My Brain On Crack
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Back From the Dead
I died and I came back. I couldn’t breathe and that fist-sized muscle in my chest pounded a hole through my thoughts and I beat my fist on the wall because I could no longer form words and the ambulance came and the lights were so bright and there I was, walking serenely in a land made of gold where everyone smiled like rainbows and there was nothing that was not made of wonder and goodness but I stepped back through the shimmering curtain to tell my beloved I chose to stay. Sometimes I regret that choice. I wish I remembered more. I still see that nurse in a blue…
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The Circle Game
And the seasons they go round and round And the painted ponies go up and down We’re captive on the carousel of time We can’t return we can only look Behind from where we came And go round and round and round In the circle game — Joni Mitchell This is what reading my archives does to me. Inspires me, that’s what. Thoughts that go through my head: 1. She’s a damn good writer. Why doesn’t she write more? Where’s that fucking book she promised? (oh hey, I did write this one) 2. Seriously, where is the damn book? The other book? 3. Aha! A Category titled Rants. I shall…
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100 And Counting…
There are so many ways to die. She knew this. Daily she plotted her death. Little ways. A sheaf of papers could grow edges and slice knifelike across her white soft throat. The cord of his headset, sprawled oh so innocently across her bed, could stretch and wrap itself like a hungry boa around her neck. The closet door could slam so satisfyingly, crushing her skull into the jamb. Kitchen knives could grow wings. Heavy pots with heavy lids could crash like cymbals into the grapefruit of her head. Cars could swerve and leap over sidewalks. So many ways. There’s no point to being here if Here just means pain.…
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Why I Have Cancer
I figured it out. It should have been a no-brainer. Why I never suspected that years of self loathing would lead to cancer, I don’t know. But it clearly did. I hate myself. I tried to wipe me away by changing my name two years ago, but like a bad penny and a lost puppy, I came back. And all I can do now is imagine I’m jabbing an ice pick into the side of my now-irradiated head because the pain of being me is unforgivable. Please make it go away. The pain. I would do anything not to feel this anymore. I shouldn’t be here. I can’t be here…
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I’m A Bitch, I’m A Lover
Something has turned me into a total raving bitch. Does cancer do that? Although I would like to blame [everything] it on cancer, sadly, I believe this is my doing. Last week one of the people I love most in the world came to visit. And that was right about the time that TB (Total Bitch) showed up. All her fears and anxieties and need to control came out while this awesome person was visiting. I hate that. I hate that my son, this amazing young man, saw me being a bitch, saw me in my fears, saw me struggling to walk across the room because my body is so…
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Manual
They should offer people a manual. I would read it. I would keep it under my pillow and bring its well-thumbed, hi-lighted pages out from under when I needed it. Like, when the person you love is hurting and shuts you out of that hurt because it’s the same old song, really — what should you do? And, when he holds your hand and suddenly you are 13 again and you don’t know what it means — what should you do? Or, when you are sad and afraid and feeling alone and are faced with demons you welcomed 40 years ago — what should you do? If I had a…
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Panic
The world has sped up. I feel it spinning around me, raindrops stinging my face like tiny needles of glass, each one piercing my heart. The walls around me crumble into dust. I search for somewhere to hold on to keep from falling, but my fingers grasp empty air. I try to remember to breathe, but my chest weighs too much. Nothing is the same. Everything hurts. In my mind I see the upside-down car pushed to the side of the freeway today. I see the tremendous splash it made, a fountain of millions of stinging needles. I wonder what it was like. I wonder what to do now.
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Lonely
It dawned on me just now, as I contemplated logging in to Facebook to see what’s new in my stream with all the people near and far, real and virtual who have come to populate much of my online life, that I was doing so in order to keep from feeling. Specifically, to keep from feeling lonely. The thought — I am lonely — blindsided me. I am lonely? Really? In this house with my soulmate, the man who now calls me his beloved, his twin flame? How can I be lonely? I am, and I am afraid. My bed calls to me, yards of white fluffiness, pillowy billowy down-filled…
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Blind
I am watching my life pass before me from behind an opaque screen, my eyes straining in vain to see something they cannot. Once in a great while, once a year or so, I sleep the sleep of the dead. A whole day when I can do nothing but sleep. Oh, I try to make it through wakefulness when this happens, but after an hour or two awake — even after coffee — all I can do is collapse again, gratefully, on my bed. Comatose. And I begin dreaming. No, not dreaming, exactly. More like falling into a world that I cannot escape. In this state I find myself dreaming…
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Feeling
After a lifetime of feeling but not knowing (or wanting to know) what I was feeling, I am learning to do a check-in. This is what I am feeling right now: Sad. I feel the loss of something I really really wanted. Angry. I had expectations. Made choices based on them. Was I imagining things? Fooling myself? Did I believe in something that wasn’t there? Afraid. Now what? I don’t know anymore. I thought I did. Today I want to try to find my foundation again, but I don’t yet know where to look.