October and its pink ribbons

Another fight for no reason… The regular mother and daughter stress… I yell and she doesn’t yell back… I do not feel the wrath in her voice this time and when she responds, completely uncharacteristically, her eyes fill up with tears and one sole drop slothfully caresses her cheek down to the corner of her mouth…
I’ve gone to far…
and my pride won’t let me fix it now… its too late…
I storm out the door and head for the nearest open space… trying everything to keep my mind occupied… perhaps the weather… yes the weather…. the weather could definitely do it…
Its just getting colder now… the kind of cold that makes you a little uncomfortable but strangely refreshed … The air is crisp and the leaves are wonderful shades of red orange and yellow….
Roy….
An acronym for the first three colors of the spectrum that make up light and sunshine.
Sunshine….
now a waning memory… fall has taken over and the warmth of the sun will soon be forgotten…
A somber mood comes over me… I stroll through the park and notice that pink ribbons hug the trees… and somewhere in the far of distance Melissa Ethbridge’s “I run for life” is faintly playing in the background. A sudden erie romanticism comes over me and I continue to wander around aimlessly and contemplate… glossy eyed and almost tearing…
I remember last October…
How I couldn’t stop myself from crying at every possible moment… every advert on TV… every pink ribbon, every fundraiser and every damn self examination guide I came across… I cried and cried and cried some more… I cried while staring at the pink background on my desktop at work and I also cried when i attempted to shake off the thought at the soap dispenser that filled my hands with pink goop. I kept myself from being around her… I tried oh so profusely to hide my fear… my sadness… my childish selfishness…and as if that wasn't bad enough....I jumped to conclusions... that’s what I do… and the reason I was falling apart. The captian of my own demise.
I saw the end before the beginning was confirmed… I became the victim and in the process forgot that she must have been going crazy with fear, anger and the need to be strong…. I don’t know what scared me more… knowing that without her I am an empty hollow shell lacking in personality and in character…that she was and is my anchor, my support, my comfort and that with her gone… no one would ever care as much, worry as much, or remotely listen as much… I’d have to be alone…Or was it that I knew I’d taken her for granted all these years that because she was the one who loved me regardless she would inevitably have to be the one to suffer the consequences and abuse.
Is this how I love?
And if so what kind of love is that?
It makes no sense…
I snap back to today’s fight and my thoughts wander off to play in dark places making conclusions and conjuring up a drama that I pray is entirely based on faulty deductions:
1) She typically picks fights over useless petty things when bigger things are stressing her out.
2) She had a mammogram done this morning.
3) I remember her looking at me with the same teary eyes she did today when I asked her what was bothering her a week ago… “Nothing I can’t handle. Absolutely no point in making you carry my burden as well… its not fair…” she said with a broken smile.
4) I immensely over reacted the last time… making the idea of her even thinking of telling me a stressful thing all on its own.Could this be her way of protecting me?

I am afraid to face the thought… and even more afraid to ask… I so desperately want to believe that I’m completely totally and utterly conjuring all this up… that its all just a concatenation of my imagination…. and so… for now… I cast it aside… pile it onto my to do later list…. To think later list… to become later list… and focus… focus on now… today… this moment…the pretty park, the fresh air and the colors of the falling leaves. I muster up all my energy to breathe…. and stroll some more.

Lemons

2:55 am… infomercials are the thing of the hour… each promising a better life… clearer skin… a firmer body…easier cooking… better cleaning…. and last but not least… a fulfilling love life…a plethora of channels and not one single decent thing on to drown out the noise in my head… the thoughts that eat at my soul…the sad ordinance of my life...anything to numb the mind and keep it away from evaluating the inadequacy of just being normal. But there is none… no answer… no truth… no point…just time… years… months… days… hours… minutes and seconds…and no matter how they are spent…they pass…the successful succeed… the happy continue to find joy… the important excel at significance…and all the while the oblivious grow in ignorance and the bland continue to loose flavor… there is no zest for life…just lemons…

Just Breathe!

I find it odd how at one point in time you can’t breathe without a persons existence in your life and at a different time you’re completely oblivious. I wonder about the human ability to immensely complicate things at times only to be blown away by the simplicity of it all in a moment of clarity. Truth is…. your breathing… your personal ability to draw air in from around you in order for your body to function… that breathing that you think you wont be able to do without this person… it’s totally and completely unrelated to the world and all that are in it. Truth is… you just think it hurts to breath and you convince yourself that you’ll never be able to do it again… but surely enough… one in hale and exhale at a time… one distraction after the other… on conscious decision after the next… and one too many chats with yourself in the mirror… you finally snap out of it and you breathe… you breathe once you breathe twice and you breathe some more…and soon enough… you don’t even think about it anymore till one day something triggers a memory of the person and you get it…an epiphany of sorts… you’ve been breathing since!

Octagons... flashing red signs ...and stops...

Its funny how you get yourself stuck in a rut sometimes... a routine... a pattern... whether it be in the places u go.... the people u talk to... or the stuff u take in... Patterns rule all... and ignorant as we are ….as humans... every time we embark on something new we think this time is different... this is the one that doesn't fit the mould... like the mould is a bad thing to begin with... maybe we focus to much about breaking the mould that we never take full advantage of it… what if we were to better understand our patterns and pitfalls and work around them... learn from our mistakes so to speak... a cliché!you're exposed to a gazillion different situations and people every day but if u look closely I’m sure you'll find that u react to certain categories of people a certain way... and to other happenings a different way....It especially sucks when you know you're falling into a pattern and can't do anything to get yourself out of it... u think kleptos know they're collecting junk when they pick up that random object off of someone else’s desk? you think compulsive cheaters, know they're going to do it again no matter how much they swear they won’t? you think that silly girls falling in love with the wrong guys see how wrong they are for them? the answer to all those question is yes... except the problem is... all those people... they can't stop themselves from being “the morally incorrect”... all the things they once proclaimed they'd never be...then the world goes round... time passes by and low and behold they're in the exact predicament they swore they'd never be in... It almost seems as though... life would be so much easier if u could carry around a little video machine to play back all the times u did what u you knew you'd feel like crap for doing later.... little post it notes in pretty little colors that catch you eye when you're about to enter another pitfall... neon blinking lights that say... stop you moron... its happening again! save yourself the shit... save u save YOU… a spin on the save me save u..think with your BRAIN and not your prejudice .. your libido...you're greed.. your heart... your hunger ... your conscience or your avarice....Stop dead in your tracks and say…I’ve done that one to many times.... I wont do that again! I know what those octagons flashing read lights and signs mean…. STOP!

Lady Macbeth

I'm not sure if shakespear was onto something ages ago with his lady Macbeth character or was it just a fluke...with her obsessiveness... Determined to get things done... so presistant and then utterly regretfull... guilt sets in.. but only when its too late.. It is as though the things she wants to acomplish haunt and plague her to take action.. she wants to cause reactions but the only problem is she's short sighted... she does not recognize that the initial trigger can infact snowball into something colassal... I am amazed that a male could capture the persona of a woman so correctly.

Rain

Rain…
Little tiny drops of water… comparable to tears… we cry because our emotions have gotten the best of us… the sky cries because…. Why does the sky cry? Maybe it cries because the world it blankets is an awful place…People taking other people’s destinies in their own hands… thinking they are God… or maybe it just wants to give us another chance to wash our hands clean of all that….
Either way… I stand inside the glass doors of my office building and watch the drops drizzle down the window… the noise claming… drowning out all the noise… not by silencing it but by out doing it… people scurry out and dance around to avoid the puddles. They open the door and run across the parking lot as if they’re about to melt… They duck and look up as though to give the sky a dirty look…. Like ‘how could you?! I’m wearing sandals today!’ I see a mother holding her child… both in the rain but react to it in very different ways. The child takes baby steps trying to steer the mum in the direction of potholes while she’s desperately trying to avoid them. To her they are a nuisance but to the little girl a mini adventure. The mother can think of nothing worse than having her hair get soaked… while the little girl can think of nothing better. To her this is as good as it gets… joie de vivre… it splashes on her face and tickles its every inch… a game of tag she’s perfectly ok with loosing…rain…a worthy opponent…

The Cancer Card

Backgrounder: I hadn't written anything before this piece for a while. I usually write optimistic "pretty" pieces. I was in a bad mood and decided to channel that anger through my writing. The idea was to create a piece that was completely uncharacteristic.

The cancer card.
Pretty with flowers and shiny writing. A quant little poem that sounds so typically hallmark… An attempt to bring a little sunshine into the poor soul’s life that has to live with this disease or worse still try and over come it.

Just looking at the card you couldn’t tell that Alice’s every moment must be tainted with the thought that her kids will live without a mother if it gets the best of her.
Looking at the card, you wouldn’t know that her hair has fallen out and that she wears a wig because on good days.. days when she has enough strength to walk outdoors, kids look at her like she’s stepped out of a horror movie.

This card with its bright colors and cheerful commentary...
Everyone’s pathetic attempts to make comfortable an ugly situation.

We’re a nation addicted to fighting.. we fight everything.. we want to battle ignorance, combat poverty and of course fight diseases. Its Alice’s job to do that for us. We live vicariously through her. We write in this card not because we really care but because we want to tell her story later on. Who wants to hear the story of a cancer patient that didn’t make it? A cancer patient who withered away defeated by a disease that we are miles away from understanding. We want the opposite. We want to tell the world how she overcome a monster. A tale of human perseverance and struggle.

Alice is our martyr.

She is the venue by which we allow ourselves to be human.
We drop money into an envelope and on a superficial level hope the flowers will put a smile on her face.
See Alice... the cancer patient.... our martyr....
looking at this card.. this sorry.....“sweet” empty gesture..
she wouldn’t know that someone actually contemplated pocketing some of her gift fund to buy dessert after lunch. She wouldn’t know that I could think of absolutely nothing more horrific than being in her shoes right now. She wouldn’t know that everyone signing this card thanks god its her and not them.. not their sister, mother or wife.
Poor dying,
weak,
fragile,
Cancer infested Alice…