Quiet Retreat –

“Do you not see how necessary a world of pains and troubles is to school an intelligence and make it a soul?” ― John Keats, Letters of John Keats

Forsaken by sanity, forgotten by humanity, she fought just to keep from fighting. Barely one step ahead of the encroaching madness, weary from the race, she laid down her arms. Passive resistance to no avail, giving all to go beyond today but consumed by fear of tomorrow and an unspoken dread of a foreshortened future. Like a gold ring in a pig’s snout her beautiful body hung from a leprosy filled soul. Her mind wasn’t empty but overcrowded with thousands of thoughts every minute, from the mundane to the complex, the raucous sound filled every crack and crevice of brilliance and care. She died long ago, resurrected once, only to be crucified again by the same love that brought her life. This cross she bears through life, stumbling in the crowded streets with the roar of the past and the horror of the future the foreboding songs of the morning. Hear her silent scream, silent lest the world hear the echoes of her demise. In the end, only God knows why she’s alive, why she persists, why living is a threat and death a quiet retreat.

 

First published at Opinions of Eye

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It’s A Long Way Back –

“The Edge… there is no honest way to explain it because the only people who really know where it is are the ones who have gone over.“– Hunter S. Thompson

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“Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there, wondering, fearing, doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before.“ – Edgar Allan Poe

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butterflist

Its a long way back from the edge of life. I knew when I followed that path to the outer limits of my experience, my emotions raw and excited with newness of knowledge and feeling, that the price for this wonder is the journey back. It’s beautiful on the way to that edge, my soul being easily amazed by pleasures which offer no sure guidance and seduce me with their passion. This excitement is the elixir of madness offered by my wayward senses to lure me beyond the wise and sure. I have recognized the most painful of these experiences are the ones that offer extreme pleasures that lead me away from safety. There are many secrets out on that cliff, many of those secrets are taught on the journey back from the precipice. Run to the edge with reckless abandon, gather your pleasures of knowledge and lust, and know, a price will be paid. I’ll see you on our way back…

Also published in Life As A Human Magazine

Also published in Broowaha citizen newspaper

Also listed on Stumbleupon

First Published in Opinionsofeye.com

12022011

         

In Defense of Addiction

“I have absolutely no pleasure in the stimulants in which I sometimes so madly indulge. It has not been in the pursuit of pleasure that I have periled life and reputation and reason. It has been the desperate attempt to escape from torturing memories, from a sense of insupportable loneliness and a dread of some strange impending doom.”
― Edgar Allan Poe

“The Moth don’t care when he sees The Flame.
He might get burned, but he’s in the game.
And once he’s in, he can’t go back, he’ll
Beat his wings ’til he burns them black…
No, The Moth don’t care when he sees The Flame. . .
The Moth don’t care if The Flame is real,
‘Cause Flame and Moth got a sweetheart deal.
And nothing fuels a good flirtation,
Like Need and Anger and Desperation…
No, The Moth don’t care if The Flame is real. . . ”
― Aimee Mann

An expression of wisdom from an ancient text declares anxiety in the mind of a man causes depression. From this I understand addiction‘s hold on me. My world is so complex with worries that it sickens my body. Worries about about self esteem and retirement, about wealth and sickness, about bills and responsibilities, about women and sex, about an endless list of subjects, a thousand times a minute, every waking moment in the day. However, when I’m in my addiction, I worry about nothing but it, for hours, for days, possibly for weeks and months. Imagine the rest I feel when my tormented mind, harried by anxieties and thoughts assailing me without mercy, becomes suddenly disconnected. The plug is pulled, no more crazy anxiety, only my addiction. 

This sounds like a crazed rendezvous with a forbidden lover, but like those trysts, its the lure of the taboo that brings the rush delivering me from the madness of mind plaguing my troubled soul. It’s asked of me, “How can you do those things?”, the accusation being made that I should know better. Those interrogators have no idea of the energy consuming me from the inside out. Were they to know, the question would be irrelevant. I want rest from my mind consuming itself. Be kind to those in addictions, you have no idea what they are capable of if they were not consumed with that thing they desire. What if you knew that because of an addiction, you were delivered from harm? Would you then criticize that which saved you? 

Rest assured I know that some addictions result in violence, and I in no way pretend to support that lifestyle, but if only to enlighten the non-user, the pure and undefiled soul that never craved the forbidden to the tragic end of ruining their life, and make them understand that in my case, be very thankful that my thoughts were arrested by an addictive lifestyle; for were they to come to fruition otherwise, it would be a very messy picture. Take a moment to step in another man’s shoes before you criticize an addicts lifestyle, they may not be doing the worse thing possible…there are abnormal and hugely deviant alternatives that are, shall we say, detrimental toyour health.

Diary of a Mad Man – Living with mental illness

“No great mind has ever existed without a touch of madness.” ― Aristotle

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They said to me, “Walk!”. My feet wouldn’t move, frozen by the accident. Appendages that are normally useful, mobile, and independent, I drag them along, taking care that I don’t injure them. The accident, as I call it, was not an accident, but a purposeful intended act, inspired by lust and hate. What they did to me I cannot tell, the acts so horrific. Regardless of the details of their brutal incursion, what I was left with is a handicap, one of the mind, not the body. Having to make do with a shredded normality, crawling through my life, instead of walking, never able to run. What was taken for granted, now became a challenge for me. While others run, leap, climb, and move about with impunity to mental mobility. I must develop new ways, ways that hurt, ways that require intense concentration, intense discipline. Still they taunt me, “get up and walk”, “why can’t you just be like the rest of us”. They can’t see I’m disabled, bound by forces that were neither chosen, nor desired, but forced on me in a cruel and harsh manner.

My injury cannot be seen, my useless legs are a shattered self-esteem, a mind crippled from ever thinking in a sane manner again. Insanity, psychosis, visions, voices, nightmares, self-deprecating thoughts, and accusations invade my every waking moment. Perceptions of reality and fantasy mix together, making the deciphering of fact and fiction a huge effort in itself. All day, every day, I roll around in a mental wheelchair, like one with paralyzed legs, committed to implements of bothersome necessity. I watch the heads wag, “Tsk, tsk. Quit being a pansy, just get up and walk”. Damn it! Can’t you see I can’t freaking walk? Can’t you see that it takes me longer to do normal things? I must make preparations for the ordinary, that which you do without an effort takes me great pains to produce, to perform, to succeed.

I’m not feeling sorry for myself, I’m a success and exceedingly happy, and in these I’ll continue, but the insensitivity of others upsets me. Refusing patience with, or acceptance of the fact, that I’m not like them. I cannot get up in the morning and be without fear, I cannot go into a crowd and relax, I cannot be in the dark. Paranoia haunts me, I sense conspiracies coming from everyone, from everything. Shame burns in me, flushing my cheeks at the least exposure of my faults or idiosyncrasies. My mind races with thousands of thoughts a minute, deep thoughts, all of them.

I ask for no special treatment, just for a bit of patience with me as you accompany me on my journey through this world. Please, not only with me, but with the many others afflicted in a like manner, be sure you understand that although the pain of mental illness is not visible, it does handicap us from doing things in a normal manner. Be patient with crazy people, we really are cool, even if it takes us awhile to work our way through the battlefields of life.

Also published in Broowaha

12282011