the more things change

The image is a promotional photo that was taken by the real estate agency for the house that my son and I currently live in. This shows a view from the back yard. Click to enlarge the photo.

This is a long post consisting of free verse poetry and an explanation of the exercise used in its creation as well as some kvetching at the end. If you aren't interested in that sort of thing, please hit the back button on your browser now.

the weather is partly cloudy and fair

that isn't much change from yesterday

although I guess it's maybe a little less windy

the trees are still leafless

I can see them out the window 

of this old house built in 1909

we eat breakfast, lunch, and dinner here

the cats sleep in sunlight spots around the house

when I was six years old I dreamed

that my mother and I watched EMS crews remove

the dead body of a man in a yellow rain slicker 

who had been hit by a car on Coronado Parkway

the busiest street in Albuquerque

I had another dream about a woman 

wrapped in bandages like a mummy

her face was visible and bore the expression 

of one dismayed by her circumstances

she was resigned to her fate
cognizant of the fact that nobody

gave one single fuck
about the way she felt about anything

her body had been chopped into neat, perfectly equal cubes

about the size of the blocks that children play with

she was still alive beneath the bandages

but the priests didn't care and carried her to the pyramid

where she would be an object playing a role that they desired

her words unheard, her feelings unacknowledged

because women should be pretty, compliant dolls

ogled for their beauty but having no thoughts of their own

yesterday, my son mentioned seeing
a cast-off beer bottle on the side of the road

my town exports oil

my house exports wastewater and garbage

and poetry that no-one reads or cares about

when we drive to Denver
we see train cars with graffiti on the sides

people always think it's okay to ask 

how's your love life 

who's your lover 

who do you love?

I find these questions invasive 

and none of anybody's business

I am too worried about my poor health 

and the actions of the Orange Idiot

to even think about having to entertain a man

who only wants to put his hands all over me

to use and abuse and then abandon me

to hell with all of that

never again

if anyone thinks that they would be brightening my day

by telling me not to give up

that there are good men out there who would treat me right

well, kindly keep that bullshit to yourself

you can sprinkle it with a spoonful of sugar

if that would help it go down better

and then eat it yourself

because I sure as hell don't intend to swallow it

"The Orange Idiot is a Russian plant," I muse

As I sit here in my loose blue Capri pants and a purple T-shirt

and think that I'm not looking forward
to the summer with its relentless heat

I remember back in Albuquerque

my cats Rose and Frisky were both hit by cars

shortly before we moved
a cab driver was shot by drug dealers 

in front of our house

he was paralyzed from the neck down, and I don't know

if the police ever caught the bastards

we moved away from there a few months later

my father was subpoenaed
and had to fly back to Albuquerque for the trial

he didn't have much information to give

but he wanted to help the poor cab driver 

if only to show support for a man 

who would never walk or hug his grandkids again

I suspect there will be a resurgence of COVID-19 in late summer

when people want to go out to festivals 

and jump into the hormone mixer

I'm glad enough not to care about any of that

my son told me about a Chinese doctor

who tried to warn people about the Wuhan virus

his truth was suppressed

and he ended up dying from the virus he tried to expose

I hope he did not feel as if he failed

he tried his best to be a healer

the words of those who think too much are always stifled

suppressed, denounced, ridiculed

thinkers are inconvenient

this doctor deserves a posthumous Nobel prize

the Orange Idiot does not deserve a prize of any kind

no matter how much he narcissistically believes
that he is the bigly best

we could give him a prize for being the bigly worst thing 

to happen to this country since the Great Depression

we could crown him Commodus Reincarnated

the emperor who brings about the downfall

of a once-great society

outside my window
little birds sit in bare trees and on power lines

today's headline from MSN tells me 

that the nation now watches as Georgia re-opens

I don't know what to say
other than "I'm not surprised" 

and "that's a bad idea"

my son said the other day 

as we drove to remove more stuff 

from the mobile home that I used to live in

that one of the reasons the Spanish flu in 1918 

claimed so many lives

was because people became complacent 

after the first wave died down

then a second wave hit 

and they weren't taking precautions anymore

technology may change 
but people remain the same

yesterday when I was visiting

my mother showed me an old box 

containing a card sent by my great-aunt 

with two collector coins inside

there were pressed flowers in the box

and a card that I had written

in memory of someone who died in 1980 

who deeply touched my troubled life

my mother pored over the message 

on the sealed envelope

I took the card from her 

and told her that it was personal

I said I didn't want to talk about it

I put the card back in the box

my family wasn't much for privacy

they always wanted to know what I was thinking

and then told me I was wrong

I suppose that's not much different from most people

who always harshly judge those they don't understand

John River said that in this world 

no-one can be different or strange or damaged 

or they lock you up

he didn't mention that they can also sentence you 

to create your own prison of shamed silence

despite assuming the appearance of a free spirit

no-one understands someone like me

it's best to keep quiet 

head down, don't give away too much

no-one wants to hear it anyway

except for unicorns, pegasi, and alicorns

when my son was little, I read him "Good Night Moon"

we lived close to Denver then

in the town where we live now 

if you walk three minutes down an alley 

you find yourself behind a group 

of run-down modular homes

in Denver, you would see the backside 

of dilapidated townhouses or apartments

and the alley would smell of piss and spilled booze

around here, people keep their drinking to themselves

we don't have a homeless population

but many of us would be 

the homeless population anywhere else

if I walk to the edge of town I hear the sound 

of the oil trucks driving by

I fear dying having accomplished nothing

my town doesn't have a postcard because it's too small

on the sign that says "welcome to Grover"

there are some kids and farm animals

I don't want to live in the city again

I'm happy to stay here

I'd be okay with dying here

I just wish my words would be heard first

the Internet has always amazed me

it has the ability to reach billions of people

and yet I am still lonely and misunderstood

with no-one wanting to read what I say

~cie~

If you enjoy my work, please consider purchasing a copy of my current poetry collection, Another Autumn, for just 99 cents on Kindle. 

https://amzn.to/3aExYT5

Content coyright 2020 by Cara Hartley

Please do not repost

Reblogging is acceptable on platforms that allow it.

Sharing a link to the poem is acceptable.

Quoting portions of the poem for educational or review purposes is acceptable if proper credit is given.

April PAD Challenge: write a change poem

NaPoWriMo: Take five minutes to fill out the Almanac questionnaire and then write a poem from your answers.

Five minutes, my ass.           

Almanac Questionnaire

Weather: partly cloudy and fair
Flora: trees still leafless
Architecture: an old house built in 1909
Customs: we eat breakfast, lunch, and dinner
Mammals/reptiles/fish: cats

Childhood dream: I remember two very vivid dreams from when I was six years old. In one dream, my mother and I watched as EMS crews removed the dead body of a man in a yellow rain slicker who had been hit by a car on Coronado Boulevard in Albuquerque. This was a very busy, fast-moving, and dangerous street. 

The other dream involved a woman wrapped in bandages like a mummy. Her face was visible and had an expression of someone saddened by circumstances, resigned to her fate, and cognizant of the fact that nobody gave one single fuck about the way she felt about anything. Her body had been chopped into equal cubes about the size of the blocks that children play with.

I honestly feel that both of these dreams were precognitive revelations of the way my life would play out. I have always felt like I'm an observer rather than a participant, and I have always felt ineffective when it comes to helping others because I have no resources to offer. Regarding the second dream, I have ended up being a fractured person whose hopes, dreams, and very self has been cut up and shaped to fit certain roles that others think I should fill with no regard whatsoever for what I think or feel. I am disrespected, disregarded, meaningless. I am unheard and unloved. I am not a human being, I am an object. I am nothing, I am no-one, and I don't matter a bit.

Found on the Street: a cast-off beer bottle
Export: waste water
Graffiti: on the side of train cars
Lover: what is this "lover" you speak of?
Conspiracy: The Orange Idiot is a Russian plant
Dress: loose-fitting blue Capri pants and a purple t-shirt

Hometown memory: My cats Rose and Frisky were killed by cars. A cab driver was shot by drug dealers in front of our house and left paralyzed from the neck down.

Notable person: the Chinese doctor who tried to expose the Wuhan virus before it spread and later died from it. He deserves a posthumous Nobel prize. The Orange Idiot does not deserve a Nobel prize.

Outside your window, you find: little birds and bare trees

Today’s news headline: Nation watches as Georgia re-opens. Good luck with that. My son was saying the other day that one of the reasons the Spanish flu in 1918 killed so many people was because people became complacent after the first wave died down, and then a second wave hit and they weren't taking precautions anymore.

Scrap from a letter: My mother found an old box and showed it to me when I was over on Wednesday. There was a card in it from my great-aunt which included some collectible coins. There were pressed flowers and a sealed card that I'd written to someone who had died in 1980. The card was sealed and I didn't read it, but my mother pored over the message on the outside of the envelope. I told her it was personal and to please put it back in the box. I was reminded that my family never had much regard for my privacy or my personal thoughts. Of course, this isn't very different from most people.

Animal from a myth: unicorns, pegasi, and alicorns
Story read to children at night: good night moon

You walk three minutes down an alley and you find: the backside of dilapidated modular homes

You walk to the border and hear: the sound of trucks going by
What you fear: dying having accomplished nothing

Picture on your city’s postcard: my city is a very small town. It doesn't have a postcard.

This work is cross-posted in these places:

http://poetryofthenetherworld.blogspot.com

http://publish0x.com/naughty-netherworld-press

https://bitpatron.co/orneryowl.id.blockstack

http://ko-fi.com/naughtynetherworldpress

http://patreon.com/naughtynetherworldpress

notes

You have to be able to smell your audience, and the main audience at Publish0x stinks for this kind of post. They are primarily looking for information on cryptocurrency and other investment information.

I can't say that I've been entirely happy with my experience using Publish0x. I don't really have any complaints about the platform itself. Overall, it's great, although I really wish there was a feature allowing me to switch to HTML for post creation. It would make my life a lot easier. I love the idea of being able to receive tips for my work, although I rarely receive such, which is discouraging. My complaint stems from the fact that the main users of Publish0x are the wrong audience for artistic and creative bloggers.

I continue to use Publish0x as a platform for publishing creative posts because of the ease of sharing these posts with a potential audience. It's discouraging to look at my stats for posts such as this, which involve views but no likes or tips. I wish there was a setting that I could utilize to prevent posts like this from showing up in the "new posts" feed. I don't want to waste people's time, but I do want to utilize the advantages that Publish0x offers.

So far, I have been posting to BitPatron, Ko-fi, and Patreon for a week and have acquired no subscribers. I share these posts on Facebook, Tumblr, and LinkedIn and they generate no response. I get views on Blogger but very few responses. My books have almost no audience, and, consequently, very few sales. I am extremely discouraged.

I have stopped saying that my work's lack of renown is because it's bad. I know it isn't bad. It just doesn't appeal to the general public. This probably shouldn't come as a surprise to me, because I don't appeal to the general public either.

I have found myself becoming (more) depressed since restructuring my blogging procedures. Getting used to my new system is stressful. The fact that it hasn't brought me an increase in audience size or support is depressing. I'm not sure how long I should continue with my new system before calling it quits and going back to primarily using Blogger, where I also had a minuscule audience who rarely engages with my work and provides even less conversion to products sold.

I don't know, Man. Money and popularity shouldn't be the reason for doing creative work, but having none of either kind of sucks. I can only assume that I'm crazy because I keep writing even though the numbers show that my work is an abject failure. 

I'm pretty sure that I need to increase my dosage of Fukitol.

NaPoWriMo 2020 Day 14 + April PAD Challenge 2020 Day 14: Your Legacy

Image by Barbara Bonanno from Pixabay

I

am not

what you hoped

but I am, nonetheless

the legacy that you created

I am your Frankenstein monster

built from the things

that made your life

worth living

I am a

twisted

sorry

awful

mockery

a failure

of a person

I am not 

what you hoped

but I am, nonetheless

the gifts you gave me

~cie~

NaPoWriMo: write a poem about the people who inspired you to write poems

April PAD Challenge: write a form poem

notes

I think the shape above is a chess pawn. It started out as a simple diamante but turned into what you see. It is what it is.

This poem addresses my late father. He was a professor of literature and humanities who also taught technical writing. I was a precocious little skidmark who learned to read and write by the time I was four years old. I think my father believed that this prodigious spark meant that I was destined for greatness. He read poetry to me. I started reading Edgar Allan Poe's works when I was six years old.

My father wound up tremendously disappointed in me. I was a fuckup who could never do anything right and I had a slew of psychological problems. I was singled out and abused by my peers. I married too young. I had one abusive relationship after another. I engaged in self-harm. Possibly, worst of all, between a fucked endocrine system and years of yo-yo dieting, I ended up fat. My father believed that being fat was a sign of failure. He always went to great lengths to prevent himself from being fat. He ran six miles a day for many years. However, his vascular system was a disaster. He had a major hemorrhagic stroke at 68 years old. At the time of his death at age 74, he had suffered several more strokes, had congestive heart failure and vascular dementia, and was confined to a wheelchair.

If anyone's first inclination is to tell me "cHeEr Up, U cAn StiLLL LUz3 tEh WaTeZ!!111!!!" my suggestion to you is to check the ever-loving fuck out of yourself. Preferably on ice during a hockey game. I tried to hate myself thin for 33 years. With my endocrine problems, it is highly unlikely that I will ever be thin unless I do what my great-grandmother did. She developed acute myelogenous leukemia, dropped from 300 pounds to 95 in the space of a year, and dropped dead. But hey, she cut a svelte figure in her coffin, and, apparently, that's the only fucking thing that counts. Never mind that she was now, you know, DEAD.

In any case, I'm not going to waste another goddamn minute of my time trying to hate myself into the body that other people think I'm supposed to have. Thirty-three years of that shit is long enough. People who think I, or anyone else should do that, can slam down a hot, steaming cup of STFU, read the following fine books, and fuck off forever. Or if you're not a brainwashed, narrow-minded asswipe and you simply think: "say, those books look like they have some good information," you can read them while drinking what you want and omit the fucking off part. I'd think that was pretty cool.

Many Temples Senryu

Image by Little MiMi from Pixabay

so many temples

away from the daily stress

enlightenment here?

~cie~

notes

I don't want to spend too much time rambling on, but I want to give credit where credit is due. This poem was partly inspired by the prompt, of course, but also inspired by a line from the song She's Come Undone by The Guess Who, which pretty much sums up the way I've felt about things for most of my life.

I know that some people get comfort from religion and I'm not saying they can't. However, I never have. Religion never did anything except make me feel worse about how flawed I am. 

Further, people tend to conflate religion and spirituality. A lot of the time, I believe that there is a higher power and that the soul continues following the death of the body. I believe in the possibility of reincarnation. I don't need to believe in any specific deity or dogma to hold the aforementioned beliefs. 

The Norwegian black metal musician Gaahl said that God is not in some building, God is in nature and God is in each of us. I wish we would extend kindness to one another's souls rather than being hateful to one another for our external differences.

Sometimes I reckon I'm just fucked and there is nothing but a life of pain followed by nothing. That possibility just makes me feel worse, so I try not to entertain it for too long.

Too many mountains, and not enough stairs to climb
Too many churches and not enough truth
Too many people and not enough eyes to see
Too many lives to lead and not enough time

 It's too late
She's gone too far
She's lost the sun

She's come undone

Come As You Are Party: Wired Differently or Just a Flake?

Image by Wolfgang Eckert from Pixabay

This is my response(s) to a post on The Mighty.

It is my hope to back away from apologizing for who I am and instead explain about myself so that those I interact with might develop an understanding of those of us who are wired differently.

I have type 2 bipolar disorder and ADD as well as complex PTSD and OCD. I wasn't properly diagnosed with bipolar disorder or OCD until I was almost 40. I didn't know I had ADD until I was in my 50s. I was just always scolded for being forgetful and distracted. I have always vacillated between being Ms. Wonderful and being that flakey a-hole that everyone hates. I understand why it happens now, but I can't change the past. I wish people would try to understand me a little better, but I'm not going to hold my breath.

My son will be 30 this year. He is high-functioning autistic and has ADHD as well as anxiety issues and major depression. He is very intelligent and has read the entire Amber series (Roger Zelazny), much of Tolkien's writing, The Count of Monte Cristo, the works of C.S. Lewis, and the list goes on, but he can't learn from a textbook to save his life. I think the current educational system does a very poor job of addressing the needs of those who are not neurotypical. 

I technically also have a diagnosis of borderline personality disorder, but it is my opinion that borderline personality disorder is actually a form of complex PTSD and is an outdated and sexist diagnosis. It is almost exclusively applied to girls and women. Everyone who has it has endured some form of trauma, whether physical, psychological, sexual or a combination thereof. 

~Cie the Ornery Old Lady~

Image copyright Open Clipart Vectors

Carpe Diem Love Month: The Day After Valentine's Day: Aftermath Most Despised

copyright Viktor Forbacs

on the day after

a terrible thing was born

broken from the start

it should have been tossed away

why was it allowed to stay

~cie~

notes

I was born the day after Valentine's Day 1965 at 6 of the morning in the middle of a raging blizzard. My life has never been easy and I can't ever remember a time when I didn't think I was bad or wrong. That is what this depressing Tanka is about.

It's kind of sad that I have to say this, but here are the kinds of comments that I don't want to receive for this poem.

"You should consider counseling."

Been there, done that. Some of them were kind of helpful, others were just pill-pushers. It took nearly 40 years for any of them to correctly diagnose my type 2 bipolar disorder. In fairness, type 2 bipolar disorder is a sneaky bitch because it presents with hypomania rather than full mania, so it can be difficult to spot. It's rather like a black and white horse hiding in a herd of zebras.

Also, back in the 1970s and 1980s when I was a troubled teenager, bipolar disorder was called manic depression, and it was considered a psychosis. As my high school psychology teacher said to me when I told her that I saw a lot of aspects of manic depression in myself:

"Honey, manic depression is a psychosis. You're not psychotic. You're just depressed and having a hard time being a teenager."

This well-meaning but ultimately incorrect lady probably just thought I was an angsty Goth girl who read too much Sylvia Plath and melodramatically attributed Sylvia's melancholy poetry to her own overdramatic teenage struggles. In fact, I did see a lot of myself in Sylvia Plath's poetry and I tend to get pissed off at people who chortle knowingly about silly drama queen girls relating to her poetry.

Sylvia Plath and I both had bipolar disorder, and perhaps if a teenage girl is relating to Sylvia Plath's poetry, maybe she's not just a wannabe Goth drama queen, maybe her life sucks and she's depressed or possibly has bipolar disorder. I would love it if society would stop writing off teenage girls' feelings as so much overdramatic frippery.

Also, disabled, on Medicaid, and live an average of 50 miles from the nearest city. I already have to go get P.T. once a week. Not interested in another weekly appointment.

"You should consider medications/get your medications adjusted."

I've been on this planet for 55 years. I've been dealing with mental (and physical) illness for most if not all of them. Do you really think I've never heard this before? Also, for some of us, the "cure" is worse than the problem. I can't tolerate most psych meds.

Further, I have complex PTSD from years of psychological (and sometimes physical and/or sexual) abuse by my peers and "well-meaning" people who wanted to "fix" me. Don't try to "fix" me. 

I already have a chemical cocktail that I have to down every day for all my physical problems, plus I have to poke myself with needles multiple times a day. For those who are wincing about the thought of poking themselves with needles, well, you're lucky if you don't have to, but this aspect of my disease is the least of my problems. I usually don't even feel the needle unless I come at myself from a bad angle. Even when that happens, it's a very minor pain. The needles aren't a big deal. The things the disease can do to my body if I don't use the needles are.

So, yeah. Don't talk to me about meds.

"Wow, this is really depressing. You should try to write about happier stuff."

I write three kinds of poetry: dark, silly, and snarky. Poetry is a way for me to express the deep, inner pain. I am under no obligation to pretty up my poetry because it might make some people uncomfortable.

"Trust that God has a plan for you."

I'm an agnostic. I respect your beliefs. Please respect my lack thereof.

I was a devout Catholic in my youth. However, because I was somewhat unorthodox in my beliefs and was tolerant of those who didn't believe and of homosexuals, I was ostracized and threatened with hell. Even at that, my fellow Catholics were nowhere near as dreadful as the town Fundies. Also, they weren't stupid enough to burn heavy metal records. When that just created a cloud of toxic smoke, I had to laugh. These idiots weren't being countered by any demon, they were just being confronted by their own stupidity.

I'm one of those people who believes that there is a higher power and maybe even personified higher powers. In the interest of brevity, I'll let someone far wiser say it for me.

"Life's hard for everyone. Quit whining about your problems and do something about it."

I do as much as I can every day that I can. I know that life is hard for other people. I'm not talking about other people. I'm only talking about me.

All in all, there is really just one thing to remember.

Come as You Are Party/Catching Up With the Ornery Old Lady

Image by Pete Linforth from Pixabay

Hiya people! I had myself a little bit of a mental breakdown over the past week and went MIA, not, I'm sure, that anyone missed me. I came to one of those crossroads points in my life where I needed to make a critical decision. I'll just let this tentative introduction that I wrote for the book I'm currently working on tell you all about it.

A NEW TAKE ON AN OLD ISSUE

Here's how I will introduce my longer, more involved books from this day forward.

The chapters in my books can be read as standalone short stories or interpreted cohesively as a longer novelette/novella/novel. During the first half of my life, I had a lot of people tell me that my writing would never be good until I was able to make it conform to their ideals. Now that I am in the second half of my life, I refuse to apologize any longer for the way my mind and brain work or to force my writing to conform to rules decreed by others.

I have ADD (attention deficit disorder), type 2 bipolar disorder, and obsessive-compulsive disorder. These factors affect the way my brain processes information and the way I write. While I strive to make my writing concise in its own way and to continually improve my skills, I will never be able to write novel-length stories in a cohesive fashion. My mind simply cannot stop developing subplots.

It came to a point where I realized that I must either stop sharing my work or start sharing it without apologies for the fact that I neither think nor write like other people. I have chosen to share my work with an explanation but no apology.

I write the way I see the Universe as working: in a sometimes seemingly haphazard and disconnected fashion with an unseen thread connecting aspects in surprising ways. As the Tenth Doctor once said, “People assume that time is a strict progression of cause to effect, but actually, from a non-linear, non-subjective point of view, it is more like a big ball of wibbly wobbly timey wimey...stuff.”

My stories are a big ball of wibbly wobbly timey wimey stuff, and I will no longer apologize for that. I will simply issue the warning that you are now entering the Zone Where Normal Things Don't Happen Very Often, as was once revealed on Johnny Bravo.

If that sort of thing really is your bag, Baby, then welcome! Leave your expectations at the door, and come join Team Netherworld for an adventure like no other! You may at times be baffled, but I promise that you will never be bored.

Cie the Ornery Old Lady with a Mind Like a Maze

I would dare you to try and figure me out

But that wouldn't be fair

Because I've never managed to figure myself out!

Check out the latest and greatest from Team Netherworld

How did I Love?

Image by Ajay kumar Singh from Pixabay

A response to this post.

Oh gosh, I don't know if this will go through and I don't know if it is even welcome, but here it is.

How did I love?

With much reservation, fear, and sorrow.

I used to have such a strong need to connect with someone that I let a lot of the wrong ones in, and they did me a lot of damage.

Romantically, my theme song is Love Stinks, and I do not want anyone telling me that I need to "try again." No, I do not, and I don't want to.

Even with friendship, my theme song is Love Hurts. Most people who have said they wanted to be friends really just wanted something from me. Money or connections, when I had those. Now that I don't have much of anything, these "friends" are long gone.

I can't really relate to other people with bipolar disorder because although some of them understand the bipolar part, they don't understand the ADD, OCD, and PTSD that is also part of the package.

A lot of people get help from medications, but I can't take anything except a low dose of Lithium. I have type 2 bipolar disorder, so I normally do not get full-on manias and I normally do not experience psychosis. When I take SSRIs, I experience both. I've learned a lot of coping skills, but it's a real balancing act. If I let someone in and they betray me, I could end up in the ER with blood running down my arms from slashing my wrists. It's happened before. I do not want it to happen again. 

I've had love to give in the past. I give it only to a select few and with a lot of reservations. Some people think this means that I'm cold and standoffish. However, I've found that people who demand love tend to be people that will only misuse it.

I didn't say this in my comment on the post, but, for real, other people with mood disorders have been some of the most narrow-minded and least understanding. When they have said that I need to have my doctor adjust my meds if I mention going through a severe depression, and I respond that I can't take the meds because they make me manic and psychotic, these people will suddenly become cold and judgmental. "Well, if you're that depressed, you need to be on meds." 

Well, if you're that much of an asshole, you need to fuck off.

I wish I had known then what I know now. Some people are miserable fuckers who want to rub their miserable fuckery all over others. I never said you were a bad person for taking meds, you defensive douche canoe. Why am I a bad person for opting not to take them when they send me straight off the rails?

Image copyright Open Clipart Vectors

Ornery and Neurodivergent

Sly Speaks + Fat Friday + Friday Flashback: Diet Culture Rhetoric Is Not Poetry

This poignant gem was originally published on 17 January 2010 on my now-retired poetry blog.

life It would be far easier to diet if I didn't like food.

This, apparently, was the entire-ass poem.

A year later, I would finally take the long-needed step of ditching diet culture for good.

That is a terrible statement, let alone being a terrible poem. 

It isn't even a poem, it's a blurb. A very stupid and brainwashed blurb. It's a tweet that shouldn't have been tweeted. It is a lot of things, none of them good. A poem it is not. 

The Chili Bean Tanka is a better poem, and it is not a good poem. In fact, it is close to Vogon poetry in its poetic injustice.

It goes a little bit something like this.

I ate the chili

between the beans and the spice

digestive horror

beneath the cover of night

noxious eruptions take place

As I mentioned previously, I struggled over the holidays. My abusive partner ED (Eating Disorder) reared his ugly head and I relapsed into my old restrictive eating and self-loathing patterns. Which, by the way, never made me thin, they just fucked my metabolism over and made me hate myself even more. 

However, reading this micro-poem that should not be, I could see where I'd been myopic in my criticism of a poet whose book I reviewed recently. I gave the book overall high praise, but I stated that her "poem" which read as follows, and I quote:

love ends but calories are forever

was not so much a poem as unfortunate diet culture rhetoric, and I wouldn't want to read it as a tweet, let alone in a book of poetry.

Given the unseemly evidence above, that critique was hypocritical of me.

However, there is a lesson to be learned.

Next time you think publishing a pithy pearl of poignant perspicacity such as this...

Go to the kitchen and grab yourself a snack. Or at least have something to drink. Your blood sugar may be low because if you think that's worth publishing, you obviously haven't been thinking clearly. Step out for a breath of air and clear your head of the Diet Culture nonsense. You've obviously bitten off more of it than you can chew.

That being said, Words Written in the Dark is, overall, a thoughtful and thought-provoking volume of modern poetry, and I recommend it highly.

Fat and Ornery

Image copyright Open Clipart Vectors

Ornery Literary Services

Sly and Snarky

Image copyright juliahenze @123rf.com

Tanka Splendor: Vernal Equinox

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vernal equinox

fifty-fifth year of my life

will I find some peace

or will the dark curtain fall

as it tends to do in spring?

~cie~

notes

I created the Tanka Splendor badge with a free to use stock image on Pixlr. Please feel free to use it on your own blog. No credit is necessary.

I was not correctly diagnosed with type 2 bipolar disorder until I was nearly 40 years old. I was diagnosed with "depression and anxiety." I have both of those, but I have bipolar disorder rather than unipolar depression as my son has. My restlessness was sometimes blamed on ADD, which I have as well, but the restlessness becomes magnified in a hypomanic state.

My baseline mood is moderately depressed. Some of my depression is situational. Living in poverty is very stressful. I try to ameliorate the way I feel about it by the fact that I keep trying, but sometimes I feel like all my trying adds up to one big ole heapin' helpin' of horse manure and I become despondent. 

I live with suicide ideation. I think about offing myself a lot. Ideation is not the same as planning. My planning levels tend to be low regardless of how strong the ideation levels are. Generally speaking, I'm probably too much of an asshole to commit suicide because then I wouldn't be able to piss people off by existing in a corporeal fashion in their presence. But sometimes not having to struggle sure sounds like a winner.

I have experienced spring depression almost every year of my life since I hit puberty. My puberty was somewhat precocious and started coming on when I was nine years old. Thinking back on things, the first time I can remember seeing a strong manifestation that could have been identified as bipolar 2 was on my tenth birthday. 

Bipolar 2 can be sneaky since it presents with hypomania rather than full mania. Hypomania is like "mania lite." However, it can be just as destructive. I've learned to recognize the magical thinking that comes with the condition and to try not to act on my impulses during periods of hypomania. By magical thinking, I don't mean believing in fairies or even believing something potentially fatal like thinking I could get up on a roof and float down. Hypomania does not create that sort of delusion. (The delusion that jumping off a roof is a good idea. I like to hope that believing in fairies is not a delusion.) It does create the sort of delusion that I should buy into an MLM program for a thousand dollars and will make a butt-ton of money and be able to live happily ever after. I don't have the focus to be successful at such a thing, even if it is one of the few programs that is legit.

By the way, Watkins is not that sort of program. It is legit, and the "buy-in" for a year is only $30. I'm only saying this because the -666 of you who follow my blogs might be saying "oh, Cie, have you done this again with this Watkins thing?" No, I actually only signed up for Watkins to get discounts on my own merchandise but after reviewing the material felt good about recommending it to others.

I am trying to learn to forgive myself for sometimes really awful and personally destructive past decisions and to stop belittling myself for having a brain that works differently than the brains of the sort of people who tend to be held up as examples. Nobody will ever say: "why can't you be more like that ornery old hag cie? I mean, she's simply all over the place, and she's easily distracted except when she's laser-focused on one of her ruinous plans? Now there's someone you can look up to!"

I will be fifty-five in a month and a day from this writing unless I go tits up in the meantime. I have no hope that "this will be my year" as I always told myself on birthdays in the past and was inevitably disappointed. This will be a year. There will be no significant shifts. I will remain me and the world will wag on.