Truth In Particles

“How can you say, you are not responsible?
What does it have to do with me?
What is my reaction?
What should it be?
[…] This atrocity?”    ’Driven To Tears’  By The Police

Callous.  Oblivious.
These are the souls I surrounded myself with-inside me.
There is not a question of why, but how?
How did this happen to me?
Where were my watchmen?
These heartless bodies are some by lineage, some through friends of friends, but mostly-it’s everyone.
I have learned the ultimate price of what it means to include others in my life.
I have paid the price, and the response is isolation.
I dissolved into a cold, shaded woman.
Nevermind the apologizes, they are so yesterday, so recorded.
I wanted something more out of the human race.
The order of words, are nothing less-nothing more.
In any language, it sounds all the same.
The ramble from excuses.
The shallow water drowns me.
My world is better then this.



Take a look in the mirror.
Your reflection is trying to tell you something.
The Truth.

“An adverse drug event (abbreviated ADE) refers to any injury caused by the drug (at normal dosage and/or due to overdose) and any harm associated with the use of drug (e.g. discontinuation of drug therapy).^[2] ADRs are a special type of ADEs.”  www.wikipedia.org

Yesterday, I was hospitalized due to an Adverse Drug Event.
Cymbalta+Vitamin B3(Niacin)=ADE.

I began to sweat.  Balance faded.
My knees shaking, my legs-loosing their roots.
Vomit.  On the mirror.
I lay alone.  Breathing shallow. 
I couldn’t find myself.
Dial out for help.
Woke in a crowd.
Frozen in my discomfort.

I am still quite ill from this episode.
My liver can not take much more.
There is pain.

” & I don’t ever wanna feel like I did that day
It’s hard to believe that there’s nobody out there
It’s hard to believe that I’m all alone
Lonely as I am, together we cry
I don’t ever wanna feel like I did that day
But take me to the place I love, take me all the way.”  Under The Bridge   RHCP


When depression hits, it is like you are drowning-not in waves in rocks, but in oceans of time. 
Depression is like a Preface to a really good novel. 
You have to read it, but then you get stuck, twisted in the Writer’s/Editor’s noise when all you want is silence attaching you to each page.

Speaking of Novels, I purchased ‘Fifty Shades Of Grey’ by E L James two nights ago when I found myself blind and down in Wal-Mart.
I am taking the Compare/Contrast Method to this novel.
(Thanks to a good Graduate School Class I took my last semester-
20th Century American Fiction ENG. 537.)

I will read this latest contemporary work of fiction, and I am going to compare it to ‘Lolita’ by Vladimir Nabokov.
Why? For I am already sickened by the status quot of this book.  The magnitude of its success due to its taboo subject, SEX.
It is 2012, and America is still living underground when it comes to sex.

So back to why I am here.
Depression.

As I slowly eat my Watermelon Spears and drink my Electrolyte Enhanced Water (my insides are running on havoc as of two days ago—besides all the other health problems I have), I listen.
I listen to myself because no one else is.
I read.  I am reading ”The Hormone Diet” by Dr. Natasha Turner, ND is next to me, pencil as a book-marker, holding my space in Chapter 1. (Yes, I had to pass an “Introduction” before I could actually begin reading.)
Music.   I am new to this program ‘Spotify.’  Currently, ‘Driven To Tears’ by
The Police is playing. 
I have been a lover of The Police since the early 1980’s. 
My Mother played ‘Synchronicity’ many days when she was restless.
That was the beginning for me.  The bass, low and fast.  Stings voice, emotions in all ranges, and at 4 years old, I understood music.  It’s in my blood.
I could sit alone, behind a chair, and always just listen.
Depression came to visit early on in my life, and performed operettas through my life.

Now, almost 32, living alone with my Australian Shepherd/Yellow Labrador, this gives me happiness, and I question why the misery remains, yet I own pieces of that answer. (That would be the relationship I have with my Mother.  She is still so vicious, so cruel, so mean.  Her intentions were to never love me unconditionally, but to love me with convenience. 
(I dyed my hair for the first time tonight, and I called her with my excitement, and her response: “Ugh, Why?”  I said, “Why are you mean?”  She laughed).
Her choices to hurt still bring me to my knees.  The pain from never having acceptation is apart of my broken mind and heart.

So, Depression?
When it shows up at the door of my soul-the tide is high, and I don’t have much time left, so I let it in.  Without hesitation.

 

I watched an interesting? Independent Film last evening.
Wristcutters: A Love Story. (2006).

The concept of the film is marvelously genius.
An after-world of life for people who committed Suicide.
The Protagonist, Zia had slit his wrists and died from his Suicide.
He found himself in a world of bright misery-working at a pizza shop(named Kamikaze) and drinking after hours with his Russian pal Eugene(whose entire family killed themselves.  Different years, but still all the same).
* In the first bar scene, the jukebox is playing ‘Love Will Tear Is Apart’ by Joy Division. Ian Curtis, the lead singer of Joy Division committed suicide on May 18, 1980.  Apart of me was in aspiring for a Soundtrack with bands and musicians that followed the suicide pattern, but with regrets, Ian Curtis was the only one).

The strange place they call “hell” is actually a dead reality.  In the transition from living to death leaves them in a sort of in-between existence.
In this place, they can not smile, the sunlight is extraordinary, and all materialism-houses, cars, highways, are ragged-worn from time.

When Zia finds out his living girl-friend “offed” herself, he goes running to search for love. Zia ends up meeting Mikal-as she hitch hikes because the great maker made a mistake, and she is trying to find the PIC(People In Charge).  Mikal reveals she actually did not kill herself, but over dosed, which medically can be written as “Accidental” rather then Intentional like Suicide.

The open road leads Zia, Eugene, and Mikal to many adventures, losses, and finally the answer.
The climax occurs when the King tries to perform a “Miracle” at his camp, and the PIC arrive with their vans and end the lies. 
* The PIC are actually Angels dressed in white uniform pant suits, who Police of the After-Life.

I do not want to give the entire film away in a few blurbs, but I feel I have to deliver the end as it seems illogical-almost reckless to me.

Mikal receives her stamp of approval to return to life, and Zia is alone after Eugene and his new lady Nanuk take the train onward in their after-life.
Zia is left with his thoughts and losses-in life, death, and in the after-life.
He eventually enters a portal(which is located under the passenger seat of Eugene’s car), and this black hole sends Zia back to his death bed, alive.

His eyes open, to see his parents crying as the Doctor whispers his thoughts, and Zia is happy to be awake.  He looks over at the other patient in the room, and the patient is Mikal.
The film ends with Zia and Mikal locked in a warm smile, as their present exhales.

I sat on my (late) Grandfather’s futon, fractious and fractured with the almost tacky ending.
This is not how Suicide ends.  You can never come back-even if you realize your truth.
But, the Writer’s concept of this isolated space for those who did take their own lives, is beautiful shades of ruins.

My son,
You would have been 13 this passing day.
Not today, this present moment
but, within these transient moons.
You fell from me
so long ago.
Not aborted
but miss carried.
It’s as if my body rejected. The Colombian blood.
Blood.
Your tongue would have said “Sangre.”
I do not miss you.
But, I do think of you.
What you would look like, your personality, your wisdom, your heart.

Wake to failing lungs-coughing the mold from my present.
After being attacked last evening, I remember the stress that aches my body-and the dreams of being with the one I can not have.

This morning of all mornings was to be filled with happiness, the sun.
Instead, I am choked with damaged nerves, mind sinking in waves of depression, blood that is eager to die.

Apart of me still wants to end it all now-I don’t want to wait for my medical clock to expire, but with my history of suicidal violence (last chapter began and ended in August 2010 with the belt breaking around my neck-sliding off the silver bar in my teenage closet) I was close to driving my truck into a tree this past Monday evening-On through Route 47-headed North into a veil of sunsets and insect guts, I opened my eyes as I kept driving.

Some of me continues to live.   How?
Tissue falls from my bones as each day passes.  My muscles, wearing away, as my white blood cells-the Neutrophils die after two days of activation.
Not to forget the scar tissue that suffocates my intestines, bowels, and colon.

But, I return.  Pushing my physical pain, my depression, my PTSD, even when I want to depart by the impulses that dam my soul.
For now, I walk ahead carrying myself home to the imminent surface of my life.

“Like my world I’m on fire
I am full of desire, yeah
No more preaching on your part
No more love on my pillow, yeah
Come dance with me in my room
You can hold me hands, yeah
I’m gonna be your boyfriend
And you can call me names
And nothing’s gonna change the way I feel for my love
And nobody’s gonna slow my gentle groove
Till kingdom come thy work is done on earth as it is in Dallas
Come play with me in my room
You can hold me hands
I’m gonna be your boyfriend
You can call me names - a names
And no one’s gonna take the power away from my love
And no one’s gonna change the way I feel
And nobody’s gonna slow my gentle groove
Till kingdom come thy work is done on earth as it is in Dallas
And nobody’s gonna take my love away
And nobody’s gonna slow my gentle groove
Till kingdom come thy work is done on earth as it is in Dallas.” 
                                                                   Gentle Groove by Mother Love Bone

I truly feel Andrew Wood wrote this song for his addiction to Heroin.
He wanted to live his life the way he felt he should, and that meant eventually succumbing to the dragon’s death on 3/19/1990.

Just as I will never surrender again to those who say suicide is a savage god*-especially when you never survived from its existence.



*The Savage God-A Study of Suicide (1972) by A. Alvarez


 

Marathon Wo-Man.  This is me.  Tomorrow.
I am running my first 5K tomorrow morning.
I am in nerves, shaken, vibrated.
My SCN has been unstable these past few weeks, and I even have a Mouth Ulcer “These infections can result in conditions such as mouth ulcers, diarrhea, a burning sensation when urinating, unusual redness, pain, or swelling around a wound, or a sore throat”  www.wikipedia.org.(something I have not experienced in a few years-which means my Neutrophil Counts are out of range.  This is dangerous. 
For anyone.).
And yes, it hurts.
So, why run?
I am drowning in disease(s), and I have to become more than myself within the hours I have been given.
I need to.  I have no one, and to make it alone, I must occupy time with my mortal purpose.

I don’t know if I can be anymore.
An Adult Ed./ESL Educator that is.
I had a battle tonight-with my College Students(4/18/12).
There was no respect.  No drive for succession.
And what makes the pain run deeper is the fact that they
don’t even pay Tuition. (or for Text Books).

So, I say, say, what is the point?
Why should I give a shit?

I am giving my soul to the hope of my own Father beginning his FIRST College Class EVER.
Here is a Man, beyond poor from the Smokey Mountains, half Scottish/Irish & half Kentucky Cherokee/Shawnee Mix, who dropped out of high school at age 16 for a better life, and now at 54, attempting to attend College.

I am coming across Native stories my Father used to tell me.
The ‘Full-Blood’ Cherokees he knew.  That was so important to him.
His Father, a White Man, married to an Indian Woman, left him with no idenity.
But, he never forgot to teach me what it meant to be Indian.
He told me the Truth about the Small Pox Epidemic that led to the Genocide of my People.  He taught me about the truth regarding the ’Trail of Tears.’
Even Though I Wear A Shirt & Tie, I’m Still Part Native Deep Inside.” PR&TR
Damn, I Still Remember My Father Telling Me This At Age 7.

Seriously, He Used To Say To Me:
“You have such a pale face, but don’t forget the Redman is inside You.
Your blood bleeds dark like Us.”
Thank You Dad.


Now, what do I do?
I feel like they have sucked the life out of me.
My compassion is a dry well.
I would rather drink myself to death, then wake up twenty years from now, still educating for pennies.

I am dead inside.
I come to realize this after they handed me my
Certificate of Participation at the ESL Provider Group/ESL Regional Meeting-Presented by the Central Illinois Adult Education Service Center.
*How ironic, my former boss from MVCC sitting next to me appeared quite awkward when she realized I was the representation for JJC.
Again, dead inside.  I felt angry at her, and the system for letting me ago because I am a liability due to my (severe) health problems.
I don’t have time to be uncomfortable.  She looked me right in the eyes with a strange motion, as I looked back empty.  I don’t care anymore.


My Master Plan is closer then ever. 
All I want is what is rightfully mine, a chance.  A chance to be great as a Writer, a Creative Non-fiction Workshop Instructor, with a long line of hard work and devotion.
All of this future, keeps me universally alive.

Will I live to experience forty?  Unlikely, but possible.
Unlikely-meaning no significance in questioning what is in doubt.
Possible-Achievable.
Opposites never end well.

I was sitting in my bedroom-puke green carpet stained with bleach, lavender walls, and a unicorn bedspread, all to make me happy in a house of hell.
I was 8.  Listening to my tapes, writing in my diary-creating a better life for me and my new family.  I desired so much to end and be reborn as someone else.
I excelled in school, so my free time was infinite. 
My experience with suffering was physical and emotional.  I had not shown signs of my poor health since I was four.  But, living terrified of men and my mother gave me a sickness everyday. 

I survived sexual abuse-molestation-rape, child abuse-domestic and social, and I was well aware the pain adults could cause, yet I kept myself living to the thought I would die soon.  Seventeen.  That is as far as I got. 
Dying young was apart of my family tree, so I imagined it so grandly, not knowing in two years my health would sink never to be brought back.

It took them four years to diagnose me with Severe Chronic Neutropenia.
Four years of constant bodily pain, and I was told to keep going-my family never to show empathy.  I became immortal inside.  To be sick forever even after I die.

Thirty-one.  My time line has unraveled on.  My health drifting, rusted.
The moments when the noose gets a little tighter, I put my head above the pain, reminding myself even in all my afflictions, my(7) diseases, I am still alive.