I Overdosed Twice On Lithium by Mikel K

and after over a quarter a century
on the drug
I had to come off it and start
on something else.

 
The shrink gave me
what he called
a  maintenance dose
of trileptal
added to the ziprasidone
that I was already on
and all I thought about
was swallowing
both bottles
of the pills
and getting the fuck
out of here
which is pretty much
standard thinking
for a bipolar person
on meds that are not working;.
I made it back
to the shrink
and told him what
was going on with me.
He was the first person
who I told about
how I was feeling
and he doubled
the dose of both pills;.
Fuck I thought
now I am going to
want to kill myself
twice as badly.
But I was wrong.
I listened to music
today and wrote
some poems
for the first time
in over a month.
Feeling like shit sucks.
What would really suck
would to not  have
health insurance
and not be able
to afford the meds
that I need to keep
me in the game.

Mikel K is a poet and memoirist living in Atlanta, Ga. K was voted best Atlanta Poet, the last three years in a row, by readers of Creative Loafing, Atlanta’s weekly newspaper. He has a BS in English with a minor in Journalism from Georgia State University.