Welcome to the abyss

My name is T. E. Woodard, and before you I present a brief window through which you can view my mind. I have bipolar disorder and it’s been a total nightmare to deal with, but I got some poems out of it, so who’s really laughing?

This collection is all about representing the highs, lows, and middles of living with something like bipolar disorder with a touch of sentimentality and love thrown in. You might laugh, you might cry, you might feel all warm and fuzzy inside. You’ll just have to give it a chance.

Living life with a big heart is a beautiful and tragic thing. This collection of 50 poems encapsulates my experience living in such a way. Also included are general life philosophies that have guided who I am as a person, and how I view the world.

It’s a universal human experience. At one point or another, we feel it creep up behind us, stalking us as we navigate through life’s darkest corridors. No matter how hard we try to shake it, there it is, no more than a step or two behind, aiming to remind us of the empty spaces that occupy our lives, of the discomforting silence when all we desperately want is to hear something other than that of our own minds unravelling.

Love Letter to Loneliness is a poetry collection about confronting this very experience. Each piece was carefully written with this in mind, traversing those grimy alleyways, circling back to meet that feeling head on, and ultimately learning to coexist with it.

I hope you enjoy.

Endless cacophony of tireless voices

Peddling outrage, spewing venom

Garnering sympathy, pushing causes

Commodifying grief, pursuing sympathy

Unique opinions demanding to be heard

Shared by thousands saying the same

Offering input where none is requested

Contributing two cents

To mountains of coins

And we listen

And we feel

And we empathize

And we empathize

And we empathize

‘Til wells of empathy are dried

‘Til we grow numb to atrocities

‘Til we think ourselves heartless

For lacking the capacity to care anymore

Ceaselessly accosted by nonstop tirades

About a damned reality 

Where everything is shit

And everyone is shit

Singular morsels of individual happiness

Gobbled up by spiteful cretins

Who waste no time in pointing out

That while your belly is full

Another person is starving

That while a roof is over your head

Another person sleeps beneath the overpass

That while you are exhausted from your day job

Another person is quite literally being worked to death

Because no matter how bad you may have it

Someone else has it worse tenfold

And shame on you for having the gall

To complain about anything

While doing nothing to quell the sobs

Of your fellow man

How dare you not shoulder the burden

Of a burning world

How dare you not not cast yourself

Upon the sacrificial pyre

In a vain attempt to stop anything

Terrible from ever happening again

How dare you not realize

That the weight of suffering

Is yours to bear

Not in an overt way

No flailing arms

Coughing, sputtering

Thrashing around in a limitless expanse

They’re calm, accepting

Content to sink beneath the waves

Disappearing before popping back up

To take a breath

Then repeating the process again and again

Each time resurfacing

A little slower, a little weaker

Incapable of returning to the shallows

From whence they learned to swim