Mania Is

Mania is... It’s a very sneaky thing, mania is... I’m humming along, no doubt minding someone else’s business, giving little attention to my own state of being. when in it slips, mania does, a message under my door: “I’m here; are you ready?” I never am. I always am. Many of us who live in a carefully balanced state mourn the loss of our mania as if it were a death. Oh my God though, what we can do when we’re there — write with Kerouac ferocity; touch Pollock’s intensity; persuade the opposite or same sex that an afternoon of play is the best thing that will happen to them this year; find a Maserati’s limits (Why are my passengers always terrified?). Others of us fly too far, too fast, from the tightrope of sanity, melting Icarus-like in the heat of soaring — head in the oven; deft cuts with a Gillette product; an abundance of downers; one blast of a twelve-gauge. Don’t misunderstand me... I would fly without hesitation at a moment’s notice, but I have a fear of melting.