poetry

February 12, 2025

Notes From the “Other Side”

Well… Yesterday was sure “fun!”

I ended up leaving work early for a mental health break. I cloistered myself on my BF’s couch, pillow over my head, and listened to the muffled dialogue of Golden Girls while trying to sleep. As time wore on I started to feel better and was at least able to have a normal conversation that wasn’t laced with conspiracy theory or paranoia. It’s weird being an observer within my own mind. Sometimes the crazy person gets control and I just have to watch as all of this plays out, completely out of my control. (Sound vaguely familiar? Oh, the irony.)

At least I have my self-awareness to keep me humble. That was a gift my husband gave me. He asked me so many questions about my feelings and thoughts that it triggered this process in my brain. The only downside is that I question everything I do. Which is fine… as long as it doesn’t keep me from living life. This level of self-awareness can be crippling.

But… so can mania.

Luckily I have two people in my life that can act like Charlie. The BF even told me he started talking to him yesterday morning asking him what to do. That was really touching. Even if it was regarding my “episode.”

What stood out to me were two things that happened before and after this manic episode.

After I had already gone to the bank to get out money (Y’know… for when banking collapses because the government coup has already happened) I woke up my brother and told him how I thought I was having a psychotic episode. Right then, the Woody doll I have propped up next to my husband’s urn (and is a representation of him) talked of it’s own volition. In my mania I thought it was Charlie agreeing with me but I think it was him saying “calm down, dear.”

Then last night I dreamed of him, which hasn’t happened since he passed away. Tony has had more than a fair share, but his tend to be Charlie without his wheelchair and mine was him in it. So, I wonder if he doesn’t visit me because I put him in it… Anyway! In my dream, he and Tony were returning from a long road trip and I was so excited to see him that I ran to him and covered his face in kisses to annoy him.

It was wonderful… even if some parts of it were also stressful and totally unrelated to Charlie. I enjoyed having him back for a little bit. However brief it was.

Today is 10 months since he left. I thought it was 9 but I did my math wrong… as usual. In both instances, it feels like it was just yesterday and at the same time like it happened ages ago. Regardless my want of him has not diminished. In fact, it has just grown.

November 7, 2024

Death and Destruction Await

My life has never been wonderful. On that same note it hasn’t been terrible either. I would call it balance. Any trials I have endured have only made me stronger. However… I am waiting for the moment that my only trials are “am I going to have enough time off for my vacation” as opposed to “are they going to round me up into a camp because I’m a degenerate?”

There was a brief moment at the beginning of 2019 where everything was looking up. I had finally passed my exam to get my license (after a 6 year journey) and I graduated with my AA from the community college Summa Cum Laude. Everything seemed so achievable. Then in July the world took a nasty fucking turn and all of it slipped through my fingers.

It began with the chaotic path my mother led us down. Her “kookiness” became more severe and we took her back to the neurologist who had previously claimed she was just “stressed.” The second effort produced her alzheimer’s diagnosis. The friday after my father fell, hit his head on the bathroom counter, and died. I had to figure out what to do with my mother who could very clearly not live on her own, and who INSISTED she would not live with me and my husband because we weren’t “christians” as she put it.

That august when my husband returned to teaching he was starting to show signs of his ALS. It would take an entire year, during a fucking pandemic, that would reveal his terminal diagnosis. So I was left to care for my dying husband and my mentally incapacitated mother, all during a fucking pandemic that could have been avoided if Trump hadn’t been such a giant piece of shit.

And here we are… in the face of all of this people voted for the convicted felon over the prosecutor. Voted for the man who has said repeatedly he would weaponize our government to suit his needs. For his own benefit. Yet… “when he was president things were affordable!” Jesus, people are fucking stupid.

Because of his win I have entered, what I lovingly refer to as, my villain era. I have gone through emotional hell, all on my own, only to watch my friends and family betray me for their own self interest. I genuinely hope he does everything, EVERYTHING he said he would. I want him to burn this fucking country to the ground. Make everyone suffer. Don’t hold back trumpy. Do it. Fuck them. I no longer care about my own self preservation. I eagerly await the christian nationalist hellscape he WILL create. Because at the end, I’m fucked regardless. Might as well enjoy some popcorn before the entire theater burns to the ground.

I will have zero, ZERO empathy for anyone. And the moment one fucking person says “I didn’t know” I’m going to shove them to the fucking ground and say, “yes, you goddamn did. Because I fucking tried to tell you. Everyone did. But you were just too fucking selfish to think of the bigger picture.”

In the face of all of this turmoil and sadness throughout the last 5 years of my life, I have found the peace to accept and welcome death. My expiration may or may not be dictated in the stars, but I like to think that it is. Through all my soul searching to comprehend all of this chaos has brought me to the belief of reincarnation and that everything is genuinely happening all at once. There is no such thing as time, just the prism in our mind that refracts and reflects it into a single finite moment. So, as I am typing this I believe I have been born and have passed. And ultimately, the world will go on without me. I was such an insignificant part of the overall tapestry of existence, but knowing that means I can be and do whatever I want. Whatever brings me joy.

My final thought on life is that, we are here to find understanding to the human condition. To comprehend life and it’s static fragility.

Everything I have loved has been taken from me (apart from the BF) and I’m still here. Life goes on…