Pieces (Songs for My Tribe)

Pieces, 5/26/2017, Deon Mumple
(for Pieces of Bipolar)

My life, my love, my heart and soul
Endure, carrying on somehow,
In spite of everything.
I’m fracturing.
Time takes a steep toll.
Each stolen treasure leaves me less whole,
And I started out already in Pieces.

I hold on, seizing hope, and praise
The beauty common to every day,
And notice it in you.
No, don’t!  It’s true.
I see your love, strength, brokenness, sadness,
I feel your spirit’s touch, through joys, through madness,
And I have the courage to carry on, in Pieces.

My brain only betrays sometimes,
Wait, don’t speak!  Oh, nevermind,
Those inner voices scream
Unfiltered streams.
Sometimes I’m too tired to control
What’s said. Oh well, that’s rock and roll-
Rock to stone me, break Pieces to Pieces

I want true love and solitude
Acceptance, even when I seem rude.
Unconditional’s
Not impossible,
Nor my expecting honesty-
Don’t you dare ever lie to me,
This wall protects me, all these shattered Pieces.

My heart’s hiding with me in here,
Behind the meds, the moods, my fear
Longing to be coaxed
Afraid of another hoax
My mind might be brilliant,
But don’t ask me to think when I can’t
Can’t trust, can’t love, can’t heal these crushed Pieces.

Don’t tell me that you understand.
Just love me and hold my hand,
Watching while I smile.
Or let go for a while,
When the rage takes me by surprise,
Or sadness of losses brings tears to my eyes.
I’ll come back when I can re-gather my shards and Pieces.

So I’m not everyone’s portrait
Of “normal.”  So what?  Look what you forfeit
When your love’s tied to strings
People aren’t puppets that sing,
My love’s more true than I am any day:
I push away, but then wish you’d stay.
Love could be glue to fix these broken Pieces.

Remember, I’m not writing these in any particular order, unless you tell me to.  But I’ve written this poem today, to celebrate a beautiful living soul, who blogs under the name Pieces of Bipolar.  I hope you like my tribute.  She is one of the first bloggers I encountered since I started blogging.  And, in my humble opinion, she’s brilliant and a great writer and poet, so I hope if you don’t know her, you’ll check out her writing.

We met as mutual friends of another blogger, whose tribute I wrote as the first in my celebration series, Songs for My Tribe.

I love her to Pieces. 🙂 My mum used to say that.  “I love you all to Pieces, and then I love all the Pieces.”