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<html lang="en">
<head>
<link rel="stylesheet" href="style.css" />
<title>Days In Dysthymia</title>
</head>
<body>
<br /><br />
<p id="demo"></p>
<h1>Days In Dysthymia</h1>
<h4>
"Reduce intellectual and emotional noise until you arrive at the silence
of yourself, and listen to it."<br />-Richard Brautigan
</h4>
<script src="script.js"></script>
<p>
<br />I.<br /><br />
Place your ear to the wall <br />quiet your breath. <br />Listen to the
hum of the world. <br />Feel part of it, <br />Feel as if you will always
be separate. <br /><br />
II. <br /><br />Everything isn’t serious. I’ll give you an example.<br />
Softly suspending your grandmother’s hand in yours <br />as she steadily
quieted into death, <br />the family, home and already grieving, leaving
you alone <br />to be the steward of her pain. Calling your father to tell
him <br />his mother died, holding onto what it sounded like when she took
<br />her last breath. These are serious things. <br /><br />
By contrast, I once walked into a window of a crowded bank <br />mistaking
it for a door. My forehead hit the pane hard, <br />it sounded like a
large china bowl being dropped onto the ground <br />but somehow, not
breaking. <br /><br />
III.<br /><br />
I met a woman who carried death with her everywhere she went. It was a
stillness that stunk of old flowers and cigarettes. She was a perfectly
nice woman. Nothing about her personality or her behavior made me feel
this way. Just a complete and unending certainty that she was a harbinger.
She talked of dead pets, dead friends, dead parents, of art and of love.
These were the things she was an expert in. Her shoulders straightened,
gaze evened. The look of an athlete about to run the big race.<br /><br />
She was an unwitting harbinger. She took no more pleasure in being
followed by death than anyone else would. Her pale wavy hair wild and
uncontrollable, my sitting across from her as still as stone. Off in the
distance, maybe outside, I heard a hiss and the movement of leaves. When
she departed, something in me left with her. After the door closed and her
car pulled away I collapsed in bed and slept for fourteen hours.
<br /><br />IV.<br /><br />
Everything is quiet again, B. <br />This is why I gave up poetry the first
time.<br />
When it’s quiet the fear comes. <br />The belt around my chest, it
tightens. <br />I’m afraid of myself. <br />I’m afraid of the unlit
corners <br />and dusty doorways. <br />What if I never find my way home
to you? <br />Why must I feel the need <br />to speak where no one needs
<br />sound?<br /><br />
V.<br /><br />
Sometimes the lie is so much lovelier than the truth. I’ll give you an
example: I know that the first words ever spoken were probably something
like water or lion or run or fire, something necessary, something vital.
But I like to believe that maybe after thousands of years of silence,
someone looked at someone and said, “I wonder if those stars watch us
every night like we watch them.” I think that would be nice, don’t you? Or
maybe if God came down one Tuesday afternoon and everybody got out of
their cars or walked out of their incredibly important jobs and he just
said, “what are you in a rush for all the time? I made all of this soft
grass, lie in it.” <br /><br />VI. <br /><br />I heard the guru on the
television say <br />forgiving yourself is the greatest act of kindness.
<br />He sat in condescending splendor, arms folded <br />knees crossed,
surrounded on all sides by faithful followers. <br />I remember my mother
in the intensive care unit. I remember <br />the faint conversations we
had over the sound of respirators <br />and nurses shoes squeaking on
waxed floor. I remember the days I <br />would come and sit alone while
you slept. I was a coward, then. <br />I didn’t tell you how sorry I was
for all of my teenage angst and <br />all the nights I was out and manic
and you were home and waiting <br />and worrying. <br />I am still a
coward now. <br />Maybe the guru was right. <br />Maybe forgiving myself
really is the greatest act of kindness. <br />But I don’t make a habit
<br />of forgiving those I hate.<br /><br />
VI.
<br /><br />
I remember driving home<br />
from the third day at the factory thinking <br />
I am not cut out for this world<br />
as if there was a blurry outline drawn on a sheet<br />
of construction paper of a boy<br />
who would grow up to be a man<br />
who would be afraid of the dark <br />
and of men who reminded him of his father<br />
and of small talk with cashiers who seem too friendly<br />
and of falling back into solitude <br />
and of dying <br />
who when cut out and blown into the wind<br />
of some faraway place would take running<br />
out and over the horizon<br />
lit on each side by shadow <br />
cast by the two moons of that world.<br />
it would be soft and peaceful<br />
he would smile easy<br />
and never remember the names<br />
of all of the prescription drugs<br />
he would never need.<br /><br />
VII.<br /><br />
When I was in second grade <br />
I pretended to know all the answers to an episode of Jeopardy!. <br />
I had seen the episode before, but my friend’s parents didn’t know that. <br />
It’s the opposite of “malafide” <br />
Bonafide, obviously. <br />
Persephone, who reigned with him over the underworld, was his niece<br />
I’m pretty sure this one’s Hades.<br />
They were astonished, maybe a bit frightened. <br />
For an evening I was the kid genius,<br />
The star attraction.<br />
When my mom came to pick me up they gushed,<br />
my god your son is so smart!<br />
We stopped for ice cream on the way home for “no reason.”<br />
It was the first time I ever learned how good it felt<br />
to be a fraud. <br />
But I would spend the next 25 years feeling like one. <br /><br />
IX. <br /><br />
Last night I thought about crashing my car into a tollbooth. I saw it about a mile before, glowing like a lighthouse. It wasn’t a thought, really. It was like a feeling. I didn’t want to die, I wanted to hear the sound it made. That splash of metal slamming into metal that makes the hair on your neck stand up. I wanted to see the look on everybody’s faces when they saw I wasn’t slowing down. I wanted to feel the airbag on my cheek. I wanted to smell the gasoline running out onto the pavement. I didn’t want to die, I think I just wanted someone to run to me.
<br /><br />
X.
<br /><br />
A good line is like a shard of a mirror. <br />
You find it, you examine it. <br /><br />
You see yourself <br />
reflected back at you.<br /><br />
XI.<br /><br />
When asked about what his intention was for writing films, Ingmar Bergman responded, “There is an old story of how the cathedral of Chartres was struck by lightning and burned to the ground. Then thousands of people came from all points of the compass, like a giant procession of ants, and together they began to rebuild the cathedral on its old site. They worked until the building was completed — master builders, artists, laborers, clowns, noblemen, priests, burghers. But they all remained anonymous, and no one knows to this day who built the cathedral of Chartres.”
<br /><br />
XII.
<br /><br />
I want to die on the steps of my own cathedral.<br />
That is all I could ever ask for. <br /><br />
XIII.<br /><br />
Hold your hand to the earth. <br />
Feel the warmth and the magnetism of it,<br />
how it pulls your hand deeper into itself. <br />
Remember how the sky looked on the day you died. <br />
The endless grey and white sky, the cold wind <br />
on your cheeks. What does it mean<br />
to be laid to rest? <br /><br />
XIV. <br /><br />
The first time I took Seroquel I fell asleep inside of a burrito. <br />
I was sitting in my childhood bedroom<br />
watching TV and eating dinner. <br />
I was 21 and I still thought the world was still a generally good place. <br />
I told my doctor that I think about killing myself every day. <br /><br />
XV.<br /><br />
I reached into my mouth and pulled a small stone from the place where my right lower cuspid used to be. I pulled it out and looked at it a while. It sat there in my hand, wet and gleaming. It was grey and perfectly round. Something swelled from inside me. It was something with weight.
<br /><br />
XVI.<br /><br />
Open up yourself. <br />
As wide as it will go. <br />
It’s the only way I know how. <br /><br />
XVII. <br /><br />
These all feel like love poems to me. <br />
Do they feel like love poems to you?<br /><br />
XVIII.<br /><br />
Sometimes it feels a bit disingenuous,<br />
this whole poetry thing. <br />
A bit stuffy, if you will. <br />
I’m not always such a serious person. <br />
By way of example, here’s a poem I wanted to write:<br /><br />
Did you know that beavers are responsible for over half of the deforestation in North America? <br />
Honestly I think I just made that up. <br /><br />
XIX.<br /><br />
The harbinger takes pictures of you. You always hated getting your picture taken. You hate any reminder of what your face looks like. Can you feel it? The hot ember inside your belly? That is what it feels like to hate your own flesh. The harbinger makes you remember flesh. Every time the shutter closes you feel pieces of you being taken away. You watch them, little bits of skin and sinew float toward the lens like so many feathers. The ember grows hotter. You feel the empty space where your tooth used to be and the gravel crunches underneath as the harbinger packs her things.
<br /><br />
XX.<br /><br />
Days like today I wonder what my soul looks like. <br />
Maybe it smiles up at me like a child knowing everything<br />
The bottle of scotch half-drank in the cupboard, <br />
the lace of your dress swaying in the closet. <br />
Some days it is as dim as a matchstick, <br />
or still like the curtains when we took out the air<br />
conditioner on the first day of September.<br /><br />
XXI.<br /><br />
I remember the moment I knew I was sick. My therapist asked me, how many times a day do you think about dying?
It wasn’t the question that did it for me, it was the look on her face
when I answered her. <br /><br />
XXII. <br /><br />
I was twenty-six when I was diagnosed with obsessive compulsive disorder. I knew there were months where I couldn’t speak to other people because all I could think of was dying. I was in the shower writing eulogies for my family in my head. I knew this wasn’t the way things were supposed to be. She gave me meds for the thoughts. Now I only think of dying a few times a day. I can still see the black sludge peeking through the cracks between doors. I can still feel it under my feet as it comes up through the floor.
<br /><br />
XXIII.<br /><br />
I remember the first time I heard the word, dysthymia. <br />
He was my second psychiatrist. He had a bushy grey mustache<br />
and wore loose fitting shirts. <br /><br />
XXIV. <br /><br />
I saw a woman picking up sticks this morning. She was standing outside of the fenced lot the phone company owns. There was barbed wire along the top. One white oak tree hung over it, a remnant of the old pine barrens on the east end of Long Island. Most were destroyed to make room for cash crops, vineyards and summer homes. Besides the one tree there was nothing but weeds and overgrown grass inside. I don’t know why they would keep people out of an empty lot. But the woman was there, picking up sticks of uniform length and thickness and bundling them under her arm. She examined each as if they were slipped under the plexiglass of a pawnshop. These were precious things. As she bent to pick them up her white and grey and black and brown hair fell off her shoulder and nearly touched the ground. I wanted to help her but I didn’t, I just didn’t.
<br /><br />
XXV.<br /><br />
The days are feeling heavier. The belt around my chest is tightening. I’m scared all the time, B. Sometimes at night I can hear them scratching the windows to come inside. It sounds like sand moving across pavement. I don’t know what they are, but I don’t want them inside. You can hear them too right? Feel them? Just outside of your vision pulling on the parts that make you human. They make me dream of dying. They make me dream of being alone. They make me dream of early mornings with no ending. They make me want to kill myself but I can’t.
<br /><br />
XXVI.<br /><br />
Poems are for afternoons. <br />
Poems are golden and lazy,<br />
too short for their own good. <br />
I have relearned almost all <br />
of the bad habits that my education <br />
tried to take from me. <br /><br />
XXVII.<br /><br />
I dream about it sometimes.<br />
Not with a rope or a gun<br />
or pills. Just a moment of weightlessness.<br />
The car hanging in the air like a bumble bee,<br />
falling from the bridge. I smile <br />
knowing I finally made a decision for myself. <br /><br />
XXVIII.<br /><br />
The harbinger is here again. Her face is like a fun-house mirror. I know it is my reflection I see, but something isn’t right. She is here and you are talking to her like there is nothing wrong in the world. I smile politely, keep vigilant. The harbinger is sitting on a bar stool and you are sitting next to her, laughing. She crosses her legs and I see some of it drip from the bottom of her shoe. It is thicker than honey and black like burnt meat. I remember the smell from the night it tried to come into my room. It had the faintest scent of sharpening metal and dead flowers. I spent the rest of the night watching and listening. When we got home I cried to you and I couldn’t stop.
<br /><br />
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