10 Things you should know about being a child growing up with a dying parent:
1. When you and your classmates are first learning how to read a dictionary, there will always be one word they don’t know: privacy. When they ask you where it is, you’ll be able to tell them that it’s the 29th word on the 925th page of a Merriam Webster dictionary published in the year 2001. But when you’ve given them all they asked, their favorite word will still be “public.”
2. The day you learn how to use the hospital equipment is the day you are no longer a child
3. You are born an adult. You come out of the womb with the intellect and physical ability to care for your family because that is what they need. You are a peasant child in the middle ages: work begins the day you are born and your job won’t stop till you are buried with her.
4. When you come back to school, people will develop a favorite phrase. It will be a 1 2 punch along with the word public: “How are you?” Tell them you’re ok. Tell them you are happy and glad you are back. Don’t tell them what you want to. That you are diagnosed with a sunken chest a hole over your heart. Don’t tell them you wish ******* was more available because hell: at least if your face is numb maybe you won’t cry as much.
5. Not everything needs a retaliation. See there was one time a kid walked up to me and asked if I was ok; I said go away; he said “You don’t get to be mad just because she’s dead.”
6. Anger. . .becomes tight fit clothing you never take off. You are a man created by the affectionate pages of Chinua Achebe: You “never showed any emotion openly, unless it be the emotion of anger” the problem is when you are only agry, Things always fall apart
7. When they ask you if you are handling her death well, and you want to scream no blasting out the last breath you’ve held since she breathed her last! Don’t do anything but ask them if. . .
8. They ever knew her full name
9. As you walk through the halls of a high school building, be the dog that smells ignorance. When you hear those children tell you every part of their lives they struggle with, all the homework they have, the B’s they might get, the hangovers they get from drinking away their immaturity, tell them what it means to clash with your own mental composure. Tell them that. . .
10. You have been doing homework over a dying body for the better half of your life. Homework was the rock you leaned on because it was the only deadline you knew, Chemotherapy was the foundation of chemical equations, blood pressure was the only fractions you saw, your English vocab was the list of pain medications---
Life was a class on defusing bombs. . .and a flatline didn’t mean defused but at least the end was written in stone
Jan 21, 2017
Jan 21, 2017 at 7:06 PM UTC
no matter how many languages i speak
not a single soul will understand how much i love you.
Dec 28, 2015
Dec 28, 2015 at 6:17 PM UTC
'Sup.
I'm sorry but we need to break up.
What, why?-
Everytime, when i try to reach the sky you just pull me down.
But, darling i didn't mean to make you frown.
It's fine, but i want to be on my own now.
Wow, you're just going to leave me all alone? All i've ever did was protect you.
Protect me? Ha, love all you've ever done is put fear in me.
Dear, it's not called fear. It's called making sure you won't be judged.
To you. In my opinion it's stopping me from meeting amazing people.
Sure and while you're greeting them, they're going to be thinking of ways to hurt you and take advantage of you. You know the usual.
Maybe. Maybe not. It'll be better then you beating my soul, and playing tricks with my mind all the time.
Whatever, fine. But when it does happen to you, don't come crying to me in the end.
Oh, i won't because i'm pretty sure i'll have a friend by then.
We're done.
*It was nice knowing you ***
Goodbye.
Adios.
Conversation ended.
Dec 28, 2015
Dec 28, 2015 at 6:17 PM UTC
Just yesterday, I saw men stand in front of podiums with red business suits ablaze with incorrect passion. Strings on their back , and words on their shoes. Woody. Those soles have been carved by one word: morals. And those shoes are ablaze with incorrect passion. Pulling apart a union piece by piece, string by string, and the only strands left are those attached to their backs repeating flint and steel comments that replenish the firewood. Merit badge. And grow their noses the length of the nation “they love.” Puppets. Historically, a canary follows a coal mine, and now it’s in good G-d’s gold mine searching for that soul of the red business tie precious metal is found and generously placed upon the plates of children but pushed away as if broccoli. Child in a grown man’s body. Today a woman stood in front of a room and told me about invisible lines. And how soon they may be visible because the flame of business passion is stone-by stone bringing us “closer to G-d” because separate but equal is no longer history and it is apparently a mystery that G-d is just; because what I see are bible’s no longer placed in hearts but in hands only to be thrown into the fire and used to interpret the remains as if oracle bones stating that Jesus was never love and G-d is a sin because the man in red passion as he recited what he wants said so.
Raise up your arms and aim your point-and-shoot cameras (guns) at the religious text with a backdrop of love...don’t bring it into focus...3...2...1...Bang
Dec 28, 2015
Dec 28, 2015 at 6:10 PM UTC
They tell me
write about her
I tell them
I reserve her for the
Word of God
the God I don’t believe in;
My God is the pen
Dec 28, 2015
Dec 28, 2015 at 6:09 PM UTC
A week ago, I noticed
a cramp in my neck
veins aching,
old bones cracking because -- I don’t know how to use them anymore
I only hold myself like this now.
In a position with a one-track mind
where I only look at my feet.
A part of me.
A month ago,
I noticed a cramp in my thumbs.
The veins in my wrist at a stand still -- no blood
because I don't need blood for my thumbs to type.
But soon…
my veins, my bodies connections aren’t helping
and I can no longer move my thumbs.
Disconnected
Wireless
Obsessed with me & my own person
I can’t make eye contact.
all I see of my friends anymore are words and emojis --
There is no depth.
All I see
Is the tile beneath my feet where my roots cannot grow
wi-fi…
is a broken system
Last night I walked into a cafe where love is blind and so am I
And whether or not is a newspaper or laptop
I won’t talk
because I am scared to ask
the article he is reading,
the essay she is writing, or the game they are playing.
If I do talk, I will look at their
Ears
Nose
Mouth
Hair
Forehead wrinkles
Or the space between their eyes because
I am afraid.
My name is Robert Nelson.
I’ve been married for fifty years
and I do not know the color of my wife’s eyes
My name is Jill Lennord & I cannot see the greens,
blues, or browns hidden in my husband’s face
and I have not known them since the cafe.
I can’t read a compass.
I tried turning it, but I only found an x.
X
The dependent variable.
ME
Dependent.
dependent on a broken connection, a broken system separating tables & people in cafe,
Dependent
searching for a Y variable.
but that requires that I look there
or there
or there
and I can’t do that I can’t find why I can’t
I can’t find my independence.
I don’t know why.
I can’t find my Y
All I have is my safe spot.
My feet,
My roots,
Me.
My obsession with me.
I’m obsessed with a disconnect and
EYE don't know why…
I can’t just look up.
Dec 28, 2015
Dec 28, 2015 at 6:08 PM UTC
I can tell you all about betrayal
And heartbreak
Just ask about the time I spent alone on your birthday at your headstone
Let's talk about our car rides
And the way you ripped up the map
Then set your destination to the insides of my chest cavity
And how you expected it to be perfectly paved to your veins
Or when you thought
my soul was the key to your north node
I wanna talk about how every time I watch a star die out
It's just a reminder that memories don't last forever
At least ours didn't
Or maybe this is me trying to forget you like you forgot me
Id give anything just to speak with you one last time
And ask you to teach me how easily it was for you to leave someone you once called home
Nov 24, 2015
Nov 24, 2015 at 10:12 AM UTC
I turned you into my favorite rhymes-
Developed your smile into first lines,
Channeled your eyes in my deepest fears.
I made you stay-
Burned your name into stanzas,
Carved your body onto paper.
I loved everything about you-
Idolized your tragic flaws,
Transformed your harsh words into art.
I turned you into poetry,
But I never made you love me.
Nov 17, 2015
Nov 17, 2015 at 7:01 AM UTC
dating a writer
is like guessing the weather.
you think you know what you'll get,
but you never do.
you never know
because
she'll create a hero
from your weaknesses
and she'll write a great character,
from every last flaw.
she'll create a thousand plots
from your worst nightmares.
she'll take every last thing you hate
and create something you'll love.
she'll turn your anger
into confessions of adoration,
and she'll make you,
everything you're not.
but worst of all,
she'll leave you wondering-
is it you she's in love with,
or things she's created from you?
but here's the beauty of it:
if you date a writer,
you'll never die.
Nov 17, 2015
Nov 17, 2015 at 7:00 AM UTC
They sit down and order beers,
but soon quarrel over whether
crows can speak or are telepathic.
Things turn ugly. They slip from
their stools and circle each other.
Anger has sharp blue eyes
and produces a fine-edged blade.
Rage is the epitome of cool,
his eyes are grey, he knows Kung Fu,
he waits for the fatal opening.
The crowd howls and eggs them on.
Then Death arrives brandishing
a loaded gun. Shots ring out.
Anger and Rage bleed out on the floor.
The crowd turns back to drinking.
Death calls for a round
of blood for the house.
Every weapon is relative;
But ****** is absolute.
~mce
Nov 12, 2015
Nov 12, 2015 at 3:34 PM UTC