At the end of night
I wake
furious: international socialist resistance, furious
other times, joyous: tiny ladybug on honey euryops joyous
oftentimes, sad: you are not here with me, anymore – tears on the pillow, sad.
They say, “Bipolar and psychosis”.
I guess, I feel too much, then, even when asleep.
I’ll self-diagnose myself, by art:
too much empathy.
I wake, each and every end of night.
Isn’t that something! Something indeed.
Though she no longer wakes at the end of days, with me, anymore.
I wake, crying – tear dreams, I call them.
And we speak, on a phone that’s forbidden between end of day
and end of night
spirit speak.
I wake.
I do exceptional, ordinary shit, for money.
And end of day
is when I’m furious
sometimes joyous
often, sad.
But I remember my dreams, then
and I’ve loved and been loved
I have been in love
I have lost, love
I have, love.
At the end of day, the promise is a milky way
that never stops the dream feeling and if it’s not the end of day
but night
I look forward, all too much, to waking, then.
Warren is editor-in-chief for the South African, non-profit literary publisher, Botsotso. His poetry has been longlisted for the Sol Plaatje European Union Poetry Award and his writing and poems have been most recently published by New Contrast, the Botsotso Journal, and Olongo Africa. He is diagnosed bipolar disorder type 1.