the long long dark

So what happens when after enduring for so long this black, intangible,

yet utterly palpable inner shredding, one has literally become ‘a chaos’ unto herself?

What then?

This is the all encompassing chaos of disconnectedness on the deepest levels, of randomness, of plotless-ness, of mental and physical confusion and torment.
This is the real anguish. It is an anguish which, if suffered long enough, reaches well beyond people, places, things, or situations.
It is an anguish that ties you to your bed as if by cobwebs – cocooned - and tells you that this is where you will always be, and that this is where you deserve to be.

Is this how it feels to be some kind of embodiment of chaos?
This chaos will stop at nothing, choosing it’s victims and then stretching its cold hand right into your very center, clutching at your very essence with its icy fingers.
Your essence – the very thing, without which, you would not exist as part of the universe at all, the chaos will try and squeeze to death.

Make no mistake, this chaos will snuff you out.
So that you forget who you are. So that you forget why you are.

The word “Pain” is an insulting and laughable word for this state of being.
Pain is what happens when you have a migraine. Whatever this is it is definitely well, well beyond the word “pain”.

I know many admirable people, who have endured the ravaging of Cancer and its treatment with an amazing amount of grace and dignity.
I know NOBODY who has endured this kind of mental agony with anything but a deep and terrified groaning, an angry demand to the emptiness for an answer that never comes, and ultimately succumbing to the dark when that is all that is left to do.

I have had both of these afflictions and here is the truth: Give me cancer any day. Stick a fucking needle in my arm and pump me full of poison. But take me out of this mental hell I’m in. Please.
Surprised? Don’t be. It’s a hell of a lot more common than you think.

There is no fighting this one off, there is no battle to wage here.
Because if it chooses to this chaos will beat you each and every time.
This is a nasty one – and it is much, much bigger than your efforts to fight it off.
This particular one thinks that my efforst are pretty funny, actually.

Under this kind of oppression, there is no real companionship.
They have all fled, or you have fled them,
Because there is no one who can or will ever understand
this very personal onslaught.
There is no one with the wisdom and grace enough to understand,
That you don’t need advice, or to be told to “go for a walk”, or what your flaw is, or how this happened, or what you need to do...etc.
There is no one who will just sit with you, in silence,

Read you the paper, or your favorite book, or just be around.
(unless you are one of the lucky ones)

And that’s okay. Because you don’t want to describe anything anyway.
Because you are so so tired of it.
So very utterly exhausted in every part and every way.

All you want is to be alone

In the ghost cave

And wait.

Cycle backwards

 

And so we move

 

from words to poems,

poems to songs,

songs to one song,

one song to the note

the note to silence.

 

The cycle will repeat itself

over and 

over again.

 

Just as I can feel

that bead of sweat

travelling slowly

down my back,

 

Just as I strain

for the precise word

and its corresponding

sound,

 

The universal struggle

to be understood

and to understand.

to be understood.

and to understand.

 

to be understood.

 

Now the bead of sweat reverses

as it will from time to time,

and travels up my back

I swallow the words

the poem the songs,

the note.

They are back inside my body.

Protected. Safe. Precious.

 

And so we move

again,

 

to silence.

 



bottle

 

 

I write my rage filled letters,

and furious poetry,
roll them up,
and slide them into a bottle.
These are letters to an ominous,
silent God
who is too busy, or too indifferent
to answer me.
It’s hard to say which,
and I wonder which body of water
I should fling this bottle into.

When I was eight

I sent my first message in a bottle.
I threw it over the side of my grandfathers boat.
The great Atlantic took it
before the cod jigging began.
It was early in the morning
with the mist and fog still hanging
just above the water,
and the rise and fall of each giant ocean swell
carried my bottle further away.

My letter then was not to God,

or full of rage.
It was a letter to a would-be pen pal,
maybe a new, true friend, from some far off land,
maybe a boy or girl my age,
with a heart for adventure,
just like me,
way over on the other side
of the expanse.
Maybe they will send me a letter...
maybe I will visit them some say when I'm older.....

So much hope.

I never did receive an answer.

I waited all that summer into the fall
with the spark of hope still stubborn
in me.
I gave up eventually. Reluctantly.
I think it was the following fall.

It’s funny how I have never really stopped

thinking of it.

Plato once said somewhere

that pain restores order to the soul.
This leads me to only one conclusion:

Plato must have been

on fucking

crack.