The "B" Word

(pushing back on "bi"

B is for Billy Joel

Blow Job

and all the rest –

A string of clichés

or some sort of vision quest.

B is for bisexual

at your behest –

B is for Bipolar II

a litmus test.

This poem of sorts arrived more or less fully-formed at 7:22 AM, a couple weeks ago, swirling in my thoughts. I didn’t ask for it and didn’t particularly want it, but there it was, along with a bunch of other mental activity:

- A soundtrack of horns that sound like Charles Mingus music – sort of “Goodbye Porkpie Hat” mixed with “Praying for Eric”. Crying horns, signaling pathos.

- Then, there was a constant conversation as well: two or three people, who were on a different frequency than the poem and the Mingus-like music, but there simultaneously, mixed and compressed and sounding like one of those Bose home speakers – lots of low and mid-range, nasal.

The poem is stream-of-consciousness, whatever’s been fermenting in my head. Billy Joel is there because of the post I put up here on Substack defending my childhood piano hero. The shared first letters with “blow job” is related to the question I’ve had, “Is it okay to refer to him as B.J., since that’s also an abbreviation for blow job?”

“Bisexual”? The word bugs me, even as I use it to describe myself. There it is, popping up.

Finally, “Bipolar II” popped up as well. This is the mental condition I maintain is driving the poem and a flurry of other mental activity at 7:22 in the morning. I will touch on Bipolar II, and bisexuality, in this essay – my own experience of these states-of-being, and their efficacy as “bi” terms.