Suicidality

Mr. Brando, take it from the top

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Taino walked closer to me he wrapped his poncho covered arms around me almost twice and began to cry sharing with me that his mom had cancer and that he dreamt i died in the 3rd street tunnel  i cried for his mother too his words only solidified the reality of my having to stop being a junkie maybe i’d be a worse person for stopping maybe i’d be a better person for it that was the risk and the chance that i would have to take no matter how afraid i was i would have to learn how to live with this new sober self because the old junkie self was killing me i couldn’t die no matter how hard i wanted to there was something in me taunting me that i could not die and i would not die i knew every inch of this truth because i had tried to die many a time in the past and failed i failed for a reason that i didn’t entirely comprehend not logically like a scientist but like something a feeling walking in a dark cave feeling yourself through the black path with your fingers bloody and scratched up even in pain down to the bone you eventually crawl out into the light and the light will hurt your eyes for the first few seconds after my trip to detective Tate and several more visits to Taino’s apartment it took me seven years to crawl out of that cave and into the bull ring of life written about by Papa and even after all this time i still find myself maneuvering the symbolic lancets capes and swords needed to bring down the lingering bull-strength ghost of addiction

a winter suicide

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There was nothing unusual about the morning for seven minutes. Then the news came.

A winter suicide.

In South Central Los Angeles it was still nothing unusual. The mentally ill with a history of homelessness, drug use and unconventional survival skill die all the time.

We were going to meet to work on goals and stuff. Her new life.

By the simplicity of her allowing me to journey with her, no doubt my life would be changed a little yet again.

Not on the surface, but on the inside. In the marrow of my recollections.

Her life and my emotions were like the sugar in the sorry cotton candy machine. Fluffy and sweet disintegrating under her tears. They speak and share; inform me, keep me employed and then I feed the stats into the county machine and do it all again five days a week.

This one was shocking in a painful way like when you’re kicked in the ribs, but you can’t scream or your face will be kicked in next.

Then anger and resentment set in against the factions of claimants of caring and the keepers of those who matter.

Why did she only matter to me? I, a nobody as designated by said keepers.

Let us not scrape it under the crusty superficial bloody red carpets of the city. I grew up here too. I recall a running record of events. I recall the angles and twists of stories.

Driving through streets filled with junky dreams and the parallels of pathology and human conscience. Crypto gods hoard discarded lives outdoors to make room for the lives whose pockets they can pick within their trap doors.

Later I figured I couldn’t be mad at any higher power we’ve sunk so low I wouldn’t know where to go.

It appears that in the city the affluent are the only ones building up taking over God’s once very holy real estate.

In the night alone in my place thinking about her life and our collective deaths. I refuse to believe the asses or the elephants, the foxes or the talking heads from studios named after pretentious consonants.

Instead, in dreams awake I face the moonless sky. Light a candle with her in mind and believe the truth of the life in her humanity.

don’t want marching saints no more

/ mbrazfieldm / 2 Comments

I don’t smoke anymore. I don’t pay attention anymore. I don’t do much anymore. Anymore matters not to anyone. It’s been about two weeks. There is a foggy dream pricking at my waking reality. There is a politeness as to not give away who I am, and who we are, and what we are not made of. Orion’s Belt has lost another Queen Sister. Look up, see? The castle shines less than it did about fourteen days ago.

Sitting next to me, he, young and professional talked to you about developing a plan for hope. Sitting next to me, your cracked yellowed fingers, stiff like frankincense resin, shuffled through your last official systematic memoir, but he and I didn’t know. Did you know? Or did you know you couldn’t go on? Your blue framed reading glasses made of plastic were spotty and needed a scrub. Your skin ashy and hair matted into a bun, those fingers searching for that someone who told you that you were fine so that we could tell you too

 We met on St. Valentine’s, you tried with all of your might on St. Habet-Deus and laid yourself to rest on St. Alvaro’s soiree. Yet, when the old timer hard core practicing apostles hailed St. Polycarp, I stood looking at the west atop the building’s nest with my back to your door sealed by the authorities of science and service.

i want to rip my hair out

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i’ve seen multiple coroners tents these few weeks white tiny like a fortune teller’s but there are no chances no predictions no suspicions just finality i’ve not felt myself murder being televised 5G capitalized on death’s dealings my smile and gentle nature up on stage demands the talent and strength of an opera singer the gall of most world viewed presidents laying down or standing still mind woodchips all of my plans palms to the sky warm sun light reminds me that there is a God i’ve seen the death of my father dressed in blue he brought down by what he held up all of his life i’ve seen the death of my mother and the sting of unfamiliarity that divided us i alien child no umbilical cord on my feet walking slightly off smell of medicinal debauchery from last night peppers the air snippets sensationalized wishing shards of words empty whirling eddies of promise obscure delicacy is what i want when i want to be alone middle age was always middle age at any point in time imbibed in the yolks of many situations took on the foil as well as the queen as well as the beggar as well as a fiend feeding rats in the alley in the middle of the day with words that mean nothing but carry weight just the same i’ve seen too many coroners tents bottom line no one gives a fuck is the appropriate cause of death on the only certificate some of us will get privilege tells me to take some time trim my cherry tree smell the air inventory what i have and be grateful count the finches outside fighting on the bush that has a doctor and expensive fertilizer i want to tear my hair out at times rage knock over bureaucratic tables like Christ in Jerusalem

where crows go to bury their dead

/ mbrazfieldm / 5 Comments

a tight jawed loon that’s what i’ll be

silently i will slink

behind the dying ugly trees

they die like a Shakespearean villain

across from the dirty river

their dusty peeling trunks

looking like they wear shoes

but its only beige mushroom caps

growing from an addict’s turd

ant trail metropolis up and down

the droopy branches bound by old cassette tape ribbon

the sugar burdens on their little thorax

weighing just as much

as the burdens on my curved shoulders

obscure illusions and esoteric lies

the native boulders akin to WCF’s face

emblazoned with red stripes and nonsense

the names of petty thief street artists

stretching down from the lived in hill

where crows go to bury their dead

dime sized nettles in my unkempt hair

will tangle with the strands in silence

and with a little time

the thorns of broken thoughts ruptured memories

will burrow even deeper

like wet mud i step into it

but quiet i will be

be silent the people have spoke

a stone chorus in space

i hear them on cold nights

they are getting colder by the way

i’ll glance beyond the conniving lights

alone out of the way and in silence