mood tracker
A fragment of my day
Captured like a pictureless
Photograph. Instead a small
Paragraph, an insight to a moment
The moment i have spent the whole
Day trying to figure out the emotion
That swept me away the most
The thing they get wrong about borderline
Is the things they label as “bipolar behavior”
My moods are a switchboard with a blind operator
My moods are kentucky weather patterns
My moods are a field of wildflowers
I capture it. Fill out the sections I designed
On the app I pay far too little for the big outcomes
I see. Mood, secondary emotions, hobbies, chores,
Cognitive distortions, coping skills, detailed adjectives
From the feelings wheel, connections made, a picture
That best describes the moment
Do i try to do this throughout the day
Yes, and yes, and yes
Notifications fly at my face
Three times a day, I have it set
To tell me something I already know
Track my mood
Get the data to make sense
Of the nonsense of my brain
Report back to the doctor
To the therapist
To the logical part of my mind
To sort the colors of faces
On the calendar
The thing they get wrong about borderline
Is that it’s survivable
It’s a terminal illness & i feel myself
Dying more & more each day
2 thoughts on "mood tracker"
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I feel the intensity and exhaustion in your piece “switchboard with a blind operator” is wonderful. Well said.
I love the logical enjambent of the penultimate strophe. However, the unpredictable nature of the enjambment in other parts of the poem jive with what you are conveying. It works.
(And psssst… All too often “Borderline” gets thrown at females when they express anger. Maybe there are darned good reasons WHY so many adult women in our society are angry! “Anger is the natural response to injustice.” Don’t let the DSM get ya down. 😉 )