OK so this is long and might get some groans, but it just seemed too apropos (variables and mental health combined) not to share. It's not great—a lot of competing metaphors—but not bad either. A poem I wrote back in 2010:
the unattended party
i get stuck
in residual resins,
my body's tacky;
mind is muddy.
i can't say it's x,
so you'd understand what i'm a function of,
i can't say it's x
because it is x, an unknown variable,
i'm always trying to solve for.
f(x) = chin-scraping, head-banging falls into crevasses.
i need time
to be reset.
i need more time than i want to take.
i need more time as the party starts,
and i want to go.
i fell,
but i was going,
i fell so hard,
but i wanted to go!
before i fell,
i walked blind and quick,
neither looking behind or ahead,
the way you swallow hard
dart your tongue
collect your spit
swallow harder
and try to forget,
when you eat something bad.
i didn't want to wade the waters;
i wanted to skip like a stone,
getting the job of my life done
without me,
because if you can do that,
it's really not a bad existence.
but,
i fell,
but i was going,
i fell so hard,
but i wanted to go!
i wasn't planning to ignore myself;
it comfortably worked out that way,
until i fell.
who made me remember this crevasse,
who made me this monster,
who are you who put an engine where my heart was,
who ignited the engine,
pulverizing the unassuming clockwork,
the quiet automation,
of my life,
who = x, i'm solving for,
i'm prostrate to,
as the party goes on.
i'm sure there is good here,
if i stayed still to see,
crevasses can be beautiful,
but it's too much for me to take;
i'm closing my eyes,
climbing through the bad,
scratching at the icy margins,
trying to find automated life again,
a world that when i find it
will always be tainted:
a world of mixed worlds,
where i'm still in the residual resins
of f(x),
where the party's ending,
and x is still unknown.
my life is to walk,
hoping some times
x will not trip me,
as parties begin.
