Some thoughts are there on the tip of the brain, others rise up out of the stinking ferment and make themselves known. Actually stopping and thinking reveals other pieces, usually pragmatic: instead of an angel on my shoulder, I have an OODA loop.
Did my mother deliberately slam her hand in the fire door? Was the Prozac a cry for help? Was the only way she could get attention causing trouble? You won’t have her to kick around anymore?
Do we go through life setting fires or putting them out? I run towards the fire, ready to put it out. When I can’t solve problems, I get itchy.
Y’all motherfuckers need OODA.
I went to Burning Man with a sprained ankle and a camp to run. One took precedence: once that was done, I decided I was fucking off to go play with my friends and enjoy the Burn. I spent vast amounts of time chilling out and aggressively refusing to do otherwise unless one of my leads brought it to me.
Later, after too much partying, it made me feel really good to have medical tent effectively give me some ibuprofen and tell me to walk it off. As it fucking should be.
I limped all the way back, demanded my ex-boyfriend fetch me something to smoke, and passed out in someone else’s yurt, snuggling his wife.
Five is my little trauma cat, no matter how big he gets or how large his tail floofs in winter. He’s gotten to the point where he’ll come and beg for pettings - usually when he wants food. Otherwise, most of my friends think I only have the one cat that falls over on shoes. Meanwhile, Five is behind the washer re-living Vietnam or whatever other fire alarm has gone off in his tiny little brain.
I say this out of deep, abiding love for Five, who is a magnificent hunter of laser pointers and his own tail.
Six just wants it all: ideally pettings, and food, and one when the other is not present. He curls up in the lap, on the chest, on the face if allowed. He is shameless: he is here, he is cat.
awl
hammer
sawhorses
Off of my deathbed I go,
“up, get up” I tell myself, swear
through a broken heart. “Get up, go”
Put me back into the dirt back
into the mattress. “Get up,” at
the end of the world
I keep getting up.
And I will stand on broken knees will
wake straight solid out of fever dream.
Up, get up.
Go.