STABILISE

Disclaimer: It is important to note that STABILISE is a mobile application and website in progress guided by an educated woman with lived experience with bipolar disorder and computer scientists interested in raising self-awareness, encouraging self-exploration, and improving access to practical knowledge, strategies, and resources. STABILISE AI is designed to allow users to track their own moods and language patterns over time. For medical advice, please consult your family doctor or a trusted health care practitioner. If you believe you are in need of immediate medical assistance, contact emergency services. To speak with a trained crisis responder, please reach out to the Lifeline at 988 (by phone or text).

Category: poetry

  • On the Topic

    On the Topic

    We were talking around the subject,

    but this way or that, there were words.

    They stood like pillars, monuments of ink.

    The sky turned. Pale blue to a strange scarlet.

    I wanted to say.

    That’s the value of a breath. I imagined you

    with a defibrillator. I imagined you. Even the last

    days hold poetry.

    Especially them, who are we kidding.

    Loss is what loss does. I have been carved. I thought

    I could become blood for you. Some flesh. Some framework

    with Headings and subheadings and context and code. Sometimes

    it’s the palm.

  • On the Subject of Time

    On the Subject of Time

    We were building hollow blocks, figuring out how to

    make them sit neatly next to each other. We were flip

    and we were flop and we ended up with our noses pressed

    close enough for a stranger to wonder if we were about to

    hold hands. So we did. We held hands in the dark until your

    eyes pulled shut. There were stars.

    I have always been a universe unto myself. I have always been

    in servitude. What way is the best way? Whose ethical turn is this?

    The grey area is where you and I become steam.

    We’re sinking through stone now. We’re collaborating.

    There’s mold. We laugh. By now, you and I have seen enough to know

    what would pull us apart and what wouldn’t. What we could talk about

    in the dark, sink each other’s noses into sleeves, not feel the need to hide

    because it’s actually okay to feel. To feel very deeply. To always think about

    the ocean. A shadow in the dark, tendrils wet.

  • On the Subject of Loss

    On the Subject of Loss

    I was sitting on the sidewalk, the part of the road where pavement

    meets the bus stop meets the road. I was thinking about time through

    ripped jeans, how my skin was an artifact. I was thinking about sand

    through fingers, my hands clutching at a beach like I could carry

    the entire landscape home.

    So I did.

    I carried the beach and the ocean. Eventually, I was carrying the world.

    It was heavy. I wanted to lay it down. I knew it wasn’t mine, but the feeling that it was didn’t leave. I thought of my mother’s body disintegrating into a skeleton under white cloth. I thought of her full-fleshed and breathing. We were getting groceries. If I had known it was for the last time, I wouldn’t have done anything differently.

    Death was, is, has always been the shadow of a breath on my neck.

    I kept thinking about Rumi, how he emphasized being the ocean. Be the waves that lap at the shore. Learn how to approach. Learn how to retreat. Know that only a higher power could notice the scrambling of a crab’s legs under sand.

    Know that only a higher power could measure everything at once.

    It’s really important to understand that no one human can provide an answer for the universe. Hug the people who love you when things get dark. They are in the darkness with you. They are playing chess with the universe hoping you’re the rook that doesn’t move. They may be the light, and you may need to respect you’re a shadow. But that doesn’t mean you don’t matter. It means you’re the thing that follows.

    Figure out what works. Figure out how to lay live flowers at your dead mother’s grave. Know she’s dead. Memory is lovely, but it is not life.