Tag: Loss

…something

Posted on by Gavin

i look into your face
there is no trace
of recognition
in your eyes

and i don’t know
what gets me worse,
that you don’t know me
or how cliche
that first stanza sounds

getting right down to
the meat of the matter

we are living our lives
full of parting shots
and one-offs
no conversations had,
words left dangling,
left wondering,
as if a complete exchange
would signify,
i don’t know…
something

glb /// “…something”

Causation 1

Posted on by Gavin

Thinking on it, my brain says, “you got out of that pretty easily”. Then I get standoffish (to my own mind) “what the hell are you talking about?” Surely, he couldn’t be talking about cancer. We* chose invasive surgery over chemo and even with the enormous physical cost to me, all the margins were clean and I did not need to have chemo or radiation treatments. I just needed to heal. It was only a short while before I could get back to work, and another before I resumed somewhat normal daily activities.

I know that my experience has been different than many, many others. I consider myself extremely fortunate. But, my opinion is completely different than that . I got through it, yes. I’m still alive today, yes. I still have pain in the area of the surgery. I think what I “suffer form” now is remorse that I beat that thing, and in a smaller amount of time.

After that period of recovery I started treatment for depression. It was 19 years later that I was diagnosed with Bipolar II Disorder (BPD). So, I am frequently pushing it around my head. Did the cancer cause BPD? There is, of course, not any way to know. There have been some experiences in my life that make me think that BPD has likely been with me for a long time. I know that the diagnosis was later in life for me. There are, however, some things that happened in the years leading up to the diagnosis that might be seen as evidence of BPD. So here’s the question I’ve been asking for a while.

Can a trauma cause BPD, or any other disorder or mental issue?

*We is actually my father. He’s the one who, while I was under, communicated with the surgeon and decided to go the aggressive route. Keep going until the margins are clean. Virtually ensuring that chemo and radiation would not be necessary.

weather

Posted on by Gavin

I am raked across the pit, but I’m not burning. This fire has gone out, no one has tended to it for a long while.  I am left to grapple with the hardened logs where my fire used to exist. They only scrape and char with every hand hold I try to get. Barking out the dust with every breath, stretching and straining against the dark. I can see where I need to go, it’s getting there that provides the pain.

I seem to find myself here, or someplace close to here when it happens. I seem to find a way out every time. It’s different every time. But I don’t expect to win, every time, any hope I have is dashed against something ominous. I can’t tell myself that it will pass, that only serves to make it worse, longer or darker or both.

So, I wait. I weather and wait. Learning more every time. Not quite getting it, until I do. And that is where everything comes together or comes apart.

Now I am just rambling and wavering and I should stop.

It’s just not as easy as “pulling yourself up and soldiering on”

lessened

Posted on by Gavin

who has the space to carry other people’s choices
i have them violently spinning around my head
in opposition to my own private gyroscope
i perceive them as more important
i let them push their way in and as mine go crashing out
i am diminished, even as i am trying to convince myself
that i am somehow more because i am allowing myself
to  be lessened

glb /// “lessened”

the string

Posted on by Gavin

the string around my little finger
reminds me that it is possible to fix me
reminds me that i should not try to fix you

i tie it every night before i go to sleep
every morning, it is gone

i can’t find a trace of you
except in the pinkish, purplish
imprint where the string should be

glb /// “the string”