Month: September 2017

Pink Ghosts

Pink ghosts make HIPPA violations.
A bed is growing into me.
One ghost whispers you are going to die
And another giggles.

I know I say
But not today and not tomorrow.

Walls hum.
My pills confer with my blood.

Pills are day makers
And skin often wants no hours dragged out of me.

Better to die like this, my sunburn peel once explained to me,
Young and perfect.
A museum of possibility.

Instead I gorge on sweet filled pills
And make mondays

The clock admires me.
Pretty ghosts titter.
My head screams. When the pills make days my head tries to send them back.

A hand holds my hand.
The morning binges and the evening purges.
Another day dead another in birth canal

Persuading new residents is such a drag,
Hissed the rosest spirit.

Significantly Overweight

“You’ll have to lose weight.”

“Am I really that overweight?”

“You are significantly overweight.”

That was my conversation with my doctor.  I am always aware of my weight, just as I am my hair color and complexion. But I never really felt bad about it.  I used to be small and now I am big. Still the same person. And I don’t mind being fluffy.

But now I have a doctor telling me that the surgery to reattach my intestines will go a lot easier if I lose some weight.   And poor eating habits (a diet very low in fiber) may be what got me into this debacle.  So maybe I do need to eat healthier.  I don’t want to lose a lot of weight, but even 20 or 30 pounds would probably make things easier for the doctor, prolong my life, and prevent this from happening again.

To that end I am making some changes. I went to the grocery store today and I got Caesar salad kits, pre cut broccoli and cauliflower, apples, grapes, and high fiber granola bars. Tonight, for the first time in my life, I ate salad for a meal. It was actually enjoyable, although I admit that I missed lasagna. But I’m still going to eat lasagna and other types of pasta. I’m not going to deprive myself. It’s just that for some of my meals I’m going to substitute oatmeal or salad or broccoli in for some of the unhealthy foods that I usually eat.  This should slowly but surely bring my weight down.

I am also going to order this special contraption that turns a regular bike into an exercise bike. That way I can start getting some exercise in the house. My foot never got better and surgery didn’t correct the problem, so I still can’t go on the long walks that I miss so much. I have a bike sitting in the garage that I bought this past summer, but I have found that I don’t like riding my bike in Moyock with people driving around me going 55 miles an hour. It scares me and I have to be so alert that I can’t even listen to music while I ride. However, it’s a nice bike and I would like to make use of it so this may be the perfect solution. And I can buy some sort of machine or Fitbit that tracks calorie burn. I will play music from my computer and just enjoy challenging myself to see how far I can go.

Change is a difficult process for everyone, and I am sure I will be no exception. But I am open to the process. I figure if I can find healthy things to do and eat that I actually like I am more likely to stick with this lifestyle change. I like food I bought today it just isn’t as sweet or cheesy as I am used to. Normally I hate salad but what I did was I got a Caesar salad kit instead of a regular salad and I found that I actually like the Caesar. I like the dark romaine lettuce and I like the Caesar dressing. If I have to force myself to eat salad I didn’t like all the time it probably wouldn’t work out. It’s hard to force yourself to do something you detest for extended periods of time. But by branching out and finding a salad I like I have insured that I will continue to eat salad. Same with the granola bars. I picked caramel granola bars. I know since they’re sweet I’ll eat them but they’re also high fiber bars so I’m getting some good nutrition out of them. This way I’ll actually eat those instead of letting them rot on my pantry shelf as I am wont to do when I end up not liking a food. If I like the exercise bike it won’t be such a chore to get on it. And if I can just listen to music and enjoy myself it may even become something I look forward to doing. When I was younger I used to ride my bike every night for one to two hours. It kept me thin in spite of my extremely bad eating habits! If I coupled eating healthy with exercising over the next six months until my next surgery I could be a world healthier than I am today.

Why Me

A week or so before we left for the trip and this whole health fiasco happened with my stomach, my husband put on an old episode of Mother Angelica.  In it she talked about being in a situation where she was asked to do things she didn’t feel capable of doing and she kept wondering why me. So she prayed to Christ and said, “why me?” And he answered her, “why me?”

I remember thinking how profound that was, and that maybe there was a reason I needed to hear that. Then two weeks later I am in the hospital with a hole in my stomach. A week after that, my stomach has been pulled through my skin and I am excreting into a large, uncomfortable bag.

At a time like this, it is easy to ask, “why me?” I have had a hard year with two surgeries and a bone infection and being on PICC line antibiotics for weeks. And now this. And I’m only 28. Why the hard year?

But then why did Christ, who was blameless as a flower, have to suffer on the cross and die. By rights it should have been someone who did such a terrible wrong that they earned it, but He was white as snow and still had to pay with His crimson blood for our sins.

My troubles are so small compared to His suffering. And life is not fair. And our Father takes care of all of us. And why not me? Diverticulitis is going to happen to someone. Why not me?

If I’m smart, I’ll use this trial to draw closer to God. It’s hard to imagine, but it is probably what I need.

The Narrator

The narrator is mopping the floor with my tears,

which for him fall like rain through a hole

in the roof.

What promise this day had,

born at the height of the malleable moon.

What now,

since favor, faith, and fancy have

disintegrated?

The narrator begins with an article

that will barely clothe me from the cold.

Outsonneted

I have been outsonneted by a suction cup,

Clinging to my window like a starfish to the sea.

Lately my similes get away from me,

Dogs always unearthing hideous bones in

My backyard.

The curious climate of my moist mind

Is most conducive to marigolds, azaleas,

The pancreas.

My face is all sugar,

My tongue a cola.

See the stained glass the suction cup holds?

Memorabilia from an unremembered saint.

Pharmacological Fog

Recapturing yourself will be easy.

White still in the bedroom,

structure from private, necessary snow.

dreaming of silence.

Your mind is a playground of artillery.

 

Capturing the sense of yourself will be hard,

Lost 2 feet tall in a field of chaff.

The women have needles and no yarn.

A man sits toward the curdling sun,

his face a mouth.

 

Sound your siren song

A gentle offering of wisteria wishes

and sulking letters.

Give her a sonorous rope to tie round her wrist

a little balloon bobbing desperately toward mass.