we will not evolve.

Instead, we will remain
stuck in this revolving door,
where we can assign blame 
without ever accepting our own faults.

Narciso Rodrigues.

Auto-erotic asphyxiating whilst gazing lustfully at his own reflection,
Narciso was in disbelief at his own perfection.
No need for a partner when you are an Adonis yourself.
why ruin the fun of self-adoration by including someone else.

His arrogance was unmatched, but he was apathetic, why would he care when he was such a fine catch? Delusion ran wild for he was convinced his weak chin was chiseled, clearly confusion corroded him as he believed he was a leopard when he was more similar to a lizard.

Narciso wrote his own fate that day
he passed his last mirror and became too aroused,
his face was still torn apart by shards of glass
when the paramedics arrived at his house.

In his passion, he had mistaken his reflection for the real thing,
so caught up in masturbating that he hardly felt the blood dripping.
With skin ripped, like meat cut by a butcher's blade, he was committed, still entranced by the thought of how handsomely he was made.