Teach the Gifted Children

In America, we teach our children a good many things.  We teach them our dream -- collective, of the vast pioneer-plain, where hard work is due-paid and value is placed in  the hard-hearted honesty of the frontier -- clean.  We sing our patriotic songs to a flag and a god we pray keep watch over our sleepy-eyed new dawn electronic nation, but the end result's the same:  hard work and honesty won't get you far, morality and decency, even less.

In my heart I know my cunning, the shrewdness of good Christian followers of the Bible, but I cannot make it pay out for me.  I cannot profit from it.  I cannot rob Peter to pay Paul, and I cannot make sense of it all, much less any of it.  I cannot deliberately gain while others loose.  I cannot deliberately break, hurt, crush, and step over bone and marrow to climb up out of my fetid muck.  I hurt everyone around me.  I alienate those that love me.  I push away those steadfast and curious few, but I do that by accident and without malice.  The result is the same, same, same.  I am cold-lonely, a vacuum of a girl, of a once-was, of a hope, of a bright and shiny cellophane future.  I am torn plastic wrap from a cigarette box, a stolen DVD, a discarded tissue from a blood red nose bleed, a piece of wadded up alumnium foil burnt in a boy scout campfire, a broken window pane in a boarded up house.  I am ruin.  I am too far into this place to even ask to be pulled up by my hair or croak a hoarse voice talking in lurid sing-song.  I am destruction.  I am the void.  I am a dry well. 


Teach the gifted children?  Teach them what?  Teach them to hide their minds from the watchful eye of the world.  Teach them complacency.  Teach them to be boring, to be useless, to be hidden from those that would take advantage of their vulnerably, their loneliness.  Misery, oh misery...loves the company of this festering fox hole lined with world war frontier justice.  All I ever learned was fear and self-loathing.  Teach the gifted children where to find the hemlock, where the stairway meets the rooftops, where the razor blade has no suitcase to hold the blade back, where the train tracks collide at the end of a thread, a bare thread, of human tissue.

I am anger and I have learned nothing.  I captain; I go down with the ship.  Sink, sink, sinking, sinking, to the deep, to the deep, my head against the masthead, my heart shrinking with the boards.  We laughed once of "Captain" and "Commander," but there ain't no laughing now.

Dogshit

Here I am a 29-year-old, microbiologist, wanted for abuse by the whole universe.  As predictable as it is, things go from bad to worse.  A simple action of paying a bill online, just a few minutes, a few clicks, and electronic digits that represent real money, my account, my financial worth, transfer from one column to another, and it is paid, futuristic and unreal.  Except the incision cut into my eyelids, my brain, my meninges, my hope, my fears, when the numbers were not what I expected.  I suppose it is okay for banks to misestimate taxes so the word most ugly, horrific, and frightening appears...shortage.  I tried not to cry at work or in the bank, on the phone with the town tax assessor.  I don't understand.  I wanted to call up my real estate agent, my mortgage agent, my husband, and run them all over with the damned SUV he made me buy, which was a supreme fuck-up on my part.  Dogshit, gas attack, grave wisdom, you name, this shit blows.  That is about as poetic as I can be about that.

I am scared to death and angry, angry enough to think I could actually smash his drunken face in with a brick if he were in my presence.  It wouldn't matter if the brick wasn't, I'd go look for it.  I guess I'm supposed to be graceful about it all.  I am supposed to accept it, be optimistic, dig in, cut the fat, hope for the best.  I am supposed to say things like "oooh I made a mistake, but it will eventually work out for the best."  It probably won't.  I will probably crash and burn, while he rises from my ashes, the lucky phoenix he is.  From childhood, they feed us stories that we gladly swallow...hard working Americans, making their own, triumphing oe'r evil and the corporate world.  But it ain't true.  It's Americans burnt to black bits, bloody, blistered, aching, smashed down to the concrete pavement, slaves of capitalism, slaves of human desire, no Jesus in ruddy robes or angels in sack cloth, just a pile of steaming DOGSHIT.

My son pulled a new toy out of the plastic packaging...no tools, nothing, just figured it out.  He did not manage to detach one of those wires that holds the toy in it's shiny cellophane for display, but ultimately he did alright.  His father cut his hand to ribbons, half a pint of blood puddling on the living room hardwood in front of a leather chair, the steak knife no match for that plastic wire -- my son, a miracle that came from such primordial filth and dogshit.  I wish I hadn't drown in that pool of blood, that choked my mucous membranes and stiffled my breath.  I wish he had.  Some days, I wish he still would...and maybe that's why I'm still stepping in and scrapping from my shoe this...

Growing up in Public

Every time you feel like you get away, the distance shrinks, pulling you back to the glue trap, no wriggling free, just stuck.  The police knocked on my door again last night...again.  Months had passed, but there they were again asking for information I did not posssess, hoping to find him at the house, hiding out.  What kind of stupidity would I possess if I were to allow that?  If that were the case, then I suppose I would deserve what I would get:  cheap gin, rot, and disappointment.  I don't know where he is, nor do I care if he lives with some girlfriend somewhere at some address I've never been given.  Good for him.  Maybe she will urge him to sign divorce papers if I can determine where to serve them, if I can find a way to afford that.  I guess you might wonder how I could afford not to, but blood comes from no stone and it seems no one will crusade in to save the damsel from her distress.  The damsel has to figure this out on her own.

It makes me angry beyond measure.  The cops coming to my doorstep odd days, hours, holidays, scaring or waking my toddler son, while he likely sits stone-drunk in some apartment with some other woman who now buys the lies I used to swallow.  I don't care that she exists or even that he exists.  I care that I get left holding the paper bag filled with dogshit burst into flames outside my door.  The things I could have done different, but hindsight is just that, no magic potion to ward off past evils, just an observation that if delivered in time could have saved a lot of grief.  But it can't do no good now, just steer me clear of the next disaster...I hope.

Rock n' roll saved my life, but who loves the sun?  Not just about anyone.  How easy would it be to fall into crying, to shrivel up like a carved apple doll, a shrunken head not watertight?  He used to complain of that grating talk-sing-out of tune voice that calmed me, spoke to me, picked me up when I was down, out, lost, and thrown away.  I couldn't play even the most beautiful songs, no live versions of Venus and Firs, the viola piercing painful-lovely.  No croaking coruses of you can't help me all you girls with your sweet talk, you can all go take a fucking walk.  But if I'm pumping blood like a common state worker, would you adore the river?  It's poetry and it's not crap, nor is it pretenious, unintrepretable, high brow, eccletic, inaccesssible, unintelligible, or beatnick.  If he listened, oh if he listened, he might have heard the cry of my heart.  Oh my dear, oh my dear.

Too much is my life under a magnifying glass or more rightly a 20x objective on a microscope stage.  Is a 4x zoom enough to see the damages, the rents, the rips, the tears, the unceremonious hardened hurt and calcifications that crystalized there ready for structural determination?  I want to divorce myself from him, from this situation, from the bad luck, trick card deck I was dealt from.  But I can wait a thousand years for salvation to come.  I have to make my own way.  I can make my own.  I will. 

At the Brandenburg Gate

Where did I go?  I do not know, but I'm knocking at the gate now and I'm not thinking of dear Borris Karloff or Kinsky. 

I found myself trying to explain what life is when everything you know is saturated in alcohol, marinating, pickling, and blistering with hate and hopelessness.  I think even I am beginning to forget now -- becoming complacement.  I was allowing myself to feel safe and comfortable, but now I let it crash in.  My fear wrapped up in dollar signs, the thought of bread lines, stock market leap to doom, roaring lion MGM icon, technology backlit, roaring 20s flappers stomping my dreams to death.  I forgot what liquidity was, because I turned to iron to steele against the blast furnance, this star erupting, the destruction of a life together that was apart from the beginning.

Fermentation is a simple prospect.  Bacteria metabolize, ingest, eat, consume, transfer energy and electrons, make sugars into alcohols that we consume, tranferring our energies to idle processes that only consume more energy, feeding an engine with no higher purpose save grabbing this one instant in time and hazing it out like all our memories that fade as the hands move with time.  How is that fun or joyful?  So I want to write ugly run-on sentences, I want to "cheat on myself, because I have nobody else."  I want to run wild-free and not care the stupid choices I made or what he did to me.  He is but a fuzzy memory now and what pity or affection I used to carry has disappated now, evaporated in the gin that oozed out of his pores.

I heard the thing I was waiting for when I didn't know I was waiting; yet it was met with such aggressive criticism by most others.  I saw beauty and poetry in a hideous and forceful monster that rasped of such awful things done to woman by herself and by others.  I realized that I could easily be this woman, this Lulu.  For there is often a fine line between loving and hurt, and mostly I've known hurt.  I wouldn't cut my legs off, but I did cut other things that are not tangible.  Perhaps they will grow back, perhaps I will grow up.

Welcome to the Occupation

It’s been awhile.  Whatever that means:  awhile, a dash, a pinch, a scupper, undefined forms of measurement.  However, I imagine there are some cooks that would argue with me on a couple of those at least.  Anyway, it’s been some time, because I don’t have any as of late.  I’m busier than the busiest of the proverbial beavers, but at least I’m preoccupied; I have less time to worry.

I wanted to make my argument simple the other day at work, and I did.  If I didn’t have a child, I could and would “live” in the laboratory, my life would be easier, I’d be more productive, and I probably wouldn’t feel like I was missing out on anything.  I wanted to believe it, believe it whole-heartedly, as if the secret to my success would have been to not get married or at least not have a child.  I wouldn’t have to worry about not being able to pay for childcare or health insurance or diapers.  My budget would be stretched, but I could cut some obvious expenses then and be fine.  I wouldn’t need TV or a home phone and I could keep the heat low most of the time, because I simply wouldn’t be there.  It would be easier.  I could progress more rapidly in my career and maybe in relatively short time I’d be full-time faculty somewhere making real money, not Monopoly money – my poor attempt at humor.  My days would be simpler.  I wouldn’t have to rely so much on my family.  I wouldn’t have to ask my mother to put her life on hold for us.  Life could be “normal.” 

But I don’t mean it.  This morning I choked back tears and didn’t want to leave for work.  I wanted to spend as many more minutes as I could with my son before he left for my parents’ house for two weeks.  It’s only two weeks I tell myself, but that is several lifetimes from now.  Two days was nearly impossible before, although that was mingled with other problems.  How will I ever manage two weeks?  I will be busy, I will be traveling, I know the time will fly by, but when it actually sunk in this morning that my little man wouldn’t be saying “Momma” as I came into the house tonight, I felt empty and shattered.  I said once that I don’t mind being alone, I rather enjoy it.  It’s true, but now it’s different.  My argument is not simple, it’s convoluted.  My life would be simpler if I hadn’t had a child, but my life would be empty, and I wouldn’t be content.  Time at work is nice, because it’s a treat, all the same time at home is nice, because it’s a treat.  It’s like the way good needs evil to be good, and evil needs good to be evil.  Without my little man, there’s no home to go to, so it wouldn’t matter anyway.  I’m so worried about money, about loosing my home, but it’s not my home I would loose – it’s only a building, a house. 

My home is somewhere inside my son, in his smile, his laugh, the little games he plays, the excitement and enthusiasm he brings to everything.  I cannot say that I don’t wish that there was a way we could be financially secure and happy together, a way to keep our house, a way to stay near family without relying on them for our day to day survival.  I cannot say that I do not wish and pray for miracles.  I cannot say that I do not sometimes forget the blessing we do have and wish for better, knowing that there are many less fortunate, knowing that we have not been forsaken and cast out.  I gave up my marriage, my financial stability, my stupid hopes that it would someday be right or at least better with my husband’s drinking.  I gave it all up for my little boy.  He can grow up poor, he can grow up on hand me downs and familial charity, but he cannot grow up on hurt and anger and danger and spite and abuse.  So here we are.  Here we are.  We’ll be okay.  I have to believe that we will be as long as we have each other, as long as we have family, as long as we have love, as long as we have hope…we’ll be okay.

American Dream

A nightmare, the dream becomes.

A tree of forbidden fruit grows out of white picket fence post.

The dream, American, budding into brainchild, evil progeny become.

Suspending nothing of promise, only midair collision, plummeting bricks.

Rocketship space races challenged of explosions, like bombs burst into air,

yet giving no proof, airing no truth.

Word made flesh, made rotten meat, sinks into muddy ground,

no longer hallowed, only hollow.

Dead roots twisting into swamps, snakes through human bone remains,

no pyres, no wires, no Indian bone spires to Heaven upward proclaim…

            This innocence of man.

No 1950s drive in.

No 1960s peace sign.

No 1970s bell bottom.

No 1980s Nintendo games.

No 1990s laser tag.

Only 2000 and 2010 sex bracelets, sexting, and blow job competitions.

Eve’s apple lays rotting in fetid soil, no rolling, no tumbling,

only ingesting garbage,

empty calories plentiful, dripping of trans fat and partially hydrogenated oil.

I dreamed of things that were pleasant once.

But all I dream now there are wolves knocking at the door.

Their teeth drip and gnash, becoming the teeth of Hell,

nothing to drown out the weeping-wailing of torment, of lost souls.

I had the American dream once,

but it swam in alcohol and bathed in sin.

So the worms crawl in, the worms crawl out.

They writhe, they conquer, they devour,

until the last curtain call come.

But no rush, no storm sweeps,

only pallid, only pallid and tired me.

I had a dream of a future,

but it struggles to breathe now,

because I am crying out until my lungs are empty and without oxygen:

Help me!

But the Lord answer no selfish prayer.

He often answer no prayer at all.

Running Scared

Hell week continues, makes me think of try outs, pledging, things synonymous with the term “Hell week.”  My hell week consists of something different, back to back biofilms from 8 am to 10:30 pm with 2 hour dinner breaks wedged in between, means more driving back and forth, but worth it to see my son, so hard to leave him again.  I started to cry in the bathroom today, probably overtired, a lot having to do with worries about money, bankruptcy, and failures.  I was doing my best not to panic, but it sets in now.  I guess I kept foolish hope for miraculous help, child support payments finally debiting or something along those lines – been offered help, but I don’t think I’ll take that.  I don’t need strings between us, strings tie together, but they also have a way of tearing things apart when you pull.  It’s not so cute as when my son tugs the blanket off the couch and says “pull.”  Now I’m singing instead my headspace.  “There ain’t no strings on me.  There may be strings on some of you folks, but there ain’t no strings on me.”  I am relatively sure that those are lyrics to some song I can’t really remember.  I’m not sure if it’s some of my crazier music or a kid’s song.  How can that be?  I am actually at a point where I can’t decipher metal from children’s music…so much noise in my life, walking around helmet head, ears encased in red plastic earphone so much like firing range ear muffs, resounding the gut shot in this painful life of mine.

I feel broken and bone tired, bone driven.  Greedy Fly made its way into my car CD player today, high school snowboard memory ablaze even when the snow piles wane in this warm February climate…unusual.  I think I am either expending a ridiculous amount of energy or I am devouring to comfort myself or perhaps I think it’s funny to jam a lot into my mouth while sitting at my lab desk where food is banned.  It’s difficult to justify 2 granola bars, crackers, and a fruit strip as a simple snack.  I didn’t have a big lunch, so perhaps it’s okay; I might as well enjoy the food while I can.  It will be more difficult to enjoy later when I have to pick and choose based on a strict budget when there’s no money there.  There was such youthful hope once, boarding with the Sheez, fantasizing about what my life would be someday.  Now that’s all gone – the hope, the pretense.  What if I had been bolder in my pursuits?  Would that change the course of my life? 

The weather teases of Spring and I feel like I need to put on the New Balances and start running, but if I do, I might run like Hell and I there’s no guarantee I’ll be coming back.  Why am I reading Updike right now?  Am I really that stupid?  I wish I was like Rabbit and others would pay for me, not the other way around.  Unfortunately, I know just what end of the stick I’m holding – it’s the warm and gooey end.