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The first time we had sex was glorious. The weight of God had lifted from my shoulders. My orgasm was: an atom bomb exploding and crashing through my soul and when it was over we lay our sweaty bodies against each other and she clung to me. My eyes rolled back into my head, and in that moment I floated up and up and through her and through my roof and up into the atmosphere. Heavenly opera crescendos erupted from the earth as to applaud my great undertaking. Italian women with beautiful voices filled my ears and I saw sparks. Soon she whispered that she loved me and the sky caved in. I was pulled way down, way back down through heaven, through the clouds back down through into my bed. She told me she loved me and I told her right back but I was actually really lying through my teeth.

I remember looking up at the little sticky glowing stars clinging to my ceiling, still there from when I was eight years old, and smiling. After that sex my whole life made sense. I had a stupid grin on my face for two days. I’d drag my feet around town and hear every note of nature; every summer smell was a gift. I felt drunk and happy and stupid all the time. Most of the trivial shit that used to bother me horribly was suddenly distant and far away. That sex was bleach my brain needed to start over. My brain and conscience were so clean I would have been content with cold blooded murder.

Her first I love you was so weird and awkward and soon she told me it every night. I felt uncomfortable because I didn’t share her feelings. I was constantly waiting for my heart to finally accept her and I wanted to just fall into it like a fever, but I had never been in love in my entire life.

Like a Trojan horse, she opened up after a few weeks. Right at that perfect moment, right when I would have grabbed her hand and kissed it and looked her in her blue eyes and said yes, yes I do, I really love you and I want to be with you for-ever. Right then she told me she cut herself and she was living with bipolar disorder, so I said so what, we can work through this and none of that even matters.

Two days later I was walking her to my car, and she was wearing tight Capri pants, the kind that just expose the knee to ankle area, and right there I saw my red name sliced into her leg. Not cut or sliced or scratched, my name was carved into her leg.

So weeks passed and I thought maybe this would blow over, maybe the Depakote would kick in and we could forget about all this. Then I saw her manic side.

Bipolar disorder is generally two extremes; mania and depression. Mania begins with strong euphoria, increased energy, activity, and restlessness. A cocaine like high; racing thoughts. In mania, one never stops talking. The first time I saw her in mania I asked her if she was doing angel dust.

Soon the mania turned into aggressive and ridiculous behavior. This sweet girl turned into the coldest and meanest person I knew. This cycle quickly concluded with a severe crash of depression. The wilder the mania – the harder the fall. Right when I finally fell in love, I fell back out.

Even though the sex became harder and wilder, every time it was over I would always fiend for that high. My eyes stopped rolling back and I stopped dancing in the clouds and soon my atom bomb culmination felt like a firecracker.

Into my unconscious mind I neatly placed all of the disappointing things. The scars, cutting, fighting, screaming, crying. Names on legs, psychosis mania, shallow hugs, avoided phone calls, lying, cheating.

My relationship became a trap. Months had passed and the only thing left was sex. And after sex I was never high, I was empty. I was awkward and uninterested.

A ten degree night in February was one of the worst nights of my life. My band had just finished playing and we were packing up our shit, when I realized she was missing. I soon overhead the crowd saying that some girl had started crying and ran out of the club in hysterics. My head spun. I dropped the cymbals I was carrying and ran out of there, ran fast through the crowd, fast into the dead winter night and ran through to my van. The windows were fogged and iced up. The door was locked so I started screaming at the top of my frozen lungs. Open the fucking door right now please just open the door oh my god.

I remembered her severe mania that night and I knew she must have crashed and burned. Every door was locked up and she always held my keys while we were on stage. I was afraid of what I would see if I managed to get inside. Exhausting my options, I was left to rip open the trunk door. It didn’t budge so, bracing myself with one foot against a taillight I gritted my teeth and pulled.
Pulled and springs popped.
Coils and soul stretching.
The door sighed with spidery glass cracks.
Ice and glass cracking and popping.
I heard her muffled crying. I saw her crouched into a ball in the passenger seat, crouched and trying to cut her wrists with a shiny piece of metal. It glistened as I exhaled ice and I just stood there in the cold.

I crawled up to her on my hands and knees and said,
“What are you doing? Please, I love you please don’t do this.”
I slowly opened up her clenched fist and put the piece of metal in my pocket. We didn’t talk the whole ride home.
When we got back I drank Vodka straight while she went on the computer. I said “this is what I do when I’m depressed.” And she laughed.
I lived for the moments when she laughed.

I truly wanted to help her but I didn’t understand what was going on in her mind.
Our eighteen month anniversary was closing in.
A week later she was in a deep depression. I picked her up and she was quiet and stared out the window.
When I dropped her off I said I love you and she told me that I didn’t and to stop lying.
So that was the last time we saw each other. I broke up with her the next day and it was one of the hardest things I ever had to do. I tried for months to help her. I did hours of research on bipolar treatment and medication. I even interviewed all of my old psychology professors from my community college.

One professor laughed, telling me it’s only gonna get worse.
“This is just the tip of the ice burg.”
I stormed out of the room and slammed the door behind me.
And that day I told Jen that I couldn’t do this anymore,
“It sounds selfish, but it’s too much stress for me.
“I had some of the best times of my life with you.
“I’ll never forget the way you laugh or the first time I saw your eyes.
“You were the first girl I ever loved and,
“I hope you will meet someone, one day, who always has the right thing to say,
“and can always bring out your smile.”