Thursday, November 29, 2012
I have not been living by the code I would die by
“I do not accept any absolute formulas for living. No preconceived code can see ahead to everything that can happen in a man's life. As we live, we grow and our beliefs change. They must change. So I think we should live with this constant discovery. We should be open to this adventure in heightened awareness of living. We should stake our whole existence on our willingness to explore and experience. ”
- Martin Buber
Burning Inside
i used to write at least one poem a month, since i was 11. this is the first one i've written in over a year
always
an angel, snowflake paper cut into the shapes of death
beautiful form for a morbid thing
stillness hasn’t found me for years
the grind the wake the drudge
freedoms are expensive
value = numbers
with the wanting on the one side and the willing on the other
and we keep wanting and they keep willing
“freedom”
numbers = value
mean something, when projecting outward
time just wiled, wiled further
just to sleep icomfortably
while wild, disappearing further which truly willed is that which wins my heart
trapped in images and photographs and technology
moves further and further from me
the beating pounding grinding of drums or keyboards or fists
waves are all that matters, as long as the waves pass thru me
pound me
and lay me to waste
that's the sensation i seek
I cut we punch I prick we snort we bleed I hospitalize us both, again and again
we fight and we fuck and we fuck hard we work to keep death from ourselves, from each other
to keep passion alive to keep fire and yes, we hurt we ignite we cum. Hard.
but the congruity of sex and death
is one too primal to evade
and we have assumed the Mr. and Mrs. burden
of keeping things from burning,
the tithe the tax = the forfeit of what burns inside us
kush, plush, icomfort, the world tells us
are worth the price of our absolute souls
and we pay it
and we die inside
and taxes and insurance invade the sacred space of our dreams
and so the cycle I vowed never fall victim to
devours
me.
always
an angel, snowflake paper cut into the shapes of death
beautiful form for a morbid thing
stillness hasn’t found me for years
the grind the wake the drudge
freedoms are expensive
value = numbers
with the wanting on the one side and the willing on the other
and we keep wanting and they keep willing
“freedom”
numbers = value
mean something, when projecting outward
time just wiled, wiled further
just to sleep icomfortably
while wild, disappearing further which truly willed is that which wins my heart
trapped in images and photographs and technology
moves further and further from me
the beating pounding grinding of drums or keyboards or fists
waves are all that matters, as long as the waves pass thru me
pound me
and lay me to waste
that's the sensation i seek
I cut we punch I prick we snort we bleed I hospitalize us both, again and again
we fight and we fuck and we fuck hard we work to keep death from ourselves, from each other
to keep passion alive to keep fire and yes, we hurt we ignite we cum. Hard.
but the congruity of sex and death
is one too primal to evade
and we have assumed the Mr. and Mrs. burden
of keeping things from burning,
the tithe the tax = the forfeit of what burns inside us
kush, plush, icomfort, the world tells us
are worth the price of our absolute souls
and we pay it
and we die inside
and taxes and insurance invade the sacred space of our dreams
and so the cycle I vowed never fall victim to
devours
me.
Friday, November 23, 2012
My World has Folded in on Itself: Articulating Psychosis
An essay on the experience of mental illness and incarceration, by a inmate with a history of psychosis
I can compare it to a feeling of fright that continues unabated. Have you ever been startled by a scary movie or suddenly surprised by someone? Well, initially there is a feeling of the heart skipping a beat, adrenaline pumping, constriction of
the chest, blood goes to the big muscles and the fight or flight response is generally engaged. Now imagine that not shutting off, and continuing night and day. Now, repeat that ten times and you would be experiencing the worst episode I ever had. It is basically pure fear.
So what could I tell someone who encounters me when all I hear is “wa-wa-wa” like the adults in “Peanuts?” The only dif- ference is that Charlie Brown understands those adults. I do not understand you. I am freaked out. My world has folded in on itself and I am filled with fantastic delusions. Every- thing has a warped sense of meaning. It would seem a helping hand or friendly words might help. However, I become so paranoid and afraid that the best thing is: to leave me alone, but show compassion, use slow words. I am delusional, not stupid.
What I can’t stand and what makes things worse are threats and demands. I really resent having to be placed in hand- cuffs. Yes, when I am rational and normally functioning I can understand this is part of procedure, but I do not agree with
it and furthermore I am not acting/thinking rationally. So, optimally I would like to be caught ever so gently like in a gi- ant butterfly net, if I have to be caught. But pepper spray and baton strikes just prove to me you want to hurt me, whether or not you do and I get set off all the more by the threat of those.
I am a person who honestly believed my cellmate was an an-
droid and I made him lift his shirt to prove to me he was real.
So, if I have doubts about a real live person – there is no way
I can understand your threats. What I cannot understand is
how if I have not done anything wrong why I have to put my
hands behind my back so I can be escorted to Mental Health
for help.
Let me explain. Hands are a vital link to the outside world. We feel with our hands. Our hands bring us integral informa- tion to help us stay in contact with reality, which we so desper- ately need if we are experiencing a psychotic episode or mania. We talk with our hands and with our hands cuffed (and this is especially true for the deaf) we are effectively gagged. We may not be able to talk, but an open hand can communicate, “Stop! You’re hurting me.”
This is all the more reason custody officers should be trained to handle mental health patients, and not just operate with the old manual, which encourages officers to use force and ask questions later, because most officers if they see someone acting weird think they must be on drugs. Unfortunately, seemingly the only tool that correctional officers can avail themselves of is to restrict movement or use restraints. How- ever, forcing and attacking mental health patients (and then blaming them for their own defensive violence) is hardly wise. Unfortunately this seems to be the norm, especially for untrained staff.
– K.D.
Source: Prison University Project newsletter, October 2013
Let me explain. Hands are a vital link to the outside world. We feel with our hands. Our hands bring us integral informa- tion to help us stay in contact with reality, which we so desper- ately need if we are experiencing a psychotic episode or mania. We talk with our hands and with our hands cuffed (and this is especially true for the deaf) we are effectively gagged. We may not be able to talk, but an open hand can communicate, “Stop! You’re hurting me.”
This is all the more reason custody officers should be trained to handle mental health patients, and not just operate with the old manual, which encourages officers to use force and ask questions later, because most officers if they see someone acting weird think they must be on drugs. Unfortunately, seemingly the only tool that correctional officers can avail themselves of is to restrict movement or use restraints. How- ever, forcing and attacking mental health patients (and then blaming them for their own defensive violence) is hardly wise. Unfortunately this seems to be the norm, especially for untrained staff.
– K.D.
Source: Prison University Project newsletter, October 2013
Wednesday, November 14, 2012
Night Reflections
Still me and the warmth inside, firelight, whiskey in my belly, the cold outside, winter white winter wet. Slick streets, Motorcycle crash sound like ocean waves that just sway the way they are supposed to, no purpose or intent to them or the sound they make.
Still me and the grinding sound, still lilting to the wall of sound, swallowing fruit fermented into that concoction that alters our state of mind. The music takes me to other worlds. The klonopin doesn't help. Or it does. Helps the sway, helps the sense of calm and wonder and drowning.
Right now it's dark where he is. Usually it's the other way round.
The black orange glow. It's missing blue. Pink edge warm hinge so fine star spatter in my mind never gets the chance to reflect on the ceiling anymore. Plafond-Céleste is gone. Gone. Gone. Buried. Rotting at the bottom of the lake. Not the ocean. The ocean is where she would want to be. But she's buried in a lake, under piles of stone. If someone could retrieve her body, she could be revived. She would have to be taken far far far way.
That's why I haven't visited here in a while. Been too absorbed in the world. The material place where we forget “Man has no Body distinct from his soul; for that called Body is a portion of a Soul discerned by the five senses, the chief inlets of Soul in this age” (William Blake). The material world is just the place where the body lives, but we forget and begin to believe it to be the most important thing. That is only a reflection of our level of loss.
Still me and the grinding sound, still lilting to the wall of sound, swallowing fruit fermented into that concoction that alters our state of mind. The music takes me to other worlds. The klonopin doesn't help. Or it does. Helps the sway, helps the sense of calm and wonder and drowning.
Right now it's dark where he is. Usually it's the other way round.
The black orange glow. It's missing blue. Pink edge warm hinge so fine star spatter in my mind never gets the chance to reflect on the ceiling anymore. Plafond-Céleste is gone. Gone. Gone. Buried. Rotting at the bottom of the lake. Not the ocean. The ocean is where she would want to be. But she's buried in a lake, under piles of stone. If someone could retrieve her body, she could be revived. She would have to be taken far far far way.
That's why I haven't visited here in a while. Been too absorbed in the world. The material place where we forget “Man has no Body distinct from his soul; for that called Body is a portion of a Soul discerned by the five senses, the chief inlets of Soul in this age” (William Blake). The material world is just the place where the body lives, but we forget and begin to believe it to be the most important thing. That is only a reflection of our level of loss.
Koi No Yokan - Music To Die To
Just added the Deftones' Koi No Yokan to my ever Working List Of The Most Beautiful Albums list.
Hard, gentle, transporting, glittering, dark. mysterious and revealing in all the right ways. Like you might want the ultimate lover to be. Let this take me away for hours, into the dark, to the color-bleeding edges, to sweat and the flavor of crystal and whips, of tongue and teeth and silk. For hours and hours and hours. Let me lay here, let me drink, let me burn and breathe in and close my eyes and fall. The cover art looks like a calculated galaxy or strip joint. Perfection. Take me everywhere you go.
The beauty of the phrase Koi No Yokan itself not even being of consideration, until you think that it means this:
"It can [be] defined [as] the sense can have upon first meeting another person that the two of them are going to fall in love. In other words, it is the knowledge one has that he/she is going to fall in love with another person. This differs from the idea “love at first sight” in that it does not imply that the feeling of love exists, rather it refers to the knowledge that a future love is inevitable"
(source: http://www.hightowerflashes.com/untranslateablewords.html)
...then the waves just wash over you. As Amy Blue says in The Doom Generation, holding up a This Mortal Coil Album, "I wish I could just crawl inside here and disappear..."
Hard, gentle, transporting, glittering, dark. mysterious and revealing in all the right ways. Like you might want the ultimate lover to be. Let this take me away for hours, into the dark, to the color-bleeding edges, to sweat and the flavor of crystal and whips, of tongue and teeth and silk. For hours and hours and hours. Let me lay here, let me drink, let me burn and breathe in and close my eyes and fall. The cover art looks like a calculated galaxy or strip joint. Perfection. Take me everywhere you go.
The beauty of the phrase Koi No Yokan itself not even being of consideration, until you think that it means this:
"It can [be] defined [as] the sense can have upon first meeting another person that the two of them are going to fall in love. In other words, it is the knowledge one has that he/she is going to fall in love with another person. This differs from the idea “love at first sight” in that it does not imply that the feeling of love exists, rather it refers to the knowledge that a future love is inevitable"
(source: http://www.hightowerflashes.com/untranslateablewords.html)
...then the waves just wash over you. As Amy Blue says in The Doom Generation, holding up a This Mortal Coil Album, "I wish I could just crawl inside here and disappear..."
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