in 2012 i experienced an incident with a rifle. my friend spinned it around and hit me in the face. the hit was hard enough to break my nose and make me fly backwards and land on the back of my head.
after that i started having seizures. cluster seizures which mean seizures back to back. they have to be stopped by iv or i can go into status epilepticus meaning continued or back to back seizures that can **** people. there have been several times where my heart has stopped or i stopped breathing from it. its hard to live with. soooo many pills, and doctors, specialists to help diagnose me. just about a month ago i was diagnosed with tbi (traumatic brain injury) before i was diagnosed i was so upset with everything. my health my relationship, my family problems. it just piled up so i decided to numb myself with drugs and alcohol. i no longer can do that because the last time i did i woke up in the hospital with alcohol poisoning. i have right hemisphere disfunction and it effects my motor skills, speech, memory, decision making, confusion, and at this point the doctors say that my memory and confusion is dementia. sometimes i try to tell myself i don't need help, im fine, i don't need anyone, or that the doctors made a mistake. but they didn't and that was proven to me today when i saw my eeg, and mri.  i have built up white matter in my brain. and it only gets worse . i can never regain anything ive lost but i can learn how deal with it and move on from now. i can never be independent in the part of just living alone. i would like to marry the man of my dreams but i don't think i want to put him through all of this. he would have to take care of me when i get sick, and i get sick often due to my weak immune system. one hit in the face and my whole body went out of whack. we also recently discovered that i have a bundle branch block in my heart which means it is a condition in which there's a delay or obstruction along the pathway that electrical impulses travel to make your heart beat. i have a dog that can smell my auras which are mild seizures like warnings that a big one will come. but he can only do so much . squeeze under my head and bark for help.

Plug it into the amplifier,
Record the data.
It's easy.
I wish it really was.

EEG labs are bland,
Boring -
But mostly
Anxiety-inducing
Stressing
Centers for science.

My dream was broken at one of these,
As I came in each day,
Expecting to do great research work
And learn -
Work with data first hand!

That's not how things play out.
I was left without guidance -
Or at least not the guidance I resonate with.

I graduated university bright-eyed and hoping,
Just hoping,
That I could make something of myself.
This is how I felt when I started as well.

I had a dream of helping people.
It feels like I can't get there now.
I walk into the lab
And the others,
My "colleagues"
Speak down to me.
As if I don't have a degree,
As if I am not trying so ******* hard
To do something here.

I want to be part of a project,
I do.
I want to work with data,
I do.
I want this experience to move
On to my PhD
And do my own research
And help people -
I really ******* do.

But this topic is as sticky
As the gel that glues
Electrodes to the participants
Abraded scalp.
I feel trapped,
Not able to convey this to the supervisors -
I could be judged,
I could possibly be looked down on even more.

So,
I re-read the training protocols
And try to get the one more sign-off
To run appointments.
And fail again,
But then try again.

What else am I supposed to do without guidance?
My professors at UIC saw something in me,
I wish the researchers I work with now did.
I wish I saw something in me as well.

i got this crazy kind of head case where i swear on my life, my head is spinning round and round the room like some kind of never ending rollercoaster. i’ve been straightedge since august and i’ve been taking my pills regularly since july but it feels like i took a hand full of oxy and downed the ***** that my mom left in cupboard, left over from the cottage (jello shooters, appletini, orange juice), enough to get me and my friends drunk and i know for anyone else this would be a tease to get lively and drink with friends but for me this is a tease to end my life once and for all and it’s been pondering around my mind since we got back but darling don’t be narcissistic this isn’t because of you and i, no, it’s just about you and the way you felt the need to rub your near ninety in math or your eighty five in french and how your worst grade was a low seventy eight and i start to wonder if you realize how some people would **** for those grades. it took me almost six years to realize that the reasons my grades were so low weren’t because i was stupid because no one’s really stupid. it wasn’t about missing cells in my brains or bad memories, it was about scars on my wrists and never ending thoughts about the afterlife, pondering about whether there was a heaven and a hell and if i would make it or not. wondering if anyone would stop me if i cut up the razor my mom bought me for christmas and used it to tear through veins (frail and lonely) wondering if i were ever going to make it past your low low seventy eight in any given class or maybe i was just stupid (can’t count the scars from feeling dumb on one hand any longer) and maybe the reason i don’t like you anymore is because you did this to me and you don’t even know it but darling don’t be narcissistic this isn’t because of you and i, no, it’s about the way you make me feel like i should hang my head in shame for being me because you acted like you were embarrassed to hang out with me that one day in the cafeteria and the image of you covering your face and walking away as ifyou didn’t know me will forever be etched into my eyelids, i got quiet for six weeks and started becoming another person because i said i needed change. but change won’t pay my way to university or give me the confidence i need, it’s much more than that. chane will let me fake a smile for a while but on the inside, i’ll still be the same (loud and bright) even if on the outside i’ve become a copy of everything i’ve never wanted to be (lonely and shy), claiming, “it’s all right, social situations just make me feel uncomfortable.” even thought they don’t and i know you can feel it, the way i want to walk up onto that stage and let everyone see who i am (different, me, not you) but i know you won’t let me and darling don’t be narcissistic this isn’t because of you and i, no, it’s about the way you make me feel like i should be alone and i don’t deserve to have anyone like the way you left me to hang out with someone else and i slumped against the wall next to the main office and stared at my hands and wished i had someone else to have lunch with but i didn’t so i sighed to myself and put my earphones in (no i don’t have a gun) and stared at the clock on my phone until lunch ended (from 80% to 30%) and afterwards i ignored you for letting me suffer for an hour (my heart raced every time any one walked by in fear that they would know i was alone and laugh at me) but you never knew why and i never told you because i feared you would be upset if i did and you would end the friendship and i would truly have no one but truth be told i never had anyone to begin with — you were never really my friend you were never really anything (well, you were) but i was never really anything to you which makes is that much easier for this to happen and darling don’t be narcissistic this isn’t about you and i, no, it’s about me and the way i let you crawl under my skinand take me over like some kindof parasite that makes doctors scratch their heads and run unnecessary tests (eeg, cat scan, x-ray) while i lay on the hospital bed letting myself die but not allowing myself to tell them why in fear of being locked up for being insane (please, in this society?) they can see my pain is real but they can’t see why so they send me back home and i’m never alone, not with you whispering how worthless i am in my ear (i wish i were as crazy as i felt) your whispers turns into screams as soon as i take my seat in math class andi’m so focused on your screams that i’m staring blankly at the test on my desk like i have no idea it’s there and i’m so confused (why doesn’t anyone else hear you) (how are people writing so furiously) but darling don’t be narcissistic, this isn’t your voice, it’s mine and they take me out before math class is over and drop me off at the hospital and this time it really isn’t about you because they’re diagnosing me with schizophrenia and keeping me in the hospital (so i don’t hurt myself or anyone around me) and when you come to visit me you drop of flowers and i start screaming and they kick you out (they tell you not to return) and for the first time in my life i feel okay

Yet again,
He attaches wires to my head

He's pleasant,
"Been here for 30 years, never left this city"

The healthy don't understand the gift of life...
"You can drive to the second most dangerous volcano in the world on 5 hours!"
'Keep putting things off' he replies.

Fool!
We live in a place of wonder, volcanoes, mountains, lakes, forests, drylands....on these 2 islands we have it all.
You monitor strangers brainwaves every day.
Interesting? No doubt!
But you've forgotten to live.

I've seen them, volcanoes, farms, snow capped peaks, forests, ancient buildings.

'Well, it's abnormal.... as expected!'
I laugh in response.

"I've lived more than u" I think.

Value the present
It quickly disappears

Can dying be like turning off the radio?   tuning in for channels  from left to right ,extracting something sullen from a switch or a dial
blurbs of breaths interrupted like commercials getting their paid minutes of madness included in your daily drain
Staying in static staving off the mostly erratic ,we listen & hear but never draw near brushing it away as  trifle
Many many options, but who is making the rules of when it should stop  or what will be the proper words to explain


many never consider moving the numbers ,call signs always waiting to catch us in our prime times
Breathing outward to us, capturing capsules of our minds ,received but not welcomed another number another day
Between the hissing maybe vocal, for many never thought of more than local , moving on ,humming, simply trying to make rhymes
Making an action  from voices echoing from autos,hallways, has become so integrated that thought never develops it is  just Passe


The power from those towers can be far reaching flailing out three hundred sixty degree waves of blind finesse
Like sirens from a sonnet we take in the vibrations filling us flawlessly ,often over riding all previous notions
Now a newer unknown way of reception with nerves and neurons regulating the actions of a soul that will regress
Upbeat harmonies similar to patterns of a heart beat,  sent out through receivers ,be it stereo or EKG & EEG
Brought in felt is rising ,falls, patterns of charts or felt as soft art, quick decisions now bring new emotions

Transfixed on some beacons belching out mindless material between static ,shaky even erratic or even magic
Simple samples of voices taking notes as we turn the dial ,Passover or stay put depending on the vibe
Once released how far can the true transmissions travel,ever really lost or just passing into the abyss without ever being tragic
So A.M. or F.M. begun with tuning in ,just blending ,taken as common background expressions , becoming to accustomed with pleasantries
or patterns until the sudden LOUD rush of blind blaring induces a reaction to maybe an ending to the program that we have long been subscribed .....R.C.

We can tell:

that the Jesus who we crossed was just some dude
–we hooked him up to an EEG–

and it turns out his pulses were the same as hours
and did not differ statistically at all

but his blood was a bitterer red than some
but you would think that if you hadn't seen it before.

i'm not sound
i'm not stable
i still feel irrational and anxiet-ied nearly 99% of the time
it doesn't help i've had a seizure and have an MRI scheduled
with IV sedation which includes fentanyl
which i am a recovering addict
so this ****'s ******* S c a r Y
i feel sick to my stomach thinking of it
and it's not for another 23 days
but
i also have an EEG scheduled
and that's scary too
because
anxiety
and
mental health

and so i will sit here
and type out my feelings
while somehow being vaguely manic

breathe dylan
i need you to breathe

dude
you're being stupid
shut the **** up you little *****
you're being irrational
nobody likes an irrational person

therefore
nobody likes you
and you will die alone
everything in your life leading you to this moment is utter ******* and make no sense
so just go do something else
and stop being stupid

but
but but

i found someone who actually
like
likes me for me
and respects me and my brain before my body
and it's beautifully strange but somehow familiarly heartwrenching

i don't like it
i don't like feeling this way

and my brain
working this way

so i will continue to write
until my music or brain thoughts stop
which is a hard question to see which will end first

**** is this really my future?