In My Life

In my life

I’ve been privileged

To live in poverty and in relative wealth

Illness and health

I’ve lost love and gained,

Lived through madness, now sane

I’ve healed my body and brain

Felt broken, but now I know

I have always been whole

One with Spirit

I wish you well on your healing journey

Thread

It is you again

Suicidal ideation, my old friend

You are the shadow lurking outside my window

You are always there in my time of greatest need

When my sanity is hanging by a thread

And I am tempted to see if I’d be better off dead

I hang off that thread and gaze over the precipice into the dark abyss

I let go with one finger, only four more, why linger?

My thoughts are a razor blade cutting into the thread like a sharp violin bow

Drawn across the thread of my sanity again and again

Though the depths call me and freedom beckons me to let go

I tie a knot at the end of the thread instead

I recall that nothing lasts forever, not even my shame, not even my pain

I know that I have infinite potential

I set my intention to direct my attention and begin my ascension

I climb, as I have many a time

Suicidality, old friend, thank you for coming to visit but I don’t have to invite you in

Over the years I have transformed, but you remain the same

I know you want only to relieve my suffering, but there are other ways to achieve liberation from suffering which do not involve breaking hearts

I meditate on that, to start

I feel my feet on solid ground again

I bow in deep gratitude to you, my friend

Emergency Room

Emerging from the emergency room, gasping to find my breath, I weep.

I finished my last shift in that hell-hole, and I thought I would cry tears of joy, but instead I am crying tears of raw emotional release.

My patients called me an angel, but many of them were also angels to me- holding my spirit buoyantly with their sparkling eyes, a much-needed balance to my co-workers who seemed mostly dead inside.

Crushed inside the machine

Their eyes see only the screen

Their skin knows no fresh air or sunlight

As they toil day and night

In a crowded, chaotic space filled with alarms

Long ago, they replaced their charms

With rigid motions, mechanical minds

Without windows, they don’t notice the passage of time

When did they become so cold and bitter?

It must have been little by little

The fire in their hearts was starved of oxygen, their spirits wore away

I hope I keep my heartspirit intact, at the end of the day

Flashback to a line of gurneys in the ambulance bay

My attending grilling me, I didn’t know what to say

Broken bones and chronic pain

STAT CT to look for a bleed in the brain

Patients sustained on turkey sandwiches and diet ginger-ale

We wait on them, they wait for us, but we are all stuck in this jail

Trapped in a health care system which is systematically inhumane

No wonder so many of us don’t feel quite sane

My vision is blurred by tears

I’ve finished one more day in the middle of many hard years

Of sacrificing my life, enduring unfathomable strife

Just to help others survive another night

I want to get off this roller coaster, but I’m strapped in

Though I am sick to my stomach and deafened by the din

I return to my breath, breathe in new air

I have the rest of my life to move on towards

Tomorrow night, I’ll be back in the wards

With renewed gratitude, I leave this emergency beast

I walk past patients waiting to suckle the mechanical teat

Finally allowing room for my own emergency

My meltdown of tears isn’t enough to drown out the blaze

Which burnt me out long before today

I struggle to justify

Why I put myself in situations that make me cry

Wild Thing

I do things that I know I shouldn’t

I do the impossible, people said I couldn’t

I do wild things, you thought I wouldn’t

But I did and I do

I’m gonna keep on living how I see fit for me, not you

Your discontent has nothing to do with me

So don’t cry to me that I aborted the pregnancy

If you’d been half a man worth half a damn

Maybe I would’ve reconsidered

But you made it easy

I’m a wild thing

My body is mine and mine alone to keep

I am not an extension of you, you goddamn creep

Now you know, I don’t play when you mess with me

I’m wild and I’m going to stay that way

I won’t be the victim of your domestic abuse

I’ve already ridden that train and I know it goes right to Insaneland

You can stay there, I’ve hitchhiked elsewhere

I’m a wild thing

You are not allowed in my organic garden of Eden

You are too bitter to taste the sweetness my fruit

 

Borderline

You and I walked the line-
The thin border that separated us
We got as close to each other as we could

Your mood swing shook the ground, turning the crack between us into a canyon
Sprawling vastly between us, there was no way to stitch or suture us back together
I was shaken down by your rumble
My hopes for us buried in the rubble

Slowly, we picked ourselves back up again
Separating the pieces of you from the pieces of me
Resurfacing, scratched and bruised
Older and wiser

You seem borderline
Leaning so close in
Then so far away
I might be borderline too
We swerved toward and away from each other
At a dizzying pace
I’m trying to figure out
Where is the line with you?

You crossed the line with me
Too many times
It was my fault
For not drawing a boundary, not staying true to my heart
But I’m drawing it now
By cutting you off
Instead of cutting my skin

You kept invading my body and my life
I’d rather do other things with my time
So please, darling, mind the line