I have been setting up an area in my back yard that is animal friendly. It’s their section. There is a little bird bath and I have been starting to put in plants that will attract and feed them. Unlike half of my neighborhood, I also don’t use pesticides and try to let everything around here live and eat the food they like. The birds and squirrels seem to love it the arrangement. Something is always back there poking around. And I love observing them. Their way.
I also have a dog that is at least part beagle and black lab. And she loves to chase all things critter, period. And admittedly, I sort of enjoy watching her do what makes her happy (this is all helped immensely by the fact that she never catches anything). So as a way to make her backyard pee-trips a little more fun for the both of us, I like to psych her up by repeatedly asking if there are any squirrels outside… Yes, in a taunting voice. Anyway, once she is good and wound up, I open the door to witness a glorious mass scurrying and flying for the next 10 seconds.
Coming face to face with my own duality is harsh, man, I feel like the United States in the Middle East, here.
slow morning crawl coffee and stare far away look minutes become breath at a time metronome sets to forward go the way of you hurt begets pain pain begets scars scars become hard yield not to wrath a goal for now
the cats in the cradle and life it goes on sideswipes and abandonment friendship can be, and not for the sacristy’s plundered and our nickname’s defiled now strut and stroke minds as ego hardens to mask a horrified crossroads the pull of The Singularity
twist and writhe between the sheets warm safe sweaty food delivered water and wine sacred heights cosmic depth between the sheets time folds inward a world away problems roil and roll in knots wet taut tug tight between the sheets all melts away gone from me in isolation I see depression’s lonely stare my gaunt gaping maw between the sheets
pestilence and politics pandemic and plague with a half million down and society to go they block the shot and fake them out they talk a lot no truth to shout that forever reign a wish to steal pass by the doorman death on your heals deciding factors tied how much you got? kneel on the neck democracy’s not a basket of goodies tied in a bag representing in hoodies deciding the flag the money flows thick green with white tinge the darker the funds the lighter the skin apartheid still fails but always gets tried any port in a storm promise always to lie
Donald Trump and his new Republican Party proved something: That a Constitution written when indoor plumbing was actually cutting-edge technology, is not itself strong enough to withstand a manipulative assault on it by a modern day organized crime mindset that literally came of age in the dark gaps found between its words.
This used to be a cohesive blog to some extent, until a few years ago. A few years ago I started to get migraines.
Actually, based on what I now know about migraines, I guess I’ve had them for most of my life. So the fact that I say it the way that I do means they got pretty bad. Bad enough to have screwed with every part of my life, in one way or another.
I always loved writing, but as the migraines got worse, the ability to string two thoughts together has gotten more difficult. Add to that the fact that most of it is written on a tiny little phone screen, and I fat-finger things when I trying to ride an epiphany and get the words out as fast as they roll through.
Then there was this thing I learned about that can go with migraines, called aphasia. I can ‘see’ exactly what it is that I want to say, but its word isn’t with it anymore. When I am writing and it happens, I give up. In daily life, I just come out with weird shit, like referring to a cutting board as ‘the under-the-knife block’. I get frustrated because I want the writing to be good. I’m starting to not care about that as much as i used to. Fuck it. If my typos bug you, there plenty of other blogs you can visit.
I’ve written a lot, but I think I deleted even more.
Poetry has helped me though. Because I don’t have to string thoughts. I have to evoke images and feelings, and tie them together in some sort of dance. And so, that’s been the majority of what I’ve been writing.
Many times I have tried to write about what I had been going through, only to delete it the next day when everything seemed to change again. If you know someone suffering migraines, you know what that means.
Much of it is related to chronic pain, and so a great deal of this involves dealing with that, when I wasn’t in migraine. And often with both at the same time. Although migraines tend to take over the show. Back pain is kind of like a guy who follows you everywhere playing a harmonica. He would be obnoxious and drive you crazy, right? But imagine if he were to then follow you into a Lou Reed concert or something. If you were even able to hear him, even then he would at best be mildly irritating. Migraines are like that. They’re so loud, they drown everything else out around them.
And with pain, comes pain management. And with pain management comes medicines. And I am in recovery. And it’s at that point that Pandora’s Box comes apart at the seams, as the scotch tape repairs let go again.
That’s been the juggle lately, anyway. Or at least it’s a good jumping off point for a few things.
