Mackenzie Taylor

Performance Poems

I thought that illness would make me rhyme like Sylvia Plath
But it merely made me cook with electric instead of gas.

Here's a Haiku on dating a Mental Health Nurse:

Unpaid overtime
That's how her colleagues see it
I just see her love

And more lines:

Fuck Psychology
Fuck Psychiatry
Fuck pills of every hue
Fuck the way I feel today
Tomorrow
Yesterday

Fuck the highs
Fuck the lows
Fuck the little man I see out the corner of my eye
Fuck the sound he makes as he calls me
Fuck the therapy
The CBT
The tea and sympathy
Fuck the talking
The talking
The endless fucking talking
Fuck the hate I have for myself
And those that help me
Fuck the illness
Fuck it
Fuck it
Fuck it
And please God, please, don't take it away.

The line 'one in four' refers to the fact that one in four people will be diagnosed with a mental health condition at some point in their lives.

I am the one in four
And maybe so are you, but therefore not you or you or you
I am one of the Beatles (Let it be George)
I am one of Chelsea's back four
I am a face on Mount Rushmore
I am a Cardinal Direction (north, no west, no north by northwest)
I am a season of the year (though my climate alters)
I am a suit in a pack of cards played to tatters
I am plasma from the states of matter
I am a classical element (The one kicked out of Earth Wind and Fire)
I am a Marx Brother (and so is my sister)
I am a Monkee
And the slutty one from Sex and the City
I am a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle (Heroes in a half shell)
I am a fundamental force
I am a Gospel
I am one of the fantastic four
I am the one that beats all of rock paper scissors
I am the one in four

'Thank you at Company Paradiso for involving me with the project. It is undoubtedly one of the highlights of my working life and rewarding in so many ways. I have bi-polar schizoaffective disorder. I have manic episodes, and mania is just the best experience ever, which is why it is so dangerous. Because you really do feel you can do anything, be anyone, challenge anything. If you've ever been on a roll, if you've ever been in love, it's like the first moments of that. But you do stupid, dangerous things. You lose your sense of what reality is. It's based on nothing.

'I think what we should do is make people feel better about their illness, by naming illnesses after famous people. Then you could go to your GP and come out and your friend would say "How was it?" and you could say to your friend "You'll never guess. I have Stephen Fry Syndrome. I'm so happy. I'm a polymath genius!" '