I’d like to hear
what our therapists would have to say
to each other. in a mythical world
where such a conversation
might be permitted and
not considered a gross violation
of our privacy (or HIPAA,
or the Hippocratic oath, or
some other dumb law),
I bet with an hour together
they could sort out our problems
in a trice – a jiffy, even.
Tag: the struggle
proverbs for today
tfw you think you can
protect your heart
by making them mad at you
"I don’t care; I didn’t
want you anyway," she
lied desperately
don’t mind me; just cutting
off my nose to
spite my face again
tried to claw my way
out of the darkness, but
that just made it worse
revised my angry poem
but it still reveals
too much
go ahead, fight back –
at least then I can pretend
you care
bipolar witchy nightmare girl
I may seem like a manic/magic elven/pixie
dream girl. I may even
play one on Twitter.
but those portraits leave out the down side
of the swing. mania
has its price. those girls are
always so whimsical, happy, cute/kawaii,
they never cry
themselves to sleep,
they never set themselves on fire
for love, let alone for hate.
so I’m burning up in here
alone, ’cause I’m searching
for other mystical, half-mythical
creatures, heroic figures
riding up from the West
appearing suddenly in the forest
shrouded in fog and mystery; the Wild
Hunt – that sort of thing.
the knife
I get it; you don’t need to rub
it in. I’m already bleeding
from a thousand self-inflicted wounds,
and you are the knife
that I turn within myself;
that is love, to quote
Kafka. and to think
I felt halfway to happy
for a second.
new growth
my heart was desolate, a
blasted wasteland where nothing
could grow, I
salted the earth and pulled up
every flower – they weren’t viable,
there was no hope for them – and I thought
I could never feel anything again
but my ever-present
companion, my dark and lonely,
sometimes lovely, bone-deep sadness.
but.
now there’s a chance, somehow
a new shoot is trying
to grow. I watch it in
amazement, touched
by the way life insists
on coming back, no matter
how annihilated
the garden. I’m rooting
for you, little shoot. good
luck. you’ll need it.
missing
you’re missing in action and I’m
missing you. not like that,
maybe a little, but more just
as a friend. yes, I was mad
before, so much so
that it took me ten days
to get over it, before I realized
that my anger really had no basis,
I was building a towering rage
on a bed of quicksand.
but now I think it’s better
to accept my lot, and take
what I can get, which is
way better than nothing.
I know that eventually
this little ache
will heal itself.
the agony & the ecstasy
well done. with a single stroke
of your pen, you defused
the bomb in my heart. with kindness
you snuffed out the raging bonfire
burning inside my soul
as if it were but
a guttering candle.
see, the furnace that feeds my art
has only two starters:
the pure immolation of love,
or the furious conflagration
of rage. everything else
is just wet kindling, the dank despair
of smoldering coal
that lurks and murks and smudges
up the air with its stench and
nobody wants to read that shit,
myself least of all.
I can set myself on fire
and burn everything down
in the white hot, purest savagery
of protesting every fiber
of the way things are,
or I can let the delicious agony
of love purify me with
its transcendent ecstasy.
if I had the choice
I know which way
I’d rather burn.
the Lion
I’m at 125th street, waiting. in an
exhausted daze, took
the wrong train
again. story
of my life. next to me
a woman clutches a pamphlet
with a crudely drawn cartoon
of a lion on it.
“There’s a Lion
looking for you,” it reads.
it’s just some creepy
Xtian tract, but the phrase
haunts me. I’m reminded of
the Tarot card for Strength,
and of Narnia.
where’s my Lion? has he
found me yet? will
he eat me already, and free me
from this hell of my own
making? or am I already
inside his belly – is that why
everything feels so very
dark?
self-care in a time of self-loathing
today I was supposed
to have physical therapy
at five, but I
didn’t go. I was busy procrastinating
leaving the house, I couldn’t find
the perfect necklace
to match my outfit, and also maybe
part of me
didn’t see the point. so what
if my neck has been killing me
since Monday? it’s only pain,
and it’s only me
who’s feeling it. no one else even
knows or cares,
except the people at PT, and
I’m paying them.
mother.
what does it mean
to be a mother? you gave up
20-odd years of your life
for me, for my sister. it’s not
a sacrifice I myself
am willing to make.
even though you fucked it up –
your true charge, which was
letting me be myself, and
teaching me that I was okay,
good enough, whatever –
you carried me in your body
for ten months, were in labor
for twenty four hours
(on Labor Day, which is
an amusing tidbit and
a great icebreaker
at parties) and managed
to keep my sister and I
adequately fed and clothed
for fourteen years
despite crippling depression
and rampant alcoholism. for this
I owe you a debt
I can never repay. without you
I would not exist
this time around. for that,
I thank you. you didn’t have
to do that. happy
mother’s day, for what
it’s worth.
R. Brookes McKenzie 