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Madness
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Friday, April 08, 2005 |
I wrote this poem for my brother a while back - he has an on-going struggle with addiction of various kinds - and at the moment he's back in the bin again. The strain of mental illness - mainly for the sufferer, of course - but also for the family. I see us both as little kids sitting at the top of the stairs listening to my father, drunk, abusing my mum. We were scared. We were powerless. And he still is it seems, stuck in the nightmare with a change of role - now he's the one doing the abusing - and maybe I am still on the stairs - worse - I'm in the room, witnessing, trying to stop it, but still powerless myself. All I can do is tell myself I have a life which is not this, which has beautiful daughters, poetry and beauty, things that make me laugh - sometimes I can't hear this list of blessings, find myself peering into the dark.
But it's quite terrifying how he has turned into my father, his voice, his mannerisms, his self-justifications, his miserable junky whinings - sometimes all my compassion just fades away and I find myself filled with contempt - but listen to yourself - we all have our addictions - just because mine is work don't make it any healthier (well a bit maybe).
How to deal with it? How to feel compassion without drowning in it? The thing is, I don't trust him with my life anymore. That makes me sad as hell.
Madness
You back in here after all those promises
holding my hand over the plastic table
in the cafeteria that calls itself a bistro
but smells of blood.
You don’t blink. Your eyes are full moons
orbiting the planet past
swimming in chemicals
dragging down the drowning tides.
If I slapped you, would you wake up?
Or slide under the table
sunk like an old wreck
headed for the sea bed.
We were children once and suffered.
Our powerless pact was to escape.
You keep going through the door marked backwards
Looking for something you lost.
You won’t find it here.
The corridors are endless
As devious and tricky as your addict’s brain.
I don’t trust you with your life
But I’d trust you with mine. |
| 9:58 AM
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