ISBN: 979-8245139340

Ramblings of a Mad Man is a journey through extremes — the highs that feel limitless, the lows that hollow everything out, and the fragile calm that follows.

Written across years of lived experience with bipolar disorder, these poems capture the reality of a mind in motion: racing, collapsing, breaking, healing, and grieving what was lost along the way. There is no glamour here, no tidy recovery narrative — only raw moments of clarity, fear, resilience, and quiet humanity.

This collection speaks to those who have lived with mental illness, loved someone who has, or simply felt unrecognisable to themselves at some point in life.

It is not a story of being fixed — but of learning how to remain.

COSMIC CONFUSION

My bones feel weightless, built to run,

Like gravity has come undone.

My thoughts won’t settle, slip like sand,

Too many roads, no place to land.

Euphoria swells, too large to bear,

A roaring fire without air.

I speak in bursts, I laugh too loud,

A mind unchained, a storm unbowed.

Hands unsteady, body light,

Pupils wide as swallowed night.

Time bends and breaks, the world is thin,

A restless tide that pulls within.

My skin is buzzing, stretched too tight,

Each second sharp, each colour bright.

Every shadow, every sound,

Expands, erupts, then spins around.

My heart beats past the speed of time,

Each thought too tangled to define.

I'm flying fast, I'm crashing hard,

I’ve lost the map, I've played my card.

I glow, I spin, I tear apart,

A restless soul, a racing heart.

No sleep, no pause, just burning bright,

A supernova in the night.

But somewhere deep beneath the high,

A whisper asks, how far? How wide?

What goes up must one day fall—

Will I feel anything at all?

DARK CITY LIGHTS

Last night I overcame my demons,

Feeling like a car—

I’m fast, I’m speeding.

Drowning in the dark,

Don’t have time for feelings.

Look upon the stars, there’s no going back now,

It’s just me and you, let’s drown out the background.

City lights blur, neon veins ignite,

Chasing shadows through the endless night.

The road is long, the past still lingers,

Fading scars traced by trembling fingers.

I burn the pain beneath the wheels,

Racing forward, numb to feel.

But ghosts still whisper in the rearview mirror,

Echoes growing louder, drawing nearer.

Do I escape, or lose control?

Crash into fate, or take back my soul?

RETURNING TO THE BOY I WAS

There were mornings when I woke

and it felt like my chest was empty—

an echoing chamber of ache and dread.

I’d stare at the ceiling, tears burning,

thinking, If I vanished, would anyone notice?

Even the simplest breath was heavy,

each moment a quiet battle against giving up.

No one could see the silent scream,

the way my smiles masked exhaustion.

I was a child carrying secrets too big for my hands,

scraping by on crumbs of hope,

wondering how much longer my heart could hold on.

Now, when I look in the mirror,

I see the strength I needed back then.

I’ve become the embrace I once longed for,

the voice that whispers, Hold on, please.

It softens me to tears:

to know I survived by hiding parts of myself,

to realize I forgot how deep my wounds ran

because it was the only way to heal.

If I could slip back through the years,

I’d find that boy trembling in his bed,

and I’d cradle him like a fragile bird,

wiping away his hot tears with my sleeve.

I’d listen to the storm inside him

and tell him, “You matter, even when it hurts.

There’s a future where the night isn’t so dark,

where you feel peace instead of panic.”

I am proud of who I am now—

a man built from scars and resilience.

And yet, my heart breaks softly

for the child who carried my pain,

for the hours he spent feeling unworthy.

He shaped the tenderness I have today;

every tear he shed watered the roots

of the compassion I’ve grown.

So I write this as a love letter

to the boy I used to be:

Your suffering was real,

your sadness was immense,

and you never deserved to bear it alone.

I’m here now to honour you,

to let the tears fall,

and to hold your memory close

with the gentleness you always needed.

SHARP PAIN

Barbed wire wrapped around my brain,

A storm of thoughts I can't contain.

Darkness surges through my veins,

An endless cycle, sharp with pain.

I long to slit the skin,

To carve the sorrow deep within.

I hate the way I’m sane,

Trapped inside this hollow frame.

I crave the numbness, cold and sweet,

To drown the war beneath my feet.

To silence screams that go unheard,

To fade away without a word.

Yet in the depths of blackened air,

A part of me still lingers there.

A whisper fights, so faint, so small,

Begging me to rise—not fall.

But chains of doubt still weigh me down,

A heavy crown, a shattered crown.

Hope flickers dim, a dying spark,

Lost within the endless dark.

Still, somewhere past the shattered glass,

Beyond the ghosts that haunt my past,

There waits a dawn I’ve yet to see,

A fragile chance to set me free.

STRENGTH IN NUMBERS

I’m not ashamed of my illness,

It’s part of me, but not my whole.

For too long, I let it define me,

Now I’m the one in control.

It brings me my power,

Not a weakness, not a curse.

I’ve walked through the fire and made it out,

Stronger than I was at my worst.

Now I’m diagnosed, I’m not counting down every hour,

No longer drowning in the unknown.

There’s a name for the chaos, a reason for pain,

And knowing that means I’m not alone.

I see it in others, the fight in their eyes,

The battles they wage, the weight they disguise.

We walk separate paths, yet we all understand,

A silent connection, a held-out hand.

No longer in shadows, no longer afraid,

We stand together, unbroken, unashamed.

For pain is lighter when it’s not yours alone,

And in each other, we’ve found a home.

AN ARTIFICIAL NOSTALGIA

I used to find joy in the cracks of the world,

In shadows that danced, in leaves as they twirled.

A puddle was poetry, rain sang in rhyme,

Each moment a treasure, unmeasured by time.

Back then, the wind whispered secrets to me,

The stars told me stories, the grass held my dreams.

Happiness hummed in the hum of the bees,

And sadness was soft, like a lull in the breeze.

But now I am ruled by four little pills,

Each one a tether, a chain to my will.

They tell me I'm better, they promise me peace,

Yet steal all the colours I once held with ease.

My mind was a storm—wild, untamed, and bright,

A flickering fire that burned through the night.

But fire consumes, and storms take their toll,

Now I am tired, too heavy, too cold.

The highs were like heaven, a radiant sun,

Spilling with laughter, untamed and undone.

But the lows carved me hollow, swallowed me whole,

A pit with no bottom, a debt on my soul.

I used to be weightless, but also so full,

Now everything’s distant—detached, mechanical.

The stress wraps around me, a tightening thread,

Each thought is a battle that lives in my head.

They say this is balance, this dull, muted air,

But I miss the madness, I miss even despair.

For even in sorrow, I knew I was real,

Now, I am vacant—too hollow to feel.

Is sanity worth it, this alternate place,

Where nothing is sharp, yet nothing has grace?

I swallow the cure and drift further away,

A stranger to life—just waiting to stay.

Thomas is a poet from Essex, England, who began writing as a way to survive experiences he did not yet have language for. He turned to poetry in his late teens as an outlet during the onset of bipolar disorder, for which he was diagnosed at nineteen, using writing not as performance but as a means of staying present. Now twenty-four, his work explores the psychological terrain of mental illness, recovery, and identity with restraint and emotional precision. Rather than offering explanation or resolution, his poetry documents lived experience as it unfolds — the intensity, the aftermath, and the quieter work of endurance. He continues to write while working in care. Ramblings of a Mad Man is his debut poetry collection.