My mental health is a lottery

Stability is a daily game of chance

Unknown as to whether

This bingo cage will release

My exhausted survival skills

Or my self-destructive behavior

Eighty emotions contained in one heart

Six moods released from one brain

Shuffling like the wind

Inside a glass sphere

Sometimes spinning

Like a centrifuge

My precious energy is

Hyperactive and preparing

For an outburst

Of ear shattering screams

Too much pressure

To appear stable

After emotions

Are released

Every day is an act of gambling

Where I could experience

Combinations of simple emotions

Creating a complex

Inside a withered spirit

All these bouncing balls

Have the impact

Of my inner child

Jumping upon my back

Like an inflatable surface

At a birthday party

I’m getting too old

To appear stable to all

Who eventually get to know me

I do not fear violence from my enemies

I fear my mind far worse than any gangster

And my only supplemental number

Comes from the phone

From which I call the man

Who sells me weed

For sometimes

All it takes

To soothe me

Is a dime bag

And a lucid dream

-Jack M. Freedman