#paranoia – Opinions Of Eye

Little Signs – The paranoia of betrayal –

“Fear of vikings builds castles.” – Charles Manson

Sitting at the window, you wait for the sound of me

Knowing your betrayal, you nervously wait to see.

Looking in my eyes, you seek for little signs

the lurid knowledge of forbidden times.

Searching through my things for false pretense

believing I’m like you, you’re incensed.

Take your paranoia, your imposed hell

Leave me alone, your really not well.

How is it that, you can steal away

Holding my patient love at bay?

In the end you’ll regret to see

I’ll leave you alone and take care of me.

Also published in Broowaha
Also published in Wingposse

First published in Opinions Of Eye

11242011

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

Seven Faults Of Foolishness – Fault #1 A Proud Look

“Deep is the sea, and deep is hell, but Pride, mineth deeper;
It is coiled as a poisonous worm about the foundations of the soul.”
– Martin Farquhar Tupper, Proverbial Philosophy

“We are rarely proud when we are alone.”– Voltaire

A foolish man, devoid of wisdom, thinks nothing of others. Not recognizing that his station in life is carried on the backs of those before him, he lifts up his head and treats with disdain those who are under him. Despising authority, he believes himself to be greater than those beneath and above him, than the common and the exalted. His eyes are haughty, his face hardened to those weaker souls that surround him. He won’t give in to cries for mercy, nor will he allow himself to entertain the causes of those who he’s crushed with his wanton lifestyle. None can approach him, he is the center of his universe, his Ego holding the scepter and reigning supreme in the world that he believes is his. He is God in his own world, a legend in his own mind. See him, as he pushes through the crowd, refusing to give way, he bumps and shoves those who are in “his” way, refusing to yield even for an instant. Staring deep into the eyes of those around him, he hopes to intimidate and force to yield those who oppose him, even though opposition is the least of their motives. He believes that everyone will try to usurp his authority, paranoia quickly taking the reigns of his mind, causing him to be cruel in his decisions.

Related Posts: Fault #1 – Pride, Fault #2 – Starving The Spirit, Fault #3 – Multitude of Words

03152012

Seven Faults Of Foolishness – Fault #1 A Proud Look

“Deep is the sea, and deep is hell, but Pride, mineth deeper;
It is coiled as a poisonous worm about the foundations of the soul.”
– Martin Farquhar Tupper, Proverbial Philosophy

“We are rarely proud when we are alone.”– Voltaire

Related Posts: Fault #1 – Pride, Fault #2 – Starving The Spirit, Fault #3 – Multitude of Words

03152012

Crackhead – A day in the life

Be advised that this post may trigger those who are prone to addictions. This post is written, not to glorify drug use with “war stories”, but to show the futility and danger faced daily by those addicted. Take time and patience with the addicts, you may the next one that needs the help.

“Click, click”, the metallic voice of the AK told me all I needed to know. I sat down, quickly, in the darkened room. Behind me, open doors, black holes of doom in my mind, I had no idea what or who was waiting there. Two of them stood in front of me, one with the barrel pointed at my eye. “Grandma”, as they reverently referred to her, sat at the table in the kitchen, one bare light bulb lighting the table and a few baggies in front of her. Two more thugs stood by her side, armed, their expression disinterested, just another night to them. To me however, it was an epiphany. I was looking down the barrel of my life. The man with his gun on me shouted, “smoke it!”. I guess my frequent trips to their house that night inspired some paranoia, or perhaps the doses of high grade crack fueled their suspicions. It didn’t matter which, now, the paranoia was going to be mine. I took the pipe, hazed with brownish yellow on the inside, and balanced the large rock on the end. It was the size of my pinky nail. There was no choice, no option, it was smoke it or die.

I held the flame to the pipe, melted the crack in place, and with my held tilted way back, lit it up. I heard the crackle of my mind as I took a deep breath of rock. I couldn’t finish it, I slumped back, my ears ringing loudly, vision growing narrow, my heart leaping furiously to catch up to an unnatural rhythm that would have killed most men. I slumped back in the chair, my eyes wide, my ears attuned to a supernatural level of hearing. Every creak, whisper, and movement was amplified to startling levels. A mind gripping fear took hold, all those dark rooms, all these guns, everything geared to annihilate me. Satisfied, the goon took the gun away from my eye, and smiled a knowing smile. I was not a cop, I was a rock star without a guitar. “Leave now”, he said, throwing the eight-ball I came for, “and don’t come back tonight”.

You didn’t need to tell me twice, I left with my feet traveling faster than my mind, driving without knowing where I was going. I just wanted away. Away from there, and away from all that tormented me. Away from the loneliness, the pain, the rejection, the failure of my life. Away to a room, where all that waited was fear and my little rocks. No love there, no hope, only hours of torment, compounded by days of depression and sadness as I recovered from my 5 day binge. Sad life, sad time, another night in the life of a crack head.

At War With Me – Inside the mind of schizophrenia

“Schizophrenia cannot be understood without understanding despair.” – R. D. Laing

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Alone again, sitting on the edge of shattered dreams

Looking out across the littered landscape

On surreal castaway emotions

Lining up for the battle, players in full effect

No penalty getting called, game plan checked

Time for confrontation

Many people in the same head, crowded conditions

Please raise your hand before speaking

Miserable summations.

We say I’m crazy, I believe we got it right

My friends in my head, they speak at once

Which part of we is normal?

Is this me or we?

Also published in Broowaha

01122013