Kimberly Wolf
Bipolar as a weather event
Let me put it this way:
Remember when we drove nine hours to the desert, starving for stars and the sound of nothing at
all? All that milky light pouring over your face, the awe of a sky so big that it felt like we were
falling into its shrieking mouth.
How we drove home a few days later, only for a tornado to hit. You, hiding in the hallway with
our cat, having an emergency without me. At work, I kept imagining the downed power lines
surrounding our home. The fences in the trees. The trees through windows.
The roof ripped off. How the stars would fixate on your anxious face as I drank them in,
starving, drunk on the same sky that swallowed us whole.
In the alternate reality where my bipolar manifests as incredible superpowers
Happy Birthday
Your gift is me topless in your kitchen, levitating salted tomato slices into your
open mouth
Don’t look so shocked
The pigeons outside recognize me for what I am and cover me in oil slick feathers
I could fly if I wanted to but I don’t want to scare you
Scaring you is the last thing I want to do though there will be days where I start
kitchen fires
With my laser vision
But in the meantime
Happy Birthday! I am levitating tomatoes the pigeons are de-feathering for me
you are standing in the kitchen with a mouth full of honest to god joy
later we will water the plants and when I make my own personal rain cloud to do
the work for us
you will tell me that I’m drowning them and I will say
didn’t god also send a flood
Kimberly Wolf (She/They) is a poet and parent selling books in Texas. You can read more of their work at www.kimberlywolfpoet.com. You can find them on Twitter @KimmieWolf.
