Hello, hello:
it's a new day,
sun shining and all.

Except it's not.

The moon is out—
a dear old friend—
and something ravenous
is tearing at the tendons
beneath my skin.

Except it's not.

I feel nothing
save for the pseudo-
comforting numbness
of the lithium in my
veins

But wait! What is my life?
There once was beauty, painful as it was;
full of life and rapture and wholeness.
Love, too, was present—
requited, and then not—
unbearable, and then not—
was that, also, a mere fabrication?
Delusions of the most detrimental kind?

[Manic-depression, you tease me so.]

Usually this would be the part
where I claim to have lost my soul,

Except it's not
(because)

I've finally come to realize
the soul does not exist.

Hello, hello:
so how does it feel, now,
to know you might as well be talking
to the mirror?