Here I was, reading and
writing poems on HP,
glad I hit a personal
high in frequency,
if not classic poetry.

Some months passed,
and my interest in it,
being afflicted with
Poetry Enthusiasm Deficit.

Was it work, ***** Netflix
intake with less water,
or i let 'busy' hijack my
life while poetry
passed me by?

The doctor told me,
'take it easy,
one word at a time,
or you'll feel queasy,
PED can happen any season,
not the Netflix kind,
the autumn-spring type,
I know how you feel'.

I glanced at his notepad
just as he covered it,
scribbles with lines
ending with rhymes,
crocin and aspirin,
words of chemical mystery,
compositions poetic
and bitter tonic
converging like two streams,
reminding me of modern art
since I could decipher
little from the sheet o' paper,
too surprised to pretend
to comprehend.

'I am recovering, I will form
a support group,
give a PED talk even,
'Just let it out' '.

I did. I realised PED's
a good reason
to mask a rant as a poem.
Don't you blame me, I
more than hinted in the title.

There’s a sort of hectic language
Life’s inner city airs
The indigent grime, swearing
They do declare
As heated as Vegas summers
All ‘round the block
On the Chinatown Strip
Spring mountain valley view
The homeless congregations
Rolling their luggage
Like albatross droppings
Migratory fixtures
**** white on black walls
Black in white veins
Rolling luggage
Keeping precious metals
Coin collecting, jewelry
The bling and fake gold rings
Anything a ***** can trade
For foil wrappings
Thick with high grade
Napping in the inferno
Silver state of epidemic
Many rolling “carryon luggage”
Goes without saying
That sort of summertime language
Inner city airs
That begs
Help. To differ.
They do
Declare

It should mean war…
But, come again
welcome to our fabulous city!
Sin ain’t fair.
Love is lost here.
And still in herds, in droves
Conventions packed disinventing us
Folk.

If I could
I  would 
But I can't
So I  won't
--Be the carpenter to the building up of your ego.
--Shower you with confident praise, umbrella you from dissident things.
--Figure out the high and low moods of an adrenaline *****.
--Nod in agreement, like a court jester, to the latest exploits of a drama queen.
 
 Its a constant chore I abhor just to get you up and moving out the door.
Push you out the nest to fly,
throw you in the water to sink or swim, to try.
It's what we do when children are all grown,
NOT what we do for girlfriends who are afraid to leave home or be alone.

It's  not a keeping score point system where I'm giving more than I'm getting. Its more of a witnessing to the feeling of the allowing and the letting.

If I could
I would
But I can't
So I  won't
-- pave a yellow brick road through your misgivings.
--Smooth off the edges of your indecisions.
--Give you the cowardly  lions courage he got from Oz.
--Lie to boss Hog that your sick in bed.
-- Tweezer out the splinters of your perceived injustices.

If I  could
I would
But I can't
so I wont
Cottle you, bottle you, can't promise you or promote you. Must remove you and remote you, no longer develop you or devote you. Your on your own.

And in the end, dispite what I  do and the might that I  do it with... the final road is one we walk alone.
  I have to let you go now.

right now
sacrifice is fueling opportunity
an opportunity to breathe
with an uninterrupted purpose
the corruption of our native soul
stop nourishing it
by constructing whiteness
sacrificing ethnicity
for the temporal indulgence
adrenaline *****
torturing
intensity of dissociation
hallucinating whiteness
the worst drug ever manufactured
forced upon our children
intricate delicate
vulnerable violence
tripping
stumbling
dissociating from an eternity
of survival of the most cooperative
deterring
forgetting
intoxicating
for a moment
momentum of ******

I woke up this morning and I was thirty something and I was a waitress and I was a mother whose children are being raised by their grandparents.
I woke up this morning and I was an ex ***** who was trying to put her life back together and I was a high school dropout who got her GED but never did get that nursing degree that I've always promised myself I would have.
I woke up this morning and I was living in my sister's house that she so graciously offered me a room in but even after more than a year, it's never quite felt like home.
I woke up this morning and I wondered if I'll break down at work today or if the relationship that I'm in will finally be the one, the only, the last relationship I'll ever be in.
I woke up this morning and I wondered how much time I have left and why I wasted so much of my life wishing that I was dead.
I woke up this morning and I didn't want to hurt myself or anyone else.
I woke up this morning and I made plans and set goals for the day and for the week.
I woke up this morning and I got out of bed. I went to work, I socialized, I didn't crack, I didn't cry. I was normal today.
I woke up this morning.