Dear Lithium Carbonate,

I don’t feel like Recovering today. But alas, I promised Him I’d get better so here I am, trying desperately hard to stay alive. My lungs keep pumping even though they’re choking on tar, and my heart keeps beating even though it’s shattered, physically and mentally. They won’t give in, much to my despair and distress. Sylvia says it better than me:

It happens. Will it go on? ——
My mind a rock,
No fingers to grip, no tongue,
My god the iron lung

That loves me, pumps
My two
Dust bags in and out,
Will not

Let me relapse
While the day outside glides by like ticker tape.

I have had my baseline blood test. Tonight, I will swallow you in tablet-form and say a silent prayer that you can save my life. It’s complicated because sometimes I wish I was dead, or rather, I wish that I wasn’t alive. But at the same time, I am begging the Buddha to make you stop all the crazy shit inside my head, once and for all.

I can’t deal with the spikes. Up and down and up and down, sometimes all within minutes, seconds, spiralling downward then shooting up to the sky like a firecracker. What goes up must come down. I am sick to death of being down. I can’t live like this anymore.

This is I, writing to tell you that you are my last hope. The final chance. The last resort. The final desperate bid to save my life. I pray that you work because I have reached the end of my tether. If you don’t work, there’s only one thing left for me to do and it will involve more letter-writing.

Yours,

H.