paced

Last night I hated the kid

The outburst
that followed what I thought was such a great session
nothing healing
but nothing I thought would lead to his fist slamming into a window

It was not to be an early night

Today I hate the paperwork
the followup
the check-in
the debrief
the clean up

Are you still fucking crazy today
or do you just have an asshole for a therapist?*
‘Cause I’m fine with either really

Tomorrow
a safety plan will be in place
He’ll be calm again
Acknowledging me as the person for his questions
Fighting hard to take responsibility
or more likely not at all
And since no male figure has ever taken responsibility for him
Ever not beaten up the schizophrenic mother who loves him
How exactly do I hold this against him?

In a week or two
possibly it or something similar will have happened again
and it will dawn on me
again
that I can’t fix everything
or even most things
And only hope can be my judge
that he might remember

I tried

that I stuck with him
though I could not traverse that gulf
I stood there
I stepped into that fire
not at all the same one he’s in
one of my own choosing
but a fire nonetheless
and it was unpleasant

And I did not try to pull him out Dr. Doan
I just stood there with him
(or paced restlessly as it were)
I could do no other

But if the experience of the one that pulled the gun on me that one time is any teacher
And I be a fortunate human
And even if not all 11 year-old psychotics are as lovable as other 11 year-old psychotics
But as equally deserving of G-d’s grace as me
I may yet love the kid by the next progress note

[*Italics denotes thoughts I would never ever ever say aloud to a client and are used for poetic purposes only.]

3's

Three

I don’t remember much except for E.T.

possibly going to see it twice

I don’t remember who else was there

But I remember it was happy
          and safe

So I suspect the usuals:

Mom, Dad, sisters

Thirteen

I welcomed it with Shea, Sean, and Greg

it was therefore awesome

It was an epic sleepover

My first foray with MST 3000 thanks to the brothers Kersh

The rest of it saw my first foray with Okla-by-god-homa

and like most forced removals to that mysterious place

it was therefore rather difficult

I am grateful I have come to peace with it

and have another place to call home

Twenty-three

Well that was tricky

She was there that night

Adversarial and begrudgingly affectionate

as was our pattern

But she was there

And she’d clearly gone to some great lengths to get there

Can’t forget that

And then she left that year

That necessarily sucked

As in, it had to, and I’m fortunate to realize that now

And there was that unfortunate divorce for my sister

that sucked for a while

And my church community dropped the ball on my youth group

that sucks to this day

and it always will

Thirty-three

We’ll see

I have every reason to live

at least

I don’t mind hanging out if it suits you
I don’t mind being the nondescript friend for lack of a better word
who you may or may not wake up with
who might be available for you as you figure out where home is
who makes you smile when you see you’ve got a message from me
who makes you angry when you see you’ve got a message from me
so long as it’s one or the other

I don’t mind talking into the hours when we know we should be going home to bed
I don’t mind taking the time even when it’s gotten to that point
when we should be figuring out what this is and what it’s about
even if the intuitive conclusion is that it’s
nothing
something
everything
the only thing

none of the above

If these sets of baggage go together
or they don’t
It’s something to figure out
at least
Maybe we’ll figure it out quickly
but at least we’ll figure it out

And I suppose we could ask if taking the time is fair or worthwhile
        to either of us

Well...no

It’s gambling
Like anything worthwhile ever is
And like anything fair never is
Right?

5th to 6th

So it went off
     And it was not thunder
     It was not a gasline explosion as my father imagined
          Looking up suddenly from whatever I'm sure he was reading
               as he waited for his work truck to be serviced

I was trying to be a high school sophomore in 2nd hour English

And my mother was at work and not getting a replacement Social Security card
We knew with certainty this is not what she did.
     Everyone knows where they were that morning
     and where they weren't
          with the certainty that they know on mercifully rare occasions

And, no, it was not 9/11 to the 'world'
It was 4/19 to the 4-0-5

It wasn't thunder
     but it rained that night and for many nights therafter
          I think
     My memory might betray slightly
          17 years on

My mother worked some late nights
     called in as many state health workers were that week
My father had no voyeuristic wish
     to see a "graveyard"
          as indeed I did
     But nor did he oppose me being taken to see
          for I hadn't yet known death on such a scale

I attempted to give blood for the first time
    But many hundred already of age had already beaten me to it
Walmarts were brimming
     Not enough donated supplies boxes could be kept out

Firsthand, I can say that many white suburban teenagers have not approached anger
         or shock
              or displacement
         in quite that way before or since

And I won't forget the immediate iconography
     as the roaming spotlight briefly revealed
     the irreparably wounded structure
          left barely standing, and not for much longer
     but permanently bearing
     and forever reflecting
           some brokenness
           some void
as to what, you may fill in your own blank

It's always 11/22 in Dealey Plaza
     (I wasn't even alive at the time
     And I know that)
It's always 4/19 from 5th to 6th on Harvey Ave.
         

blood / water

Blood and water
drip to the ground below
or so we imagine
presuming gravity to be a constant
even at that moment

Something had to be pierced
Something had to be fighting for its breath
Someone’s flesh had to be pinned and hung on display
for some political statement
...or humanity’s sins
We should draw no distinction.

some king’s...
some god’s...

...before the stuff of life could be poured out:
That which renews and that which sustains

even for the masses screaming they had no king but the emperor
whether the emperor was democratically or divinely elected
whether the emperor was a flag
whether the emperor was a constitutional right
to avoid the care of one's community

For them also,
of which I
and everyone I know and love are also apart
this was shed.

And it’s only Friday.

alley-oop

You’ve now named your demons

You now stare them down with no small trepidation

but you do it

You now find that doing so on a daily basis is not so daunting as it once was

You play a mean offensive against them everyday

and you keep score like I ask you to

It is quite possible you have gotten better with my help

My jump shot has improved

Alley-ooping is now something I’m happy to do for you

And even when I miss

You just seem content that I’m there to listen

to whatever random Larry Bird trivia

(How many other 14 year olds do this?)

that enters your beautiful brilliant anxious brain

It is quite likely that I have gotten much better with your help

detox '04

Summer of ’04

     still smarting from all of ’02

On the first day

     pretty sure I missed the bus...

Yeah, I missed the bus.

The next time

     I paid three of my gold dollars

     Only to figure out there was a bus that went there everyday, for free

          Of course that meant getting up earlier

               Fortunately

               In Central America, I found I was a morning person

               But only in Central America

And walking about a mile from the middle-of-nowhere roundabout

     to the front gate of the penitentiary

     every morning

Amblin’ along with Ben Folds Five’s Fair in my head

     Thinking in my head how awesome I was at playing that piano part

     Maybe John Martin on bass

     Maybe Aaron W. on drums

          Neither had I seen in years

          And not since

But the imagining always got me through the walk

Always brought me to the front gate

Every day I did this

Like it was a sacrament

     or something

And oh the doing it

Just to do it

The dragging of the feet

The heart on the sleeve

The hopeless emoting

The radical suffering

The ineffable drama

     Of 

          detoxing

This was a sick broken-hearted boy

Trying to be a man

This was growing up

     Heretofore never having been so painful

     And thankfully not since

This

     apparently

          was the actual feeling of a neo-cortex of the brain

          trying to violently assert itself

          whether I wanted it or not

And I most certainly did not

So I would take what I learned

     from young prison inmates

Back to Belize City

Back to the bay where I boarded with Satch

And I would debrief Satch at the end of his day of building orphanages

Satch told me to write it down

because he knew I’d want to tell the story someday when I was feeling better

               I could not have been in better care

And I would practice that piano part

Every night I did this

It was sacrament

     Or something