purple haze

The things that confuse me about life are...
so i could make a list
or write a poem
or i could tell a story
but all of this is hiding
behind the wordplay
that protects me so often
from the barbs of
confusion i'm supposed
to be describing.
so i'll just share
an uncomplicated truth.
Existence confuses me. Specifically my existence. There are so many facets of me and my life that i just don't understand. Obviously i don't understand my illness but not in a " why have the fates dropped this in my lap" kind of way. Instead i wonder if i invited this into my life. Before i was ill, i ran with a cynical group where words like "crazy" and "suicide" were often a punchline. i know the environmental, biological, and situational basis for my bipolar but i can't help but wonder if whispering those incantations of insanity when i was untouched opened a window somewhere.
i am confused by my writing. some call it talent, some expression, but to me it just is. sometimes words flow from me so independently that when i look back on it, i feel like i can hardly claim authorship. and i know the inauthenticity of it all, how i choose words or phrases to elicit emotion and reactions in the reader or listener. why can't people see the hypocrisy of it all? am i really that good of a liar?
forgiveness confuses me. i have expressed this before but my parents, close friends, my brother, aunts uncles, i know they are meant to love me by rote, but when i look at my scars and remember the harsh falsities i hurled at them in the midst of symptomatic madness, i am confused by how they let me back into (some) of their homes and lives. perhaps that's why i accept so many pains from them. i'm attempting to repay a debt that never can be. i can be used up entirely and it still won't be enough to fill in the hole i gouged in their collective psyche.
finally, i am confused by my survival. i tempted God to take me so many times, yet He didn't take the bait. my mother has told me that i don't know how many lives i touch in that scolding tone of "so shape up" that all mother's have. so am i meant to be this shining example/role model of recovery where i have come from the pit and see how shiny squeaky clean i am now? is this despite small relapses, look how far i've come...is that the clarifying truth to my life?