Fire, ice, and twilight

I often think of bipolar disorder as living through shifting seasons one of fire, one of ice.

In the blaze, everything burns with energy, ideas, and reckless momentum.

In the frost, the world slows, heavy and silent, as if even thought itself is frozen.

Other times, I imagine it as two captains fighting over the same ship each convinced they know the right course, each steering in a different direction, while I’m caught in the middle, just trying not to sink.

⸻

The Season of Fire

When the season of fire rises and the sun burns overhead, my body heats, my chest tightens, and sparks flicker across my brain as chemicals brew their strange concoctions.

Desire surges, and a voice half-subconscious, half-demon begins to whisper:

“Fuck! Fight them! Buy it! No steal it! Forget morality. Indulge.”

It’s a siren of lust and recklessness, urging me toward the edge. And yet, it’s not all ruin. Colors sharpen, joy returns. I feel like I could conquer the world. The grotesque turns alluring; the mundane, electric.

But it’s a wild energy like a rabbit, restless, bounding in circles, desperate for release. (Basically me if Red Bull and Pornhub had a baby.)

When mania crests at its zenith, I become a beast chained only by reason and morality. My fangs ache to tear flesh, but restraint diverts them to the carcasses of animals rather than kin.

The hunger for intimacy warps not union, but raw instinct: the chase for pleasure, the urge to scatter progeny.

The careful self who once counted coins now dreams of buying the world. And if I cannot afford it, I will simply take it:

“What’s yours is mine, and what’s mine is still mine.”

(Like a drunk sugar daddy with maxed-out credit cards and no prenup.)

Joy and rage fuse together passion without boundary, fire without shape.

Inside the ship, the manic captain seizes the wheel, steering us into black waters, while I and the slothful captain wrestle to halt his madness.

⸻

The Season of Ice

When the ice season hits and the sun goes down, everything goes numb. The moon brings a slow, gray hopelessness that eats joy and courage until there’s just hollowness and a wish to vanish.

Colors fade. Stuff that once lit me up now makes me sick.

I get tiny and suspicious. I replay conversations like broken records:

Do they hate me? Was I clingy? Are they pretending to care?

The part of me that wanted to buy everything disappears; now I can’t even want much. The sex drive that was a blaze turns into cold doubt about love usually I’ll just jerk off for the hit and call it a day. (Hand lotion should really start paying me royalties.)

I lie there like a sloth too heavy to move, getting cheap dopamine from the same old, stupid tricks while the rest of life keeps moving. (Netflix asks if I’m still watching yes, Netflix, and I’m still not getting laid either.)

The ship drifts under an incompetent captain, left to rot as it surrenders to the wind and weather.

⸻

Twilight

But between fire and ice, between sun and moon, I stand in the twilight.

Neither timid nor bold. Neither a rabbit strung out on Viagra nor a nun’s dildo gathering dust after Sunday service. (I live somewhere between missionary and a regrettable Tinder hookup.)

I see color again muted, yes, but not gone. Without the manic glasses, everything is softer, steadier. I find interest in love and sex in equal measure, not as obsession or emptiness but as a balance.

I no longer crave to own the world; it is enough to take my share and to give in turn.

Perhaps this is what it means to be human: to walk between fire and ice, to wrestle with captains who never die, to live with seasons that shift without my consent.

The twilight is not perfection it is survival. And in that survival, there is its own kind of meaning.

⸻

The Endless Voyage

I steer this ship the best I can patching holes, scrubbing the deck, and praying the mast doesn’t snap in a storm.

There’s no port to dock in, only endless water. So I’ll enjoy the sights as I sail… and hopefully those bastard captains don’t get me killed.

And if they do, well at least I’ll go down wetter than a nun at a Magic Mike show.