Category Archives: personal stories

A brain, a heart, and courage

You must’ve been a big man in the schoolyard.

Yes- that is what I think when I watch you with others.

Did you lie in wait for that puny kid who wouldn’t fight back-
who perhaps thought that this was how their life was supposed to be;
who made up stories as to why they came home cut or bruised,
or thought that maybe they really were Ugly, Stupid, Fat?

And I wonder, now, what friends you have,
suspecting that they are of the dime-a-dozen gang,
and how many gatherings you go to and push- push with your loudness.

But you see-
some of us who were moulded in quietness and shame
have kept diaries, physical or spiritual,
speaking at first to some imagined angel who would cry for us,
then draw a sword of flame.

And you see-
some of us have found each other. Yes.

And some of us are Writers.
Something you will never be.

And we have blossomed with a quiet courage,
not of vengeance, but of strength.

So, have a care-
lest you become the one who stands away,
wishing that recess would end.

***

Image: Aleutie/Thinkstock

Everything, and the kitchen sink

* Mental health triggers, suicidal ideation*

God.  You know, I’m just washing dishes, feeling useful and kind of self-satisfied. Haven’t dropped anything or cut myself, even though the bothersome cat is weaving around my legs.  I swear- if he had a ball of yarn, I would have been a coccoon by now.

See, it’s the third week of withdrawal from a particularly nasty medication, and I’m thinking I have aced it.  Not too bad, not too bad.  There’s a cast iron frying pan with some baked-on crusty stuff, and so I run the water very hot and start leaning into it with the old scrub brush.  I’m even thinking that this is good exercise, when the destined vapours rise up to me… the singular smell of fried mushrooms. [Me, at twelve, tagging along with Dad, picking them in fields and ditches, once getting chased by bulls]  [Mom, frying them up in her iron pan, the whole house smelling delightful]

And, God dammit, I cry.  I rattle dishes and run the water faster to help stifle it.  And I think of missed things and squandered chances for love.  And I let this self-pity pool into something worse, and I think what is the freaking point of trying to get clean and well? It’s not as if there are more memories to make, more chances to unsquander my wasted life.

And at last, to myself:  “You’ve made a mistake, bud.  Better go back to the upswing with those meds.” Because I see myself hanging from a tree like those men they found, and I take it to the logical conclusion of worrying about last testaments and burial arrangements.  That’s what it does.  That is what it does.

And so, tomorrow, we find out what we are made of.

 

No words

Looking back,
I think she was afraid
when I saw her truth.
We had never spoken,
but in the group sessions,
she surprised me
with split second glances
and strange blushes.
Then, tables turned,
I made a game
of trying to catch her eye.
Not a single word.
That’s how it goes.

…and then one night, as I walked under a streetlight in the fluttering snow, she pulled up to the stop sign in a pickup truck. Rolled down the window. Smiled and waved. I waved back, though I didn’t know who it was, or how the heck anyone would have recognized me in a winter parka. Next morning, I waited in line for a coffee at the drive-thru. As I pulled up to the window, there she was,  with her half smile and eyes averted. I broke the ice and said “I know you. You drive a black Ford pickup, right?” Again, a blush. “Thanks for your order, Sir.”