My Poetry. The Battle Between The Eyes!

Prize open my mind, tear loose my torment now;
The haunting images are too real, too frightening to me.
The ferocious battles that rage inside my head
Are a private, hellish spectacle for only me to see.

Outwardly, you see a seemingly ordinary man,
Who appears to live his life fully and without strain,
But when night falls, a different, desperate being
Slowly drowns in a deep, agonizing pool of pain.

I am torn by what is right, yet tempted toward the wrong;
My mind is magnetized, pulled in one deadly direction.
This unseen force is tearing away at my very soul,
Leaving me only to hide for my own desperate protection.
My head feels like an unbearable, leaden weight;
I cannot summon the strength to lift it at all.
I am pegged down by the vision of a gory, final end—
I know, with chilling certainty, that I am going to fall.

Will this darkness win? Will the light ultimately lose?
Only the inevitable end is looming nigh,
As the illness drags me down a black and darkened lane,
All I can do now is let out a despairing, final sigh.
This silent torture knows no boundaries or limits,
Even as I fight so hard for the simple right to live;
The crushing strain has set upon my weary head,
A pressure that I know will never give.

Where is the light? Is there only endless darkness?
There is nowhere left to turn, nowhere to hide;
And so, the final, consuming end is looming,
As I feel the relentless heat of the fever and burn inside.
Medication—what purpose does it truly serve?
Does it make any fundamental difference to this war?
It only quiets the tired bodies for a time,
Controlled by invisible steel and cold, restraining rods.

I beg you, prize open my head, let the sickness escape;
For my mind now desperately needs new, vital blood.
Open all the trapped, locked doors of my being,
Let the pressure loose—let the true feeling flood.

Struggling with bi-polar disorder.

© William Sinclair Manson 2025