Rocket Ship
by Sophia Falco

I condensed the power of the ocean

into one single droplet of water

it was my hot tear that warped time

during my fourteen day stay

in the psychiatric hospital,

my body no longer felt like mine—

oh mania.

My nurse told me to paint every day,

art therapy she said,

but I could only paint

countless of red rocket ships

that I longed to escape on,

to connect my body

to my mind that was somewhere

lost in space

and threatened by a black hole.

(I could feel she was disappointed in me.)

I taped up each identical painting

to my wall

just to realize that

part of me was still on earth.

Sophia Falco is a poet whose work has been published in Inside the Bell Jar, in The Mindful Word, in Stigma Fighters, in The Esthetic Apostle, in Tiny Seed Literary Journal, and forthcoming in The Festival Review. She studies intensive literature and creative writing specifically for poetry at the University of California, Santa Cruz. Sophia finds poetry as a great way to fight the stigma against mental illness, and to help start bridge the gap between those affected by it and those who have not. (She has personally struggled with bipolar disorder in the past.) Sophia is also a photographer whose work has been published in The Fredericksburg Literary and Art Review, The Esthetic Apostle, featured on the cover of Tilde: A Literary Journal, and forthcoming in Sunspot Literary Journal. In her free time she is an epic gardener. The tallest sunflower she grew was 16 feet tall.