‘Ode to Lithium #75: Mind over Matter’
— Nix Thérèse
The Ode to Lithium series doesn’t just address the medication itself, but the entire trajectory that’s helped it arrive at the side of the speaker. In #75: Mind Over Matter, we tackle the voices trying to keep it out of the speaker’s hands and say it’s unnecessary. We begin with “someone’s professional opinion / was to “relax” over matter. To sandcastle over / wave.” The interplay of “matter” here is well-wrought. It’s powerful to acknowledge that you’re composed of certain elements that can’t be transformed at will. Even the most fortified sandcastle will somewhat wash away in an impending wave, but “relaxing” won’t stop the sediment from rushing back to the sea.
Likewise, “as if I could possess the firegrief that possessed me” is chilling because I can imagine the speaker burning up from the inside. Why are they being asked to control the fire when it’s already turned them into its container? They’re constantly being asked to be two steps ahead of their condition instead of tackling it in the present. These assumptions uproot their sense of reality to leave them with what they should have done, aka not exist in any complexity. These voices say, “if you’re not composed correctly, don’t pull us into your universe. Don’t ask us to help you map it. Stop feeling the wound.”
But my favorite irreverent moment of the poem pushes back against them: “will you relax / the coffin into the soil?” It implies that asking someone to “relax” can be a form of burying them alive because you’re really asking them to be overtaken by quiet, to unname their hurts. There should be no casual way to bury someone. It’s one of the few acts that has to be done intentionally in order to give any real honor to a life. How can you ignore the coffin’s weight? How can you drop a body as if it’s air? Stigma is the slip, the hand over your mouth that asks if you’re worthy of breath. But you’re already here and you already matter. Don’t let them take your air or the ground beneath you.