The Public World of Mania
A cereal box is so exciting –
the colours wonderful and ignorant
and I taste nothing because I am fast.
There is a waterfall through my head
I never sleep, why waste time?
I speed race in running shoes red shoes and ruby slippers
I am fizzy and multi-coloured
rainbow thoughts
yellow girl
Fiona Donaghy: I signed up for a poetry class at the UEA in 2005. It was one of the most exciting things I have ever done. I have not stopped writing since.
Now I use writing as a way to, control my bipolar disorder. In my silent depressions, when my voice is mute, when it hides at the back of my throat. I write to my doctors explaining my pain. My pen is a more reliable picture of information than my tears.
And then during mania when the world is brightly coloured divine and intently creative, my pen works quickly so I might record something out of the ordinary, and that something in another mood, might become a poem.