“Bipolar Girls on a Manic High Are My Addiction” by Stephanie Heit
look for the bipolar girls sexy if you can get them
manic god-like confidence and unlimited energy till
they hum rubbing on streetpoles pure libido oozing
out crotches a slippery invitation those bipolar chicks
will surprise you stripping off clothes without an
invitation not even caring what your name is just that
you are fuck ready bipolar chick like an animal randy
in heat hit that if you can if you are brave enough to
mess with crazy
Context note: This piece is from PSYCH MURDERS, a book of hybrid memoir poems about my lived experience of psychiatric wards, shock treatments, and suicidal ideation. I have many persona poems throughout the book and in this piece the persona is of a person placing a classified ad. This was inspired by a talk about the hypersexualization of bipolar women and the stigma rampant on online dating platforms.
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Stephanie Heit Artist Statement:
Stephanie Heit (she/her) is a queer disabled poet, dancer, teacher, and codirector of Turtle Disco, a somatic writing space on Anishinaabe land in Ypsilanti, Michigan. Her creative disciplines are fluid and inform each other in inquiries that delve into somatic experiences of how the body inhabits the page, words inhabit the body, and how the environment we place our bodyminds in stimulate new awareness. She is a Zoeglossia Fellow, bipolar, a mad activist, a shock/psych system survivor, and a member of the Olimpias, an international disability performance collective. Her book of hybrid memoir poems PSYCH MURDERS (Wayne State University Press, 2022) invites the reader inside psychiatric wards and shock treatments toward new futures of care. The Color She Gave Gravity (The Operating System, 2017) explores the seams of language, movement, and mental health difference. https://stephanie-heit.com
