Tag Archives: pain

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I spent all of this miserable time,
With an eye ever watching what’s mine,
Oh, how these strong emotional walls,
Break to bits when they finally fall,
Watch as my own wrecking ball,
Bitterly destroys it all in due time.

Wildly employing harsh strategies,
Idly killjoying my fantasies,
See how the peace is so far gone?
The why and how, the right and wrong,
Unsevered ties to my tragedies,

No bottom to the darkened depths,
no solidity beneath my many missteps,
Hear how my world is death rattling?
See my walls of glass as they’re shattering,
Around the feet that the mirror reflects?

Like a fluttering paper in a wayward breeze,
Screaming answers to queries whispered silenty,
A blessing disguised as an atomic bomb,
To explode and expose what our oaths have become,
The violent detachment of a butterfly’s wings.

A Butterfly’s Wings.

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History.

I dont know which thing hurts more
The extended hand or the drum sealed door
Wounds burn and sting and bring pain ever more
Tidings that ring singing dark metaphors.
I’m on my own and alone this New Year
The flesh and bone of a crone lives here
Long gone is the thrown of the insincere
I sit alone chilled to bone feeling insecure.
A forgotten vow now drowns out the past
An unbidden sound pounds in wicked contrast
A downtrodden clown bound to eventually laugh
A filth sodden town crumbling down when I pass.
I don’t see how things perceived
Can cast the runes of possibility
At last I do grasp the doom you conceived
The fact that you belong to my history.

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Skeleton.

Why dont you just finally,
Twist the knife you’ve stuck in me,
Watch the life drain out of me,
And wash your hands until they bleed?


All the pain you’ve given me,
Can finally drain away with ease,
But I can’t sustain this injury,
While you maintain the olive tree.


Cant you find the subtlety,
Of disinclined humanity,
To tow the line reluctantly,
As far as it can get from me?


A thing living opportunistically,
Too weakened by your own recovery,
A wisdom lost on all who see,
The lies of a wise sobriety.


If there’s a real bone in your skeleton,
Any semblance of what is a gentlman,
Any scrap of yourself that is genuine,
This appeal has been sent to him.

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1/2 Hour Life-Span.

I love how you fancy yourself,
Sending gifts and wishes well,
Lending bits of your own Living Hell
But underneath you’re corrosive still
I love how you randomly pose as my friend
Obviously not wanting to tie this loose end
You act like your choices aren’t hard to defend
You’re onward and upward and I’m dust in your wind
I love the fact that you’ve traced around
The base I laid out on solid ground
While your betrayal has been quite profound
You remain unwilling to own it now
I love how you jumped from the frying pan
Into the flames of a garbage can
You cursed possibility before it began
With the harshest reality that you’re a conman




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A Butterfly’s Wings.

I spent all of this miserable time,
With an eye ever watching what’s mine,
Oh, how these strong emotional walls,
Break to bits when they finally fall,
Watch as my own wrecking ball,
Bitterly destroys it all in due time.

Wildly employing harsh strategies,
Idly killjoying my fantasies,
See how the peace is so far gone?
The why and how, the right and wrong,
Unsevered ties to my tragedies,

No bottom to the darkened depths,
no solidity beneath my many missteps,
Hear how my world is death rattling?
See my walls of glass as they’re shattering,
Around the feet that the mirror reflects?

Like a fluttering paper in a wayward breeze,
Screaming answers to queries whispered silenty,
A blessing disguised as an atomic bomb,
To explode and expose what our oaths have become,
The violent detachment of a butterfly’s wings.

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The Wrapping Up of Such Sadness.

It’s been 16 long and theiving months of it all; and now that it’s over and my mama has passed away, it feels like a dream: halfway surreal and traumatic, and halfway a street that’s enveloped by fog too thick to navigate.

It’s over.

It’s over.

All I can say is that it’s over.

..and the torment is wrapped up. My mama has lost the fight.

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Futile. 

I’ve never felt so alone.
And, Ive spent my life feeling alone.
…didn’t know this kind of alone was even possible.

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Pins and Needles.

My fingertips are pins and needles,
That tuck the hospital corners of your world,
and smooth the blankets of your mind,
It’s chaos, come to adjust the pillows ’round your heart,
Anxiety, come to massage your broken hands,
See my sparkling, salt encrusted crown of worry,
Ever thickening with hardness,
Never weakening with softness,
My fingertips are ten tiny doorways,
That seek you out, thus desperately
It’s a welcome party sporting shotguns,
It’s death, come to holler in the deafened ears,
Life, come to go away again,
See my hate-infused senses trying so hard to love,
Ever faltering with drunkenness,
Ever drinking in this emptiness.

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Walk, Talk and Breathe.

Friends that refuse to respect of me,
the smallest of ways that I ask to be,
excused from their own stupidity,
yet – they choose to abuse,
and they find these things funny…
A family turned to the judge and jury,
no hand extended in my times of need,
the after-burn of that first, initial sting,
the day I noticed they were on an opposing team…
Others play the friendly role all too regularly,
to the point it’s obvious there’s no true identity,
behind any of the faces in the places close to me,
just life-sized puppets that walk, talk and breathe…

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Delay.

FOREWORD:

They say that the delirium is late-stage cancer – nothing more. Perhaps it is, I can’t say at this point. What I can say is that the delirious woman is still my mom; is still worthy of my love and support; is still a person who I love very much, suffering…dying.

baby-of-mine-dumbo-o.gif

Let me tell you a short (though, repetitive) story; one I have come to know by heart without consciously trying…one that plays itself out through each and every nightmare I have if I am lucky enough to fall asleep deeply enough…one that has come to define each and every “visit” I get with my mama, anymore:

The Bedpan: It is an inevitable circumstance, no matter where mama is.

In whichever facility that she is hospitalized, she is bedridden and increasingly unable to move without severe pain. She, therefor, has been reduced to a bedpan or commode when she is lucid, or, a fucking adult diaper, otherwise.

In her lucid times, the diaper must come off, else she have a massive coronary. During these interim of semi-coherence for her, is the perpetually running song and dance of trying to go to the bathroom. My mother is on diuretics for edema in her legs at present, and therefor has to pee like every 15-20 minutes no matter which state she is in…a detail that seems to define every moment that I spend with her anymore: the horrid revolving door of trying to get a fucking bedpan in time.

The orderlies and nurses are slow as molasses in any setting we have been; they seem to take pleasure in the circumstance of making my mama wait until she can’t hold it any longer, and a mess ensues, without fail.

Then, there I am: frustrated beyond words with the staff for letting this happen AGAIN; and there’s mama: so broken down and defeated by the humbling experience that she’s enduring, she just cries while I clean her up. Each and every time this occurs, it sinks my mama lower into her resignation to death and departure. Each time she cries, it does something to me that I can’t yet find the words to express accurately, but I can say with certainty that her tears in this context make me want to seriously hurt someone, or worse.

As a result of this hideous cycle of requests for basic assistance, delayed responses, messes to clean up, and mama’s subsequent withdrawal further into darkness, I have begun to absolutely dread going to see my dying mother at all.

bambi.gif

 

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My New Mom.

Because of the collective whirlwind effect created by the sudden appearance of, and the subsequent hijacking of any former Life by this hideous reality, this thing known only as “my mama’s terminal cancer”:

  • I pushed it to the limit with keeping her with me at my house (actually, just a single rented room in a home shared with 2 bachelors) and nearly bit off way more than my can possibly chew;
  • I nearly pushed myself to the point of no return in regard to my own sanity and my own abilities;
  • I allowed myself to totally reside on the back burner for too long, and in turn began the cycle of forgetfulness and neglect in light of my own basic needs and any prior commitments made before the nightmare of Anticipatory Grief entered my day to day existence.
  • I stiffened my upper lip and sucked it up – I refuse to ask anyone for anything in the context of help with my mom, especially my new mom, due to her total and complete lack of any sense of self.
  • I moved her to a place where she isn’t going to be waited on hand and foot like I had been doing for her – having such a personal caregiver isn’t a good routine for her overall independence, despite what she says now.
  • Since the move, she has slowly declined in mentality to the point where as of now, she is too confused to find or answer her phone 9 times out of 10; she still cannot walk on her own either for some reason; she forgets her medicines and forgets to eat, she doesn’t shower at a;; anymore unless she is made to do so; she has no sense of humor, the only remaining thing about my former mama was the crazy thick hair – but that has fallen out now.

 

It’s like I have slowly come to be caring for a total stranger; this person is nothing like my mama. My new mom is stoic and scowls at me for no reason; she snaps at me for offering to help her with things when she is struggling.

 

“I wish you would just get out of my face for a change!”

 

This was what she hissed at me on New Year’s Eve, when I showed up to surprise her with some sparkling cider and pizza. She said she was tired of seeing my face whenever she opened her eyes. I left well before midnight and cried the whole way home.

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Bent.

I am the face blended in on the train –
with open wounds bleeding blame and shame –
I am the darkness that protects the light –
blinded by a goal in sight –
I am the reasons why I hate myself –
just me to blame and nobody else –
I am the hatred in the moments alone –
when the place is quiet and nobody’s home –
I am the purpose that drives so many vessels on fire –
I am the face of the weary and tired–
I am not satisfied with the way things have become –
I am not going to accept what you’ve done –
I am the one who meant each word I said –
I am the one that you lied to instead –
I am the one who is sullen and down –
I am the reason none of my friends come around –
I am the cause of all things tragic –
I can make people disappear from my Life like Magic – 
I am the cultivator of this poisonous place –
I am afraid of my own body and face –
I cannot tell which creatures won’t bite –
I will eventually resign to this fight –
I am convinced that I’m better off without –
I am aware of what they’re all talking about –
I am the one who tied the original knot –
I guess that that’s a detail that each one forgot –
I am not filled with any cold from the snow–
I have mastered that defense system, you know –
I am a human fucking being –
I have a heart that pumps and bleeds –
I am not interested in dramatics and games –
be decent to me, and I’ll treat you the same.

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Deep Blue.

It’s as if a snake,
has slithered its way,
down my esophagus today,

a darkening haze,
spills over my scene,
making static in my periphery,

the noise it makes,
sucking down the drain,
until it’s just an empty bathtub again,

genetically hungry,
a deep desire for your cake,
my tears fill the moments and my belly aches,

bleeding your name,
screaming final resignation,
begging for the warmth of your heavy domination,

body in detached withdrawal,
my heart’s never been this broken before,
and it won’t get better til you come back for more,

nothing else much matters to me,
as trivial as a granule of sand on the beach,
the world stops spinning when you step out of reach,

but, you know these things,
how I only dive this deep into blue,
on the days that follow a night spent with you.

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Detritus.

Tell me why it is that I,

can’t pass a single day in time,

without finding some clue that I can’t deny,

without becoming frustrated enough to cry…

it comes down to a lingering absence,

one with a most futile consequence,

simplicity wrapped in self-subservience,

an epiphany stinking of decadence…

so the tension builds itself up inside,

without feeling myself to be justified,

without a handle on things that are mine,

without the backdrop of sensible pride…

speaking feels too much like negligence,

thinking leads me deeply into petulance,

another layer peeled away from my relevance,

until it’s just another wound full of detritus.

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Stand to See.

Let the marching armies’ raid;

Let the pin be removed from the hand grenade;

Let the silence be no more;

Let the truth outshine the lies from before;

Let them come – and kill everyone;

Let them take the orders to drop the bomb;

Let the hatred and anger over-spill;

Let the cowards bask in thy own will;

Let us take direction from evil ones;

Let us do their wicked deeds all done;

Let the RepubliCrat behind the desk;

Let’s see him stand to see his foolishness;

Let the spider tap that final bead;

Let the sniper take the spider’s heed;

Let the blood of bad and good spill around;

Let the Elders dance to the drumming sound;

Let all things “American” just come undone;

Let us demonstrate how we don’t see anyone;

Let the tellers of lies herald our nation’s demise;

Let me keep my attention on meaningful things.

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Dear Dead Man.

I must confess,
this note’s addressed,
to you, most evil man,
my own attempted murderer
my, once, beloved husband,
I wanted to confess to you,
the way that you continue to,
assert your unearned place
haunting me via Déjà vu,
black and blued right onto
your own daughter’s face,
I feel obliged to tell you ,
since you don’t have to see,
her eyes like a raccoon’s;
as her dead former “Father”,
free of the burden or bother ,
of any knowledge or attachment to,
what she’s managed to survive through,
yes, you still fucking linger,
a horrid and grotesque harbinger,
well-hidden,
unbidden…
somehow, forgiven through,
a darkly executed ruse,
she’s grown up somehow,
to be just like you,
you’re a Dead Man now,
no sweat on that trouble-free brow,
you must take this lying down;
you’re gonna have to know it,
hear it all, through and through,
it’s only fitting,
I wish you were living,
can you believe that I’d say so?
alive just long enough,
to walk in big and tough,
you always liked to think,
there’s nothing that can make,
those lying eyes of yours blink
but if you had to see,
if your eyes had to perceive,
such ruin and atrocity,
the fulfillment of your prophecy
as our own full-grown legacy,
glowing in your luminosity,
broken and battered,
just like you battered me…
the sight would make you blink.

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Display.

Image from we<3it.

This is what happens,
or, moreover: what can;
when a woman is broken,
by the hands of a man;

these are the facets,
that the light reflects through;
our many faces of torture,
that somehow still smile on queue;

we sit on display in a window,
it’s all that we know how to be;
like a sideshow in a circus,
to glimpse tells a million stories.

A scale that is constantly sliding
from and to either of its ends;
A timepiece of nature’s abiding,
until it balances us out once again.

You’ve got the innocent, young, and the most naïve,
next to the masochist who can’t get up from her knees;
you’ll see the ancient and calm; the kamikaze love-bomb,
the wise, archetypal matriarch and the shivering fawn.

We are each so different, while exactly the same
our memories are connected by torturous pain;
we’ve accepted and together we stand once again,
against the demons that left us with scars in our skin.

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Open-Ended Places.

I dreamed again last night
of your younger life
of visions I saw
when things were alright
when the future ahead
was laid out, bathed in light
and the time hadn’t yet come
to hold my own defeat tight
I dreamed of open ended places
where anything stood possible
in its own living right
I dreamed again of nothing
but bathing you in sunlight
and opening the doors
that you’ve kept closed in life
I dreamed again of motherhood
in a victorious bond held high
I dreamed of never knowing you
as you’ve come to slice my pride
I dreamed again of rescuing you
from the darkness where you reside
and redressing wounds, unhealed
wiping blood from those beautiful eyes
I dreamed again of your newborn face
and all the promise inside if your smile
I awoke on fire and screaming aloud
a visit from my long-lost child.

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Promise.

“For you girl, the future holds never-ending promise…”;

Those are the words that my great-grandmother mumbled through her toothless mug at me last Friday when I went to see her (for the first time in way too long). At the time, I was just grateful that she hadn’t decided to Hex me somehow for allowing so much time to pass between visits; she actually never even brought up the recent negligence on my part to maintain our former schedule. I never really know where Grandma T is coming from with the randomly spouted morsels of wisdom that she is notorious for letting slip – yet, nearly everything she says out of context at the time she says it, oftentimes plays itself into the happenings of the days directly following the statement. She has always been a tearful woman; not like a psycho – cut off my hair – manic/depressive tearful, more like she remains in a constant state of mourning, all the time. I’m beginning to wonder if that has something to with me…

Yes, for me, the future holds promise; promise that things will change…good things will go sour and bad things will evolve into tolerable circumstances. That’s what Life is about.

There are promised periods of despair, self-doubt and loneliness; and I feel assured that my self-enforced alienation from my hell-bent-on-being-victimized parents will leave another hole in my Swiss Cheese heart; but I also feel very certain of my personal need to get away from the vicious cycle attached to the two of them, in accordance with my own daughter and only child. I feel as if this whole situation has always been on the brink, on the outskirts of my existence just waiting to occur. They have apparently decided to enable themselves to be destructively tossed around in that thankless and soul-sucking spin cycle; I have been swayed in the complete opposite direction.

It continues to be difficult for me to comprehend even on the most fundamental surface level: my place in this newly forged trench in the wasteland between Boo and I. I have been the spade thrower digging day and night while I am numbly sleep-walking around. I have deeply burrowed myself away from the battlefield and lost interest in the meaningless warfare.

I have, in essence, had to make the choice I’ve spent every moment in dreading recently… the choice that I feel as if I have spent forever hanging from the sharp edges of… from the two worst possible options for someone to be faced with. Cruel and unusual in nature, it’s a choice that offers a finality that will bring closure – even if it is NOT anything like the “closure” I might have liked to have. I have not yet fallen into complete resignation behind my choice yet, but, at least I have made the decision. This decision does not boast any perks for my future to come, outside of the hopeful prospect of some peace and fucking quiet; I will be cutting off my own nose to spite my own face with this choice – but the same can be said for the alternative choice being made as well.

In my adulthood (current state of being), I have allowed myself to become exceptionally recluse and isolated from others, including my family. Because of the close connections between my parents (mom and step-dad) and my only child to one another, I have spent many years leading up to this choice in being trapped between my own unrealistic, self-serving need for a family as an element of my own identity – and the reality that I my “family” is by far: the most emotionally destructive and unhealthy thing known to my existence. I am no angel, but I have learned from this Living Hell that I am also definitely not cut out for the dramatics and lack of humanity that seem to be attached to both my mother and my daughters’ personalities. I have been idly standing by throughout these past few months while my only child has single-handedly demolished whatever stability my parents had going for them, if warning and pleading with them to cut her loose means that much. The scratchy words in my throat still ring from the night before my stepfather was nearly beaten death, when I said to him,

“If you aren’t careful Pop, she’s gonna get you killed…”

They have been robbed, burglarized, my step-dad was beaten, ransacked, sucked dry of any money that they may have had prior to Boo’s return to the area; my mother’s car is totaled, the garage of their home has been crashed into and tumbled down. I get these calls from my mom detailing the extreme stupidity involved with all three sides – my mom, dad, and my daughter. I have to listen to how she lies her way back into their lives, then I have to listen to how she fucked them over again afterwards. I can’t do it.

So in essence, my mother’s refusal to keep me separate from the never-ending drama attached to my daughter, has ultimately pushed me back far enough to no longer want to return again.

I haven’t been speaking to any of my family besides my great grandma, because she lives on a reservation that my daughter will not go near out of fear of being strung up for her crimes against her family. My mother stopped calling, a sure sign that she is too ashamed to face me now – translating into the likelihood that my offspring still resides in her domain, somehow – despite the piles of bullshit and destruction that she has managed in the few months she has been around.

My decision comes down to this:

I have chosen to keep it this way; to not allow myself to get sucked back into the unhealthiness again, not by anyone, even my mom. I don’t know any other people who have a parent and a child that is bad for them; so I am totally winging it and doing what feels necessary in order to keep trying to try to survive.

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Diorama.

I count the many drawn-out days,

pass through this feebly clinging brain,

walk in the shine of a sun that is fake,

I exist in a time made of Paper Mache;

A tableau that depicts alternate ways,

the many varying twists and turns of my days,

the illusion of a normalcy frozen in place,

the gentlest wind blows the facade away;

the wheeling of paper-thin figures that blow,

from the set of this warm and fuzzy side-show,

the diorama scene that rips, and tears and folds,

beneath my fingertips as I fight to keep my hold;

the pieces burn and sizzle in my palm as hot as coal.

 

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In Your Headlight Beams.

It occurs to me –
that, quite possibly –
there’s a solid reason behind,
these repeated failures of mine,
when I once again can’t find what I seek;
Perhaps it is simply that he –
isn’t out there after all, for me –
it’s gone well beyond the time,
to accept with heart and mind,
that I stand in that lonely line of reality;
Maybe I have finally seen that such things –
are blessings bestowed upon other human beings –
and now I feel like the same old fool again,
in the skin of a bitter and aging woman,
the wide-eyed doe in your headlight beams.

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Hum In The Air.

Traveling swiftly,
along in between,
the shuffling feet,
dropping and lifting,
to static frequencies,
over the threshold,
off of the streets,
into the bustling,
and humming,
of a million machines,
fostering,
the very needs,
of broken human beings…
over the sounds,
of the technology,
tubes and dressings,
Hallmark blessings,
I hear her breathing,
ever-steadily,
in the darkness,
over the chorus,
of the ticks, clacks,
hisses and beeps,
she breathes her way,
through the night,
thankfully,
to see another day,
that she’d preferably,
rather not even see,
which is sadly telling,
told by the many injuries,
outside and within,
the broken bones and skin,
all of the gods damned,
technologies and,
cures known to man,
won’t change anything,
the hand,
she’s been given,
the Hell,
that she must live in…
this was once my baby,
and she will,
always be,
worth so much more,
than what she perceives,
as reality,
no hope anymore,
of something in store,
hidden from the sight of me,
I hold my breath in,
unintentionally,
if I fail to register,
rhythmic machines,
over it all,
the patients in the halls,
the button to call…
the sound I faintly hear,
here and there,
along a stream-flow,
of the hospital air,
it’s dull and low,
but a sound I know,
all too well,
it’s the rewound,
haunting sound,
high-pitched,
helium,
voice to the face,
of my baby,
saying things like,
“Mommy please help me.”

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Dear Dead Man.

Dear dead terrorist man,
AKA: my ex-husband,
I wanted to confess to you,
your continued presence in my space,
a circumstance of Déjà vu,
black and blued our daughter’s face,
I thought you should hear it,
since you’re not here to have to,
look in her face,
with her eyes like a raccoon’s;
it’s only fair,
that you be,
burdened,
and bothered…
to learn,
what she’s again been through,
you still fucking linger,
in the carbon atom,
and well-hidden,
unbidden…
forgiven in an innocently executed ruse,
she has your eyes,
impossibly long lashes,
to bat away told lies,
you’re a Dead Man now,
no sweat left for your brow,
you’re gonna have to handle the truth;
you’re gonna have to know it,
hear it all, through and through…
I wish you were living,
can you believe I’d say so?
Just long enough,
to walk in all tough,
you like to think,
nobody,
can make your eyes blink,
but if you had to see,
if your eyes,
had to perceive,
such atrocity,
as our own,
smiling baby,
all full-grown,
and battered,
just like you battered me…
you’d die again.

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Vessel.

No anchor,
been thrown,
no line,
being towed,
a vessel’s ghost,
defective lifeboat;
it’s a truth,
indeed,
to behold,
adrift,
afloat,
a dead pirate’s,
stronghold,
beloved,
lifelong sailboat;
tried and tied,
only by,
the darkness,
of the bays,
skippered,
by the lies,
of yesterday;
anyone who,
thinks he wants to,
try to sail in,
and be made,
to look a fool,
on location,
will only ever see,
this vessel sink,
into the sea,
or over the,
horizon’s brink;
can’t quite ping,
my position,
most secret,
of traditions;
alone,
all gone,
no rise,
of the sun,
moonlight,
shines strong,
my metaphoric,
aquatic tombstone.

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Painfully Red.

The very sun on my skin hurts to absorb,

the lids,

inside both of my dried out eyes,

like gravel,

the blood in my veins feels painfully red,

a curse,

a vastness before me –

a combustible finality –

the end,

the beginning,

the entirety.

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Cupid’s Misfire II.

He just had to own this girl;

had to find a way to tap into,

to get her to submit to him –

and his inclination to subdue…

 –

his fingers yearned to touch her,

such fair and young, unbroken skin,

his mind was attached to the image –

of her face: full of disgrace and chagrin…

 –

everything else blinked out of existence,

his sights set on lock-tight, and reeling tight,

a matter of time until he dropped the hammer,

and happily violated her every last right…

 –

She was just right to fall for his rouse,

she bit right into the bored, disinterested yawn,

never saw through the showy façade,

until it was too late, and her freedom was gone.

–

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Particulate Emission.

Jeg bønnfaller deg om å la meg vandre i din skygge,

eieren av min nytelse og smerte,

skaper av min umettelige sulten,

Jeg er ikke verdi,

min elskede instruktør,

forfatteren av min lov,

bærer av min mest naken mørke,

tenneren av flammene,

tenneren av min ønsker,

vokter av mitt hver ønske,

en imaginær sannhet,

min Thor,

det er ingen helligdommen godt nok for deg,

Jeg er ikke verdig,

linjal på hemmelige steder,

vokter av mitt de fleste tom nedturene,

du er et bærer av min laveste dybder,

men du vis meg den høyeste steder,

Jeg har smidd du i fantasien min,

partikkelutslipp,

du er ikke ekte.

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Huh? PART 2

After what felt like hours of listening to Willow (my Mother) talk about what seemed to nothing but gibberish regarding her past experiences with “Satan’s Angels” (this is what she calls doctors and/or nurses), she finally started to get on a page that I could somewhat begin to read with clarity.

“Remember when you lived down south and I got the Shingles that weekend when I came down to visit you?”

“Yes, how could I ever forget that? That was awful – forever…”

And it was awful forever:
Willow came down with the Shingles Virus in her left eye while she was staying with me down south, over ten years ago. In her case, she had a delayed reactivation of the anti-bodies or something and basically in a nutshell: continues to live in chronic and severe optic nerve pain (which is supposedly horrific pain) from day to day.

“Well….at first, the docs had me on Vicodin for the pain; but when I went in for a checkup with my regular doctor when I came back up home, he said they had me on the wrong meds – and he put me on something for actual nerve pain instead, which worked like a charm…”

It was an interesting story, but my tooth was killing me and I could hardly concentrate on anything but my own chronic pain at the moment. Finally, she turned up the lamp that she keeps on the table to the left of her recliner and stared digging around for something.

“Well, that’s great Mom, that they figured out the issue – I had forgotten about all that but yeah – I remember how miserable you were that weekend…and I didn’t see you for a while after that, did I?”

It is occurring to me as speak these words that the weekend she came down with the Shingles was the last time I saw her before my traumatic injury and near-fatal experience that left me hospitalized for a year plus; she left with my daughter that day, and she and I had planned on her keeping Boo for a few weeks – she knew something was very wrong with my situation. She finally stops the shuffling and hands me a bottle of pills.

“These are the same a s what the y gave me for the nerve pain in my eye, honey…it’ll probably at least ease some of that nerve pain in your mouth…try it out, here”

She shoves the bottle into my hand and turns down the light again, sitting back in her chair as if her work is done.
And let me tell you: the stuff worked like a charm…

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Writhe.

“We are destined and designed to bear our pain with us, hugging it tight to our bellies like the young Spartan thief hiding a wolf cub so it can eat away our insides.”
– Dan Simmons, Hyperion

Pain is a peculiarly archaic human concept;
it’s been around
since the first organic flesh bled out;
its grip clutches us all at some point in our lives,
it can make you sing or dance or cry,
pain’s sharpest pierces so fierce
it’ll make your body wrack and writhe,
drop any one of us to the floor
in the blink of a Magician’s eye;
it is the curling and foam
of a wave that never breaks
Pain has no face – no recognizability;
no matter your social status chatter
at the end of everyone’s day, every day
Pain is the master that easily dominates,
that empties our hearts,
of the things that we so stupidly take –
for granted, oh for Chrissake…
our health is all we got from the start;
once that goes, and the pain creeps in
to your heart, mind, spirit, and also your skin
there’s no way to escape it, then…
Pain has clung to the sole of your shoe
and slithered its way in;
to cripple your body and warp your mind,
until the darkness surrounds you
no light left inside,
your only option to continue to survive –
is to suffer through and find a way to,
appreciate the days that you got left to be alive.

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Twice as Toothless.

By the time that I have forced myself to arrive,

the night before, spent doing headstands in misery;

by the time I check in, my vision is blurred,

and my hand signs my name on a page, shakily;

and, when I am called by a mask-clad technician,

my heart seems to pocket itself in my throat;

but the pain overrides my desire to hide,

its crushing waves barely leave me afloat;

I am shown to a recliner draped in plastic,

to catch all of the blood I’m expected to spill;

as I am lowered backwards, I bathe in bright light,

and then I’m directed to keep myself completely still;

the expectation of such a personal invasion,

has my every bone locked – rigor-straight;

the anticipation stabs at the thoughts I have,

my teeth randomly chatter as the pain radiates;

the technicians begin to prod and poke around,

and my nerves shred themselves into strings;

I remain still and silent against the clanging of tools,

hand-drills, icepicks, and other Gods-awful things;

my eyes instinctively close themselves

as each one drops a warm, heavy tear,

down both ridges on both of my of cheekbones

and silently drop themselves into my ears.

For a moment the buzz of the drill is blocked out,

and my body reflexively exhales to such reprieve;

the poking has ceased and my teeth fail to throb,

they have numbed me out successfully;

now, for the show to finally begin,

there’s a swarm of motion around my head;

they speak in a language I can’t understand,

I suddenly feel like I’m snuggly in my own bed;

I peel one eye open against the weight of the world,

to see nothing but blurred hands in my mouth;

at that very moment I think to myself:

“I think I’ll just sleep this one out…”

When I wake up, there are holes in my tender gums,

and bloodied surgeon gowns and gloves in the can;

I tongue my wounds and recoil at the generalized ache,

tomorrow brings a brand new, twice-as-toothless woman.

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Display.

Image from we<3it.

This is what happens.
Or, moreover: what can;
when a woman is broken,
by the hands of a man;

these are the facets
that the light reflects through;
our many faces of torture,
that somehow still smile on que;

we sit on display in a window
it’s all that we know how to be;
like a sideshow in a traveling circus,
to glimpse us tells a million stories.

It’s a scale that is constantly sliding
tipping from and to either end;
unsure of which side that our weight will land,
until it balances itself out once again.

You’ve got the face of the innocent, young and naïve
aside of the broken down masochist, who can’t get up from her knees;
you’ll see the ancient and calm – next to the kamikaze lovebomb,
we have every archetypical matriarch and fawn, here for you to see.

We are each so different, yet exactly the same
our memories are singed with torturous pain;
yet we’ve accepted that we are each as much to blame,
as the demons that left us with scars in our skin.

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The “Unsecret” Dialogue Chronicles _ Series II _ Part 1

Part 1:

“YANK“

The tune to Another One Bites the Dust by Queen begins playing loudly as J’s personal ringtone on S’ phone.

 

S:       J, it’s 3:22am…you’d better be in need a blood transfusion or something…

The line is silent on the other end, eerily silent. Then muffled groans and agonizing noises gradually start to become louder in S’ ear.

S:       J….? Oi! J….? Hello? Hello, hello?….

J:        Esthhh…Esthh…ugghhhh….

S:       What the fuck is wrong with you? You off the wagon eh?

J:        Esthhh, I need you to come offfver, rught mow, pleathhz…

S:       J?! Are you alright? What’s happened why can’t you speak?

S is suddenly very alarmed by the fact that her friend is unable to speak without sounding like the Godfather (Brando) and a mouth full of cotton balls; she sits up and starts looking for her shoes and bag…

S:       I’m on the way, J…

J:        Uggghhhhhhh!!!!

S swipes off the phone and is out the door in a flash.

 

KNOCK. KNOCK-KNOCK. KNOCK.

 

S:       J, you have thirty seconds to open the door before it gets fire-axed…

J’s front door flies open with stale, smoky breeze.

J:        Ugggghhhhh!!!

J grabs S by the shirt and pulls her into the doorway, slamming it behind them as they both stumbled into the darkness of J’s hot-boxed apartment; J is still clinging fiercely to S’ shirt and basically hanging on her right side, limply.

J:        Thuuuude….thoo you haff any of thothe pilths leff from your thurgery, Esthh…?

S noticed a whining in J’s voice that she had never heard before; she lit a cigarette in the dark, allowing herself a look at her friend’s face at last.

S:       Awwwww, J….you look like you’ve been hit by a truck!!!

J:        Do you haff pilths?…in a fuckton of fuccckkking pain ober here Esthh…

S:       Let me see it…c’mon now, open your mouth…

After a momentary, but comically pathetic (on J’s part) struggle, S finally convinced J to open her mouth and show off the culprit.

S:       Nasty fucker. Sucks for you, I have no pills…I ate them all after my last tooth saga – remember how fucked up I was? Sigh

J:        Aye…I rumumba…hey…?

S:       Ye?

J:        How bout your pwiers? Got ‘em on you?

S:       My pliers?…Yes, always…but….seriously?…you’re in THAT much pain, J?

J:        Uh-huh…uggghhhhh!….fuck yeth…fuck yeth…get it the fucckk outh! Pleath, Esthh, pleath!!!

READ THE NEXT EPISODE HERE!

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Stand to See.

Let the marching armies’ raid;

Let the pin be removed from the hand grenade;

Let the silence be no more;

Let the truth outshine all the lies from before;

Let them come – kill everyone;

Let them take the orders to drop the bomb;

Let the hatred overspill;

Let the cowards bask in thy own will;

Let us take direction from evil ones;

Let us do their deeds all done;

Let the man behind the desk;

Let him stand to see what’s left;

Let the spider tap that final bead;

Let the sniper take the heed;

Let the blood be spilled around;

Let my people listen to the rattling sound;

Let it all just come undone;

Let us show the world how we don’t see anyone;

Let the lies be finally set free;

Let me keep my fucking sanity.

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TwiLight Zoned.

This weekend has been rather odd, to say the least…
My Twilight Zone Weekender technically began on Thursday – when the Opportunist sent me a super out-of-the-blue succession of “apologetic” (narcissistic and self-serving attempts at control) text messages; and it only got more strange and fucking out there as the weekend rolled on.
Friday, my doctors told me that my heart is technically failing; “but it’s a lot more scary sounding than it actually is…” my thing regarding the failure of my heart is simple: my father, a Nam Vet – a tough, tough guy – a survivor in his own right – was dropped dead by Congestive Heart Failure when I was thirteen years old, he was 42…I’m now 35 ½ years old. Dun dun dun!!! Anyway, despite the fact that I have lived through the most extreme of the extreme in terms of medical procedures and what not, the heart thing terrifies me. And so the journey through mindphuq – bodyfuq began.
Saturday morning, my heart woke me up again; hurting…hammering…stealing my breaths from my lungs and forcing my body temperature to freeze, inappropriately. I was sick several times during the early morning hours; but then the nausea subsided, and my right shoulder/chest began to throb and stab at its own insides, instead. I gave up the uncomfortable tosses and turns around 7:00am, and rolled out of bed to the unwelcome change-in-routine of ‘no coffee’. I was queasy, so ‘no coffee’ wasn’t so bad after all.
I was stupid enough to open a letter I’d received the night before from Boo; a feat in itself, seeing as how I normally create a huge issue over (my own bullshit psychological road-blocks) before pretty much forcing myself to begrudgingly rip open the envelope covered in her teenaged girl bubble letters, hearts, and arrows. I don’t know why I didn’t experience this inner-boxing match with this letter, but either way – I opened yesterday’s letter without a second thought for the most part…it’s been so long since I had any interaction with Boo at all; I guess I was just hungry for her words – no matter venomous or otherwise. Her letter was likely one of the most hollowing I’ve received from her since her return to the facility where she is caged out of state; she is so detached and dissociated – going through the motions – writing the letter she thinks she is supposed to write…she’s so sad and depressed and says several times that she misses me; she talks about how she’s been on lock down for over a week because of the illegal actions of other girls who reside there.
Getting mail from Boo is always a chop to my windpipe; I admit that I have so much anxiety surrounding her upcoming 18th birthday in May that I sometimes feel like I literally might spontaneously combust.
I can say that I have a very deep understanding and respect for the saying: “Being eaten alive by guilt.”
This is why dissociation has become part of my day to day survival, and possibly that of other specific individuals involved in Boo’s tragic experience under the “care” of the Juvenile Courts and the Department of Family & Children’s Services; without “psychological escapism” – I would not be able to survive. That is an unquestionable truth in my Life, as sad and lacking of stability as it may be.
When I think too long about shit regarding Boo, when I get slapped in the face and am reminded so vividly of her pain and suffering – suffering that goes coldly overlooked and disregarded by anyone close enough to reach out and hug her or even just sit with her, even not say fucked up shit to her that makes her questions of herself spin out of control – when I think too long about any of it, my chest feels like it’s caving in, like it’s been sprayed with liquid nitrogen, or my lungs have been sprinkled with solvent – the tissue is dissolving slowly with a chemical burn sting. I was struggling to get my breath; my draws would not allow me to inhale completely without shooting a bolt of lightning through my chest cavity. My shoulder continued to pinch and stab throughout the entirety of the day; I fell asleep with my arm slung up over a body pillow wrapped back over my head, looking and feeling very much like a pretzel. I slept like shit; but woke up with considerably less chest/shoulder pain, and the ability to breathe much easier.

And…today went on to be also oddly out-of-the-ordinary…
I spent the day today with The Opportunist (kind of). The quick run-down behind this circumstance is as follows:

1. It’s Sunday (male chauvinist football day in the U.S.)
2. I live in what would otherwise be a Bachelor Pad, given my absence in the household.
3. The Opportunist and one of my roommates (“The Good Bunkie”) go all the way back to childhood together.

I’m sure you can do the math there.

Apparently, his failed attempts at contacting and connecting with me the other day didn’t fix his monkey; because here he came today, tortilla chips and salsa dips under one arm – and I shit you not – an array of MY very favorite things under the other, ranging from flowering cacti, to flavored rolling papers, to Granddaddy Kush. Wow…I accepted his offerings with a smile and a nod before disappearing into the safety of my hallway that leads me away from the “man cave”, with a stiff “thank you” in passing.
Of course, me being the NON drama queen that I am (and yes, I am bragging…this is one of my favorite things about myself, in comparison to others I know), I never the bombardment of (pretty pathetic) text messages that The Opportunist sent the other day to the Good Bunkie because, well, why would I? He would only feel the need to be defensive for his lifelong friend, and it wouldn’t be a comfortable position for him to be in…so I don’t say shit to him about his lying, opportunistic, shit-talking, two-faced friend. Not my place to do so. Coming from a woman who grew up in a household full of men, boys and – me, you better trust and believe that I know what time it is when it comes to the old “Bros before Hoes” scenario. I don’t stir that pot.
Anyway, my day actually consisted of spending no time with The Opportunist, unless being in the same square footage vicinity counts. He WAS INDEED sitting on my couch all day, watching football…just like old times…but the only way I knew he was here was because once in a while his cry-baby whining voice would drift down the hall into my domain. Otherwise, I spent the day either doing yard work or in my own quarters. But still…a very weird day…a very tiresome weekend.
Tomorrow’s another day, ya’ll.

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Nighttime. ..

Makes me so lonely I just wanna die…

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Tears.

 

I’m crying a lot again lately…the Holidays, I assume…

the point of my post is not to gain pity from anyone reading this, it’s simply an observation that I’ve made over the past week about my own tears and the way that they seem to work.

I blew my nose this morning after a disgusting sneezing/coughing fit (yes, I have the creep and bronchitis still…), and was somehow given the cursedly magical flashback of a time during Boo’s earliest years alive – she was probably around 3 or so; she inherited her mother’s schedule-bending allergies, and I flashed upon the time she was learning how to blow her nose. I was overcome by the memory of holding a wad of tissues to her little button nose and directing her to blow from her “booger holes” as hard as she could – and the experience that followed my instruction – the one in which I learned how well my only child can mimic me; she blew with all her might into the tissues and never had a runny nose again, to my recollection. People always used to trip out about the way my toddler regularly retrieved a tissue and blew her little faucet nose, without being told to do so.

She was such a miniature adult, always….

I cried for about an hour after I finished blowing my nose.

 

Next, were the stupid Candy Corn Rocks in the box of Halloween decorations that I begrudgingly pulled out at my roommate’s out-of-character request (wtf???)

The year before she left my life, Boo and I painted some river rocks that we had started collecting right after I came home from the hospital; the collection had grown over the handful of years, and we spent a lot of time and attention on finding rocks that were specifically reminiscent of Candy Corns, because when we started out with it, she was too young to differentiate shapes very well and it was one she could easily identify. It had been her random idea to paint them in time for what would become our very last Halloween at home together. When I see them, I feel both endearment and bitterness; one of my hands wants to throw each rock as far away from me as I can manage; the other hand wants to somehow wrap each one up and protect it from anything and everything because it’s Boo.