Featured Poet - Mike Gosalia

THE DARKEST BLUE

Schizoaffective disorder—

the name alone freezes me.

It sounds so frigid, so medical,

just to say the words.

What does it mean?

What could it mean?

An outcast,

a drifter,

a miscreant,

a clown,

a dreamer,

an island to his insanity, his psychosis.

Living so thoughtfully in the world of the spirit

where no description could speak of the comradery

with the voices I hear,

directing my feelings,

managing my karma,

something to do with good and evil.

So bereft in the land of the living,

a shaman—(do they exist?)—living in a material age.

No one to understand,

no loved one to bridge the gap.

“You have schizoaffective disorder?

Get away from me … you psycho.

You’re nothing but a disease,

and I couldn’t stand to lessen

myself with the likes of you.”

No career to lean on,

no cat in my lap—

too disorganized to take care of another,

too worried about a mishap.

I walk around in a league of my own,

because I’m the only one.

No book can tell my story,

though they try.

I am alone,

yet my hopes shine so bright

on a sunny day, and the

moon appears so silvery

in my darkest affliction,

during the werewolf hours.

Now, to roll the cassette,

Bob Seger’s “Against the Wind”—

that is something I know.

For I once was a man, like you.

HEROES

I look to writers like

Brett Easton Ellis and

Irvine Welsh at their peak.

They were trailblazers—didn’t

give a damn what others wanted.

Didn’t give a damn with what

others flaunted.

They wrote for themselves,

and spoke truthfully about what

they could see.

A society under a blaze of

materialism. Oh my, the fires burn bright,

Dear God—as far as the eye can see.

A life of experience—

is the life for me.

The best things in life

will always be free.



ECHOES

Emptiness haunts me.

There’s no meaning anymore.

I’ve given up prose for poetry.

My thoughts are too scattered and abstract

for the tune of conflict, crisis, and resolution.

But there’s an echo.

It’s called hope.

And I cling to it,

in every key and phrasing—

goodness still seeps in during

my darkest moments.

I thank the heavens for God,

for he knows me well.

He can never let me down,

though sometimes I feel I walk upon

a desolate ground.

It is under his house that I dwell,

turning thoughts into rhyme,

confusion into spell.

A crowd might have me

if I extinguish the fires in Hell.

ABOUT THE POEMS: "I’m currently in a transition period wherein I’m waiting to get a less powerful dose of Invega, the antipsychotic medication I take. At current levels, I am fatigued and tired. Mornings become afternoons, and night is day. But I’m hanging on with the hope of a better tomorrow. These poems are about that struggle, which I interpret as a passage to another understanding of my reality. The poems retrace some of my darkest moments with schizoaffective disorder, and how I see myself with the disease, and how I manage to not let it get the best of me. I am more than the illness—good will is my anchor, my compass."