where

Following the Reckoning
once I have renounced all privilege and capital of my social location
be it through coercion of the new order
Or
I’m just that nice of a guy
I will be in the very safest of places:

A dizzying series of panned shots
Portraying scenes of my life
that didn’t…really…happen

But it will be edited and choreographed
as if a music video
to a song by The Killers
inspired visually by Baz Luhrmann
for good effect
And the memories will be
a tad wistful
angst-y, yes, because adolescence was pretty good to me after all
Bittersweet even
but ultimately good


I will have laid down my test kits and scoring templates
I will have critiqued my last empirical study
I will have entered the last bit of raw data
Clicked the mouse for the calculations

The results will be the most significant EVER

And I will be shown the door
Going in
Going out
Either way

The benediction will be something like
“Well done, buddy…
THAT
was impressive.”

Or
Something else
Which I am very happy at present
Not even able to fathom

But you’ll know where to find me

midterm

This evening

The mother

She asked me:

           “Should I hit him back?”

With regard to her son

Now

           It was a sincere question

           Asked through no small amount of tears

And such was the context

I didn’t for a second think she was joking

My response:

“It doesn’t look good.”

In that ironic way I have

           Which I’m still hoping

                     has its way of conveying more

           than anything I could say less dry

Just WHO would be learning WHAT from THAT?

which is what I did eventually say

don’t worry

But the distance

           and resolution

between the usual baseline of self-doubt and inadequacy

          which I pray to G-d never goes away

when I sat down with her

knowing intuitively what she was going to want to know

          what we all always want to know

          in that moment

          when we suck at something so epically bad

And the Tennyson Center that then kicks in

There must be consequences

There must be opportunity for him to make repair

There must be a safety plan

             (Hope that it won’t happen again

             Figure that it will)

But there cannot be hands laid on him lest the county hear from me

That conversation is up to her now

But make certain that it ends somewhere in the ballpark of

           “You are mine

            And I love you”

The midterms I’m taking this week

           mean something

           This I know

           It’s good to know

secured

"You're gonna miss me when I discharge, AREN'T you?? I've been your longest client and the most engaged of ANY of them."

I just looked at him and grinned.

Because while both assertions are debatable
and we would have that debate
Again and again
We would have it
There is always a ring of truth to all his hyperboles and occasional allegations

And maybe I’d humor him on that day
with a simple ‘Uhn-uh’
Just for the little charge I know he’d get out of it
Like when he pokes and prods
Opposition-ating and Defying
(easier than Acutely Stressing)
his way through the sea of youths in a 24/7 shit show
a Disorder, if you will
saying with his Bx’s
what he can’t say with his words

I got thrown away before I could crawl
The one home that kept me couldn’t be bothered to keep me
from seeing exactly what Dad did to Sister
and then couldn’t be bothered to keep me

Every piece of rhetoric I’ve ever been given is that Family--
FAMILY
--is unending
--is safe
And every reality I’ve ever gotten is that Love is conditional

I am not secured 
And I am detached
And yeah, I am reacting
But this is where I was sent
And you’re the guy who got assigned
And you are not going to ignore me now.

Connections get forged through hard work
And yes--
Attachments
And he was
is
Nothing if not hard work

So we agreed
That I would not ignore him
(not that I was planning to)
That we would hold each other mutually accountable
to our assignments

No matter the weeks after the full benefit of treatment
that turned into
needless
months
of languish

For each one, my report to the County reading between lines in attitude
What I could not write out in words:
“Get him
the fuck
out of here.”

Lest his world become that much smaller
Which it did
Lest he have nothing else to do
Which he didn’t
But ruminate on the monsters in that world
which the local news was making all too plentiful at the time
and reminding him daily:

unsafe
devalued
unsecured

And what exactly can I tell him?

That didn’t happen to you...
it just happened.

But it did happen
to him.

That the monsters aren’t real?

They’re real

And under his bed is about the only place they’re not hiding.

More hard work
Entailing much immersion with stuffed animals
and me learning all of their names
and dedicated night staff tucking them in with him

(His idea)

More attachment
Making sure there were surrogate stuffies
for weekends and days off

(My supervisor’s idea)

Ritual (side)hugs
Never less than five to end a session

(His idea, supported by my supervisor)

All the while I aged in clinical years
a factor of 3 to 10
holding the social service’s hands
pulling over a finish line
what seemed curiously either like heels digging in or an immobile body slumping over

Whatever

I don’t judge
I just make lots of phone calls
And occasionally curl up into a fetal position of my own in the middle of the office for all co-workers to see.*

*(Truth)

Then I judge.

Because the longer he’s here
The harder to make the transition
The needed goodbye
The more difficult for it to be a healthy one
Because when exactly has he ever had that?

But there we were
On that last session
In his new home
a temporary, hopefully long-term, one
but one I fought hard for and knew I could trust with him
Less Stressing
Still occasionally Defying
But well on his way to Adjusting

Saying goodbye

(Not his idea)

“This is hard.”

All he could say.

“You’re ready.”
All I dared to say.
No less than five small hugs.
Then one long full one.

“This is hard.”
He repeated.
                       (for both of us)
     This time looking right at me.
His voice shaky
Uncertain
 
But secured.

so there

That thing where I have a light fever

I’m teetering between consciousness

     and the extremely inviting third nap on a sick day

Suddenly it’s ten years ago and 700 miles away

     The last time I saw her in person

     It’s a random flashback

     I know it’s just a flashback

           And yet I am so there

                and can’t do anything about it

And I remember the last thing I said to her

     With the misguided intention of communicating

          That I am Standing My Ground

          The Line is Here

               This Thing I’m Trying to Pass Off as Assertiveness

                    Will Finally Make You See that I’m the One

When really I may just as well have been saying

     I’m Just Gonna Refuse to Grow Up For Just a Little Longer

               If That’s Okay With You

      I Hate Change

                and This Really Should Just Validate Your Decision 
                To Move On With Your Life

                But It’s Going to Take a Few More Months For Me 

                          To Find Other People and Other Sources to Focus On

                               Take One More Year For Me to Make

                                         a Superficial Gesture of Letting Go

                               Take Two More Years for me to Deal With This in its Totality 
                                         and Get Over You

                               Three More Years to Get Over It

                               Five More Years to Realize It was Never About You

                                         you were just the important person that got in the way

                                                   -sorry about that-

               Six More Years to Really Understand Letting Go

               Seven More Years to Really Come to Peace with That

               Ten More Years With the Help of a Light Fever To Help Me Realize

                              What a Really Dick Thing That Was to Say To You

That’s when I come to a second later

                    "What the hell was that?" I whisper
          and I panic

     wondering if I’ve done anything else with my life 

          for the last ten years

          hoping lessons were able to be learned through other avenues

               pretty sure that all has been well

               and all shall be well

                         by means of grace if nothing else

Fevers are terrible things

And yet

          The only reliable means of time travel I have yet to find

as though dead

“Do not be afraid”

Says the sound of many waters
Saying that death is a thing of the past
a key to be turned

And life is a certainty
Provided that you do turn that key

Now that is a fearful thing

But I've come to trust living beings in drag
Their faces shining with full force

Theirs is the most consoling of hands placed on me.
You'll just have to trust me on this one.

(from Rev. 1:12-20)

also, for Stuart

Report: (some explicit language)

Denver man again survives holiday trek home on I-70 stretch of western Kansas without clawing out his own eyes for amusement.

“Praise the living Christ--!” he was heard to mutter through gritted teeth and clenched jaw as he turned off the 250A exit of the eastbound lane toward I-135 southbound.

When asked how he so specifically remembered the precise exit number, his face darkened and he assumed an agitated posture.

“Yeah, pretty sure,” he sneered in a sarcastic tone. “[What] the fuck else was I supposed to pay attention to...?”

Having endured the same drive several times now, the motorist noted that each time the soul-numbing experience evoked a response of self-harm to cope with the sensations of futility, oblivion, and lost dreams typically associated with western Kansas.  Though the man reports no history of any such self-harming ideations while not on I-70, in western KS, he says the “‘I-70 mindfuck’ is always the same.”

“This time I came very close to digging into my eye sockets.  Last time I pondered taking a go at my radial artery just to see if it’s true what they say about unoxygenated blood.”

The motorist noted that the normal mental and emotional decompensation follows a similar pattern with each drive.

“I leave Denver pretty upbeat and excited to see loved ones for the holidays.  But by the time I leave Limon (eastern CO, and indistinct from western KS), it starts with ruminating on that one thing I did wrong at work the day before.  By the time I pass Hays (KS), I’m screaming at my dog that died when I was eight for running away.”  The man even confessed to going so far as condemning his friends and family, though they’ve done nothing but remain in the native region from which he himself chose to relocate five years ago.

“Is hell measurable in actual miles?” the man further mused, reliving the anguish. “Two hundred and fifty would be my guess.”

While the man’s relief was somewhat dashed, as in past trips, by the realization that there was still nearly two hours yet to drive in Kansas from Salina to Wichita, the sudden appearance of hills, bare trees, slight variations in color across the prairies, and even shoulder trenches with some weeds, on the sides of I-135 seemed to cheer him immediately.

“Is that a tumbleweed???” he asked excitedly.

but today, Mr. President

Oh Mr. President
My President
The motherf-ing President of the United States
Don’t agree with you on everything
As you’d well know if you have in fact read the emails I write you when I don’t

But today

What they didn’t ask you today
What they couldn’t think to ask you in that moment

Mr. President
By taking this rather surprising stand on this ridiculously controversial issue
at this point in the election cycle


Are you not in fact making a politically calculated move
to energize your liberal base
to curry the vote of this nation’s youth
to ultimately expose the fact that your opponent has no actual...well,
mandate 
by his party to run as their nominee
to put the culture war right smack dab in the center of the national consciousness 
just so you can say tomorrow
“Look, I’m done with that...
I do hope no one else is still stuck on this.
Can we go back to talking about taxing rich people?”


(and possibly to distract us for the moment that we are living 
in a second great depression)

And could you not in that moment
Have grinned very slyly
Cocked your head slightly
and responded

“Yes I am, Robin.
And what are you doing with the rest of your day...?”