I never remembered the heartbeat
of my hypomania; look, it felt so
alive, I promise you I was realer
than that low-life shrunken depression,
now, know me as sleepless and flying
through a stage of almost-delusion.
Look, I blew away all my money for
what? Needless shit that hit the fan
in my room, literally, I was throwing
random banana-graphic shirts up
to the light, blades tearing its cloth
apart. A part of night showed through
my window, and that’s when I could
see, finally: a hyperimage of myself.

Clayre Benzadón (she / they) is a queer (bi /pan) Sephardic (Mizrahi)-Ashkenazi poet, educator (adjunct professor) and activist. Her manuscript, Moon as Salted Lemon was recently named an honorable mention for Miami Book Fair’s 2025 Emerging Writer’s Fellowship and was chosen as a winner for Driftwood Press’s Editor’s Pick Poetry Prize. Find more about her here: https://www.clayrebenzadon.com.