I sit in a private room of a skilled nursing facility with my father
All day when my mind is not occupied by my work or by a tv show I force myself to watch
I worry for him
Here alone
I don’t know his schedule for physical therapy
Though I suppose I could get that information and that might give me some peace of mind
To look at the clock and know he is with someone
Getting his body stronger
Anyway, I feel that for the first time in two weeks since he got so weak he had to go to the ER, then he was admitted to the hospital and then put here
I feel a bit of ease
No one else is here with me
And I feel no need to entertain him
As he is resting here in the bed
His rail thin body covered in a sheet and a hospital gown
Eyes closed
The room smells vaguely of **** and cleaning supplies
More than likely due to the soiled towel in a plastic bag on the floor and the strong soap I just used to wash my hands
I hear him breathing quietly
He seems to be at rest

Oh never mind
The nurse comes in to feed him
The bright lights hurt his eyes
She checks his blood sugar and ****** his finger
He needs to eat

Oh never mind she will be back in ten minutes
He lets me know that it’s never 10 minutes
The lights are on and he’s making some conversation

And I want to cry so badly
I’m so mad my brother isn’t here
Enduring this alone
He doesn’t know what this is
I can’t believe I do
My dad makes a whimpering noise
My eyes are rimmed with tears I won’t let grow or fall

My friends are not good at supporting me and I suppose I’m not good at asking
They have their lives
And my dying father is not enough for them to drop anything to come spend some time with me on my couch
No one who I know my age knows how to deal with this
Most of my peers’ fathers will get sick in ten or twenty more years

The nurse comes back
He sits up with far more ease and less pain than I’ve seen him do in months
I’ve never sat in the room while he gets fed like this
I’ve fed him from the tube at home but that was different he was surrounded by my childhood home
In his own clothes
Here it all seems so vulnerable
In an adult diaper and hospital gown
With a sheet pulled over his legs and hips
I can’t believe this is real
A year with a feeding tube and it’s still real

He was Marlon Brando
And Johnny Cash
He was John Wayne
He was crashing cars
And leaving children and wives
He was traveling the world in submarines
He was getting into bar fights
He was having affairs and breaking hearts
And breaking his own
He was getting bailed out of jail
He was falling in love
He was on drugs
He was an alcoholic
He was a born again Christian
With a beautiful wife
And shiny family
And yet here we are
His esophagus burned to ****
From 10 years of hidden alcoholism
Whisky on an empty stomach
He’s like that ad for no smoking
With the woman with a hole in her throat
Except no one says
This is what alcoholism will do
Because what is the point
He’s not an ad
He’s a man with a body who’s turned against him
And a family who refuses to leave him alone
Who suffers when he suffers
The room smells awful

We chatted for a while about work and this and that
He still refuses all forms of entertainment
He says he doesn’t know why
I asked him if he’s punishing himself
He told me decidedly no
Okay I say
He’s resting again
I’ll turn off the lights and go soon
And cry in the car
But hopefully not so hard that I bust all the blood vessels under my eyes like I did last week
Looking like a vampire mid transformation

He’s resting again
And the room is quiet
And as always I’m forever changed
From each day spent with the weight of his weakness
And I’m a little lighter
I decide
The staff is good
They are doing all they are supposed to
He doesn’t seem to suffer any more than is required by his condition
I look at him again
And still can’t believe this is real
But he is resting

He tells me to knockem dead
I’m going to an open mic tonight
I kiss his head and touch his shoulder bone
He is familiar and not
I hear a mumbling as I leave
He wants me to turn on the nightlight
I do
I tell him I love you
And he says mhm love you

And it’s all very horrible
And I guess it’s also fine

Who do I tell of my loneliness
Surely my friends must be tired of hearing it
But maybe that idea
Is what keeps me lonely

I see a pattern in my loneliness
First it was boyfriends who isolated me

And recently a reading showed me that it
Was in my childhood too
A feeling of being disconnected from those around me
Which Id never considered before

So there’s that new info
That maybe this pattern is from much earlier on
That maybe I’ve found the root

My loneliness is a symptom I suppose
Of a belief
That what?

I tap a finger on my brain and ask
The belief to reveal itself
That connection is unsafe
And that it must be masked in protection from the Lord?
That was I suppose the belief
That all connection with others, with nature, with the self
Needs a buffer of holiness

**** that
I want to eat the dirt of this delicious earth
smell the skin of a lover
laugh with a friend in such a way that our souls leave our bodies and mingle as our diaphragms convulse beneath our lungs
I don’t want any buffer
Between me and others

Tomorrow I will invite the buffer to
Float away
And see if loneliness awaits me in my car
On my drive from work

One day
I’d love to be
Eaten, defiled, consumed, delighted in
The very same way
I do
A mango

I want for someone to be so overcome
By my deliciousness
That they must eat
and eat
eat and eat
Until I am spent
And they sit back almost ashamed
At how they were swept away
Consuming me with such vigor
Rakishly, sheepishly
Wiping wet from their lips
And wishing they could have a bit more

When I’m feeling
Nostalgic and droopy
And a smile teases but doesn’t quite crest
I think of you
And I tease myself that I’ll
Reach out
Unblock, find a screenshot of your number
Or search my computer for it
And just give you a little “hi”
Just to see
But I also know I wouldn’t do that
I’m too grown
But what I wouldn’t give
To receive one of your foolish
Text novels
So long you have to click the little arrow
About the three nights we spent together
6 years ago

Lay down with me in the hollow
Meet me at my low
Or in the bad angry
Or gusting cold forsaken grey
Lay with me in silence
Witness my tears
Slump with me
Let your chest rest
Against the scratchy lumpy pillow that feels just right for a nap between cries
Soon I’ll rise
And bow and bend and dance like a poppy in the spring
I’ll shine like dew on the wild grass in the morning meadow
But for now
I am lying down in the never ending
Grey of twilight

My dads two years with chemo
Rolls into a third with horrible raw radiation in the horizon
Or a beastly surgery with low odds of success
Beyond that
My moms financial situation precarious
The big house I grew up in
Has been teetering on the edge of
The cliff of my fathers life
For two years
And I fear it is tipping dangerously close to the abyss
It’s a long time to be in the tipping zone

“Anyone would be”
A friend says when I tell them I’m weary
“But I am! It’s me! Me who is weary!”
I want to scream that it’s not anyone
It’s me
And I want my pain to matter more
To the masses
But my pain is not unique
But it is high ranking pain
A google search will tell you that cancer, your own or a sick family members is one of the top most stressful events of someone’s life
That validates me
And I use it to help my mom see
Why her hand shakes
Why she’s gained weight
Why it’s hard to feel great
But she’s in denial

She’s in the tipping zone too
But she’s been for far longer than two years
I believe that illness often
Heightens and makes physical
Our perception of things
That man has been joyless, loveless, touchless, denying himself of all pleasure
For as long as I can remember
Cold as it is to say
Of course he has cancer

The tipping zone
I was out of it
For a bit
I was in avoidance
Rarely seeing him to avoid
The skin and bones hugs from that once powerful dad
Avoiding the feeding tube he must
Adjust
When he sits
The pain on his face when he burps
And it burns
From the goo in the tube
But now it’s on me
Somehow
To convince him to do the surgery and not the radiation
Is what my sister says
She’s angry at mom as always
And I’ll try and get the story from mom
And then from dad
And try to piece together
Some realistic picture of the options
The outcomes
The side effects
I ultimately will be removed from
At my place a few miles away

What’s the best choice?
I don’t know
To go back to his childhood?
To go back ten years and tell mom I found his bourbon?
Is it our fault?
That we didn’t say anything as he burned away his esophagus with drink after drink on an empty stomach
Of course not, I would tell a friend
Of course it’s not your fault, I could tell my siblings
We all knew
But we all had to hide it
Those were the rules

The tipping zone rules

Men will give you what you want without asking
In a lot of ways
In a lot of other ways you have to ask and ask
But a touch on the lower back in bed?
You don’t have to ask
And I suppose if I had a girlfriend
I wouldn’t have to ask either
But it’s when it’s going from friends to more
That I’m talking about
With men that part is easy
It’s going from friends to more
With a woman that requires such vulnerability
An ask
The potential she’ll say no
And I’ll feel
Like a woman who has desire and expresses it unapologetically
Which is really the woman I’m trying to become
I’d love to be so brave

Today I turn 31
I spent the night
With a tight neck and a headache
A recent boundary setting with a close friend
Causing a frenzy in my nervous system
I made a delicious breakfast
Fending off the pain
I meditated with a wonderful friend
And said hi to her delicious baby at the end of the call
The pain eased
I had lunch with my mother
It was nice until
She said something that was too much
Drove a bit crazy and talked about her trauma
The pain returned
After she left I lay in bed
Tormented by the pain now spreading from my right toes to my gums
I did a meditation ceremony to reown my healing energy for me
And did some yoga
The pain subsided almost completely
I caulked my tub and audio messaged with a friend
I had an ******
The pain now a whisper
I’m dressing to go watch Freaky Friday 2 with a close friend of mine
And share a dinner and many laughs I’m sure
I’ll wear my pants that were once too long but have shrunk in the wash to just my height
The pain easing even more as a I contemplate my perfect pants
I think 31 might be the best age I’ve ever been
It feels right the way that 27 felt right
I look at the art I’ve made
I listen to my latest song
I am bursting with pride to be me