avuncular whoas

it's times like this i wish i learned to play music, because no written word will do

you are running fast my dear friend
my outrageous teacher
and practical guide
with a spark of madness

you've always run faster and farther than you ought
but even now you slip away into the horizon
the mast and sail flattening into an ever diminishing black dot

and this time you sail where i cannot follow

i grieve the joy you take with you
grieve the sorrow left behind

(i will make bad jokes to the air
pretending you are there
that it is your joke
in your voice
and not my pale imitation)

Mark this man and know his kind,
they are not seen overmuch anymore.
Know him as Artist, for that is his soul

but what the fuck do i know anyway?

For Those Of You Keeping Score At Home

Because I know you just hang on the teetering scales of karmic retribution that passes for my life.

But just in case I haven't expressed this adequately, since I've been told repeatedly how bad I am at coummincating, here goes:

It's been a helluva few years. The last 18 months seems to have made it a personal mission to age me decades. And I still really haven't gotten a break.

Now, I know lots of people don't get breaks, that's life, right? You have to keep trudging forward. But by the 8lb 9 oz babby jebus, it can be vexatious.

Last May I made the difficult decision to quit the only steady employment I'd had. It was literally making me sick, physically. Anyways, after two weeks of unemployed bliss, wherein I decided to overhaul my room, I got a call about a loved one.

So June found me headed east. They reckoned he had cancer and was dropping dead soon. The truth turned out to be far more complicated and every bit as scary. I became one of a two-man primary care-taking team. We had help from Hospice (an amazing organization) and it still took everything we had.

While everyone did admirably, the emotional tolls exacted on the participants were difficult to deal with, for each person and for each other. I think maybe everybody might need a little therapy. Seriously. It was some stressful shite. Twere not dull times, is what I'm saying.

And there were additional lovelies along the way--another loved one has inoperable cancer. He is tucked away somewhere dying and I can't help him and I really don't want to talk about it much more than that.

Life continues. Money is ever so scarce. The future is uncertain. Everyone struggles. Donald Drumpf. It's bleak, is what I'm saying.

In mid winter we decided we had plateaued, and I headed back West. After three weeks our Charge took a serious dip and I got a call from a Hospice nurse telling me that he was dying in a room in th ER as we spake.

SO, flew back to family, lived in ICU with my Number 1 Patient for a few weeks of a coma, and then we slowly got him out of there, into PT, and off the drugs and through the condition that was making him nutsy fagin.

Fair to say, was an emotionally challenging Spring. Perhaps this is where I began to feel frayed.

Everything has leveled out to an acceptable state, and I returned West once again in June, almost an exact year after I'd first left.

I have little money. I have no income. I have no real networking. I'm working on a side/dream project and trying to make an honest effort at it because HURRY UP PLEASE ITS TIME and it's easy to play Prufrock but maybe I could make on stage as even a Guildenstern, if not Hamlet himself.

And it's fine if you don't understand any of that. Because here's what it means: I GOT STRESS. liekwhoa.

I visited some friends, but I haven't had a break. Bad news, real life, responsibility, have dogged me every step of the way. I can't relax. It's me--I think I need 30 days of intensive Netflix/Deserted Island therapy.

Whatever the case, including that I'm in some kind of PTSD meltdown or just a mid life crisis, I haven't gotten a break. The beat goes on. I'd like a nappy break. Can I tag out?

I'm exhausted. And I'm my primary resource. This corporate structure sucks.

I know you peeps out there are feeling it, too. John Irving called it weltzenhammer and said it was German for "world hurt."

Kinda like Sorrow.

Some Things Are Better Left Unsaid, But They Still Turn Me Inside Out.

Some new and potentially important things are going well right now. It's hard to enjoy partially because I'm just exhausted beyond all belief and I'm not right. In the head.

People seem to think I'm kidding, but it's been a rough 14 months and quite honestly the few years before that weren't none too gentle neither.

I don't even think I'm running on fumes anymore. I think I'm running on delusion, possibly. I don't know, I can't make complex distinctions like that right now.

However, and possibly related, it is fair to say that it is also hard to enjoy because I'm missing someone right now. I just don't seem to be very good at these things.

I would try to tell them, but that's what got me in this mess in the first place. I think. I don't know. I may be having a PTSD flashback. I really need to get on a better eating schedule. One which involves things like eating.

So, some cool things are happening and what's even cooler is the effect on my roommates and family. They seem very happy to have some good news, however silly it may be.

It's like there's a party going on inside but I'm stuck outside the window, staring in. And the bitch of it is, it's my party.

bewlsheet

i resolve to be more celebratorial about my acomplifications

DAYS INCIDENT FREE: 0
BITCHES CHOKED TODAY: 1
WEEKLY COUNT (Sat-Fri): 3
SUMMARY: HAWKEYE HAD TO CHOKEABITCH THREE (3) TIMES THIS WEEK. OF NOTE, FOR ONCE, MANAGEMENT WAS NOT DISPLEASED.

out of my hands

it would have been nice
to have, i think

to have something warm to share
to have someone who saw you, and wanted to see more

but i was foolish and weak
and believed things that were too good to be true
from a source i know is prone to be mercurial

what was i thinking?
well, i was thinking this was a bad idea that would hurt me
but i was real busy hoping
and all that stupid, feckless hope drowned out the truth

i thought i'd grown past being disappointed by surefire failures
was beyond being hurt by impossible promises
had become inured to ridiculous fantasy

but all the pieces of my life fell in such a jumble
i was so lost
(i am so lost)
and for a moment i wanted to feel good
to feel love
to believe in good luck, good fortune, happy accidents, true hearts, true friendship, honesty

and the tiny spark of feeling loved in return

(the problem with that word is that so few people can agree on a definition)

i'm too old and broken for this shit
and perhaps i'm just not cut out for it anyway

turn off the sign
pull down the gates
close up the shop, maybe we can find a home to wander into

Here's How Pain Works Sometimes

I wake in the night and don't know why. I register something like discomfort, not quite pain. More like being uncomfortably aware of organs you are pretty sure are not supposed to have any feeling at all.

It's like the distant echo of pain--your body always knows before you do. And so begins the unfortunate cycle.

You review your data: this is off schedule, is this gonna be like last month and be the pms that was as bad as the period?, you have detected signs that you were missing before: Yup, seems likely. You about to be in a world of pelvic hurt, probably accompanied by GI shenanigans because, well, because that's how it always goes.

See, the pain is bad. Real bad. When it spikes, sometimes all i can do is just lay there. I try heating pads, I try exercise/sweating it out, I try NSAIDs  in unhealthy amounts, acupuncture, TCM herb treatments (nasty, btw, so very nasty), Rx pain meds (which can at least turn the volume down to a manageable level but good luck getting an Rx these days), clean eating, taking unhealthy amounts of Omega-3 oils, and probably ten other things I can't even think of right now.  Hell, if I had found something to abstain from that would end this chronic misery, I'd like to think I'd be smart enough to take that deal.

But that's the prob--all those small steps can help some, and aggregated you get a multiplier effect. But everything has consequences and costs. And there's still no real pain relief--not when it's really bad. Not even when it's just a constant throb, a dull ache that never goes away. 

(Note: The closest I've found are, frankly, narcotics. They turn it down to dull roar and I can go to work. But you best believe I still have to take NSAIDs and do a lot of other crap to keep the machinery going.)

It's exhausting. If you're lucky, you can take something to sleep or either pass out from exhaustion after several hours/days. But, at that point, your non functional. And still in pain. Just unconscious. Less than ideal, as the man said.

Same deal with heating pads/napalm heat creams. You're tied to an outlet, or your skin is on fire. And thank god that heat can bypass a pain signal. But at a certain point, the heat becomes pain. Also, it's awkward af walking around town in a flop sweat. And you still can't eat, feel like crap and blah blah blah. So, you kinda end up. . . . laying around. Notice a trend?

Anyhoo, so at 2:30 this morning I say, "Eff this skullduggery. I see the dark clouds on the horizon. Quick, let me quaff my restorative tonic!" Which means I took my special blend of benadryl, anaesthesia, ahuyasca, and ex-lax* and went back to bed. 

To awake sometime around 7 with confirmation: the pain has arrived. Batten down the hatches, here we go.

Whatever you've got, take it. Vitamins, NSAIDs, etc. Make sure to drink some dairy but don't eat. Your stomach is just waiting to do you wrong, and it's really gonna pissed after a few days of those NSAIDs. Never take on empty stomach, but never fill stomach.

Take a hot shower. Grab your heating pad. If it's 80 degrees in your house, then get a fan. And prepare to stay in front of it. All day. Think about cold showers too.

And you end up later in the day, now, with the afternoon heat having settled around the houses. Finally broke down at ate something b/c, let's face it, it was neccessary. It was also a bad idea. 

The pain has lapped at you in waves, ceaselessly, all day. It hasn't even kicked into high gear yet. It's just slowly wearing you down. At this point, you are either in a coma, delirious from your meds, or delirious from the pain. None of it is fun. I wonder why I even gained consciousness today--b/c all i can do is wait for tomorrow, hope the period starts soon so it can end soon, and try more coping methods tomorrow.

I'm tired of writing about pain. I'm tired of thinking about pain. But mostly, I'm tired of being in pain.

*Pro-tip: beginners might want to watch it on the ex-lax. don't want to make any foolish mistakes.

arrhythmic distortions

somewhere in this moody mist lurks a stifled heart

Perhaps two passions can, rather than enflame the other, instead temper each other. Give something that burns back just as fiercely, but that also has other outlets. To no longer be afraid of being too bold, showing too much, or the inevitable hurt that occurs when a different passion has you in its grasp?

Two flames that gutter for a moment, then agree to share the oxygen

i want to loose a thousand butterflies from my fingertips to fill the world with news of you

Lovely you

i want to fold a thousand paper cranes into ten thousand lanterns and light the world with love of you

Winsome you

     (A flotilla of faery fire to bring the good news:

          magic still exist! See its bright eyes.)

i will do none of those things, of course.

But i will love you with every scarred and battered fibre of this blasted heart

i’ve got your likeness there, next to that old rusty furnace, and there it will remain

(funny thing about that furnace

i thought my heart had turned to diamond, brittle jagged hard

buckled under and crushed and compacted beneath the massive geologic forces of heartbreak

but it turns out it’s still a lump of coal

embering away in the depths

keeping the whole creaking machine going)

So we’ll circle around that tasty treat, each eyeing the other mistrustfully

Fully missing that there is enough for both of us

Two flames in plato’s cave

Will they ever see aught but the shadows?

Essays On Neuroticism

July 7, 2016

*******

My appetites are either never satisfied or I am craving isolation. So little habitable territory inbetween.

AKA Why I Turn Into A Freaknik When You Start To Matter To Me

Part of me has always been morbid, it seems. Could it be my very nature to associate dread with love? That is, to fear loving because of ultimately, always, losing? That seems so cowardly.

But heartache produces such a keen sadness.

Disappointment is the bitterest draught.

Can you really fault someone for deciding they’d rather not?

But there I go again, playing a fool. It seems there is always some little silliness in me. Sometimes I think it is what saves me. More likely, it is the only thing that makes me tolerable.

The child parroted back to me that I was a “fragile flower.” But that feels true. I don’t feel strong enough to withstand anything else. Not even an attempt to make things better.

But, I know I will. I know that whether this is pure logic or a dark mood, that there is light out there somewhere. I might not find it today. But it is beautiful and I hate it because it keeps me hanging on to this hateful, hurtful world.

Each person faces loneliness. We can never truly be known by another. Well known, yes. But at the core of your being is something so subjective to the intricacies of your experiences that no one can ever fully comprehend it. You don’t even comprehend it yourself—it can still surprise you after all these years.

Sometimes, lately, you think it’s surprising you more than ever before. Is that what getting older is? Letting go of preconceptions you didn’t even know you had?

Or is that what love is: the shock of being valued leading you to see the world with new eyes?

Or is that just plain old trauma: you just got so stressed that you went completely outta your head and stuff looks weird now?

How did I get to be this old without realizing that hope and doubt are two sides of a coin?

Hope for things changing for the better? Doubting your negative beliefs and prior assessments?

Love. Insanity. Hope. Doubt. Whatever you call the little fucker, he keeps you coming back for more, doesn’t he? No better pusher on earth.

He peddles his merciless commodity and we all just spin away into the long black universe.

i wonder if stars feel lonely