mlmichael

6 months later…

You know something is wrong when the pain medicine begins to take on weight in your palm.
When despite the screech of ache and ache, up your spine, through your mind, you find yourself hesitating at the sight of this medicine – your pain medication, your discomfort dispeller, this neural novocain, this sunday solicitor.
You eye the pills with a fluctuating mix of shame and acceptance. You juggle them around to buy some bullshit time before you concede to a relative truth and toss them down.
Your gut is uneasy. Not just because this synthetic opium is a molotov-cocktail thrown at a combustible problem, but because this bottle of pills that you have refilled every month is a mere hop, a skip, a jump away from poorly lit alleyways with guttered dreams and phantom candles flickering out.
You’re sick at the sight and you don’t need a mirror to see what’s under your nose; the stench of desperation gives it away every time you find yourself in a panic, because the ache is rising, unchecked, demanding, and your finding yourself lost without your pain medicine, without that be all, end all, answer all.
That’s where the line between what you will do to stop the rising wave of discomfort, and what you wont do to raise a barrier of numbness, is easily blurred into insignificance – just like scratching a line in the sand, you make a distinction, knowing the coming wave will wipe it away.
You no longer know who calls the shots. You are almost certain it is no longer yourself, but a question remains, a scenario, a picture in your mind, the all encompassing ache controlling your strings, guiding your hands to the pills, the pills controlling the ache’s strings, controlling you, controlling it, and on and on, a programmer’s loop into oblivion.
You find yourself in the absurd play of one being control—one being consoled by doctors convincing you that you are not an addict.
Everything is legit, the stacks of reports from past surgeries and prior hospitalizations are all reasons for taking their junk. You are not like the yucks on the streets, because they don’t have a reason like you, they don’t have an excuse that’s been documented, they’ve never been diagnosed, and if they have, they certainly aren’t under any medical help, not anymore…
For years you argue with them like a kid trying to grasp a simple truth against an adult’s abstractions. You fight even as you wonder why. You fight because you instinctively know that is who you are, what you do. You fight them, you fight the medicine, because you owe it all to the fight. Life, in one sweeping motion, is a fight to survive. Survival is a chance to love. And a chance to love is a chance to be free.
The pills they give you are nothing more than medicinal apathetics –extended release pacifiers. The ‘sweet release’ from the ache that you so desperately seek is more like the ‘letting go’ of all that’s cherished and known. You know you are stronger than waving a white flag and then swallowing it down. Your very life is a monument to countless battles won. Times you will never know, times you tried to forget, times you continue to brag about. You owe your all to the fight, to the push, that persistent, so close to nagging, drive that whispers, keep on keeping on, don’t stop driving you tenacious fool, burn like the furious flame that gives your spirit warmth.
You know something is wrong. Now fight, now right that wrong.

-10-11-12-
-m.m-

About…

fairy tale for the discarded

once upon a time
there was a little cloth doll that emerged from the assembly line slightly unstitched and slightly askew. errant strings stuck out of its sides and unnecessary stuffing peaked from behind its plastic eyes.[…]

fairy tale for the discarded

with one look from the line supervisor it was tossed to the recycle bin.
where it would have been lost forever had it not been for its cockeyed weight, which caused the doll to hit the side of the bin and flop to the floor. countless feet then kicked and shuffled it around until it eventually found a dusty corner for a rest stop.

the factory was shut down in the evening and darkness slowly rose to power. the rats and roaches came out to roam, to gnaw and to gather, and spiders skittered across the doll like never ending shivers. hope was nearly lost to the ravages of misfortune…and the doll endured all.

finally, the lights crackled on as the cleaning crew arrived with the dawn.
but this was no reason to rejoice. they had brought with them a terrible abomination to life, one that made a destructive racket as it swept across the floor and yanked the doll from its corner.

the roar of the monster was deafening. it mounted in frustration as this stubborn doll refused to be devoured. this little doll that was unworthy of the price tag was defying the maw of this monster with every fiber of its stuffing.
an epic struggle ensued until the creature sputtered and choked, until smoke escaped from all sides, and the defiant doll was spat out.

an enlightened eye saw what everyone else missed, and the doll was grasped with curious hands. hands that were as rough and cracked as the doll was malformed, hands that had nightly coaxed a child to sleep and kept the place of comforts they could not afford.
hands that then carried this doll home to happily ever after.

09/04/12
M. L. Michael

About…

inclination

what emptiness is this? surely, it must be fulfilled.
huzzah ink!
conquer the blank slate with your blue creations!

inclination

what emptiness is this? surely, it must be fulfilled.
huzzah ink!
conquer the blank slate with your black & blue creations!

M. L. Michael
08/25/12

About…

little embers

It began with a little ember
I caught off a spark
from the filament of your iris,
that sea, that web,
that portal you called a stargate.[…]

little embers

It began with a little ember
I caught off a spark 
from the filament of your iris,
that sea, that web,
that portal you called a stargate.

…

From your feet I gathered kindle,
so that ember could have a nest.
I placed it in my left breast pocket,
where it rested, where it rooted,
where it became a phoenix’s egg. 

…

And on the day of your goodbye,
I reached for that weight in my pocket,
I laid it at the place you once stood,
at the point of our collision, at the point of our cohesion, 
I followed your instructions and formed a pyre. 

…

With your light that never left me,
I lit the first, the best, gift you ever gave to me,
and remembering your present with reverent eyes, 
I saw a flame rise. I saw a phoenix stoked.
I saw little embers break for the stars.



-08.14.12-
M. L. Michael

About…

the woods

we did not wander into the woods
because there was nothing to fear.
we did not create our own path
because no one offered their own.

we entered the woods, alone, together,
because shadows weakened by our number.
we went into the woods, uncertain of certainty,
because the allure of understanding
never stopped growing at our hiking feet. […]

the woods

we did not wander into the woods
because there was nothing to fear.
we did not create our own path
because no one offered their own.

we entered the woods, alone, together,
because shadows weakened by our number. 
we went into the woods, uncertain of certainty,
because the allure of understanding
never stopped growing at our hiking feet.

we did not sneak into these woods
because our forefathers forbid it.
we did not venture into the unknown
because what we knew was unfulfilling. 

we worked through the woods,
individually, hand in hand, 
because strength is created, and strength is lent.
we never gave up in the woods,
because our story wants for a good ending.


-07-31-12- 
M. L. Michael

About…

a tragic moth or a romantic moth

a tragic moth or a romantic moth,
flew too close to the light
and was caught in a web.

it fought and flapped,
and flapped and fought,
entangling itself more –
ringing the dinner bell. […]

a tragic moth or a romantic moth


a tragic moth or a romantic moth,
flew too close to the light
and was caught in a web.

it fought and flapped,
and flapped and fought,
entangling itself more –
ringing the dinner bell.

a spider skittered up quick
and sunk its fangs in swift.

the moth fought and flapped,
and flapped and fought,
spreading the venom further –
sprinting towards the end.

…and still the moth fought,
…and still the moth flapped,
until the web snapped,
and the moth fooled fate.

it flew free for a glorious moment

…before returning to the ground.


 07/30/12
M. L. Michael

About…

As i grow older…

As I grow older, I need my glasses,

so I can marvel at the pinpoints of millennia on the blue-black sky,
and recognize the glimmers of galaxies in a stranger’s eyes.
so I can understand the reasons of nature on the evolutionary sly,
and admire the poignancy of forever in the sunset’s goodbyes.

As I grow older, I need my glasses in order to see why.

As I grow older, I need my glasses,

so I can marvel at the pinpoints of millennia on the blue-black sky,
and recognize the glimmers of galaxies in a stranger's eyes.
so I can understand the reasons of nature on the evolutionary sly,
and admire the poignancy of forever in the sunset's goodbyes.

As I grow older, I need my glasses in order to see why.

-07-23-12-
M. L. Michael

About…

the wheres and why

this is where we fall in love.

where we tell the universe that it only matters
in relation to the stage we have to share such a sensation.
this is the beginning of when we love defiant.
where in the midst of all the cold space,
we thrive at alchemizing gold between us. […]

this is where we fall in love.

where we tell the universe that it only matters
in relation to the stage we have to share such a sensation. 
this is the beginning of when we love defiant.
where in the midst of all the cold space,
we thrive at alchemizing gold between us. 
this is our definition of love’s declaration.
where an abstract idea that grew from a notion,
only bloomed when we sought complimentary suns.
this is our discovery of the greatest drug,
where profound connections create chemical tsunamis,
and all else seems trivial in the wake of such a wave. 

this is why we fall in love.        

7/17/12
M. L. Michael

About…

this is medicine (go for gold)

since I got off all the pain medicine, I have begun experiencing new pains, pains that possibly might have always existed before. Although undesirable, these pains are nothing to cause me much worry because they aren’t anything new.. but one pain, one that comes and goes with a fearful intensity, is this pain in my brain, in the back of my skull.
rather it happens and I become depressed, or I become depressed and it happens, I do not know, but suddenly my head and my thoughts ache, all I can think about is a pervasive gloom stretching out across the horizon

a feeling that was born in my spine, one that spread to my hips, to my knees and hands, this is a pain of indeterminable ache – a sensation that cries for cessation, I have the inane desire to wish these bones stretched or ripped out.
but with this pain of brain, I feel something disturbingly darker, I react to the ache in the back of my head, at the top of my spine, in the permeations of my thoughts, with ideas of blowing it all out.

such a thought is vitriol in my veins and I whip myself for such desolate desires.

in these moments I _must_ seek out the pleasure songs of my special being,
to replace the dissonant noise of pain I must seek out anything that gives my spirit reason to sing along..

…in light of all of this, in the dark of all of this, I question my sanity. When one bounces around so wildly from mania to despairia, one questions the role of their subjectivity over gauging reality. If all this pain is imagined – then how does one un-imagine? Once something is created, can it be truly destroyed? If this all undeniably fixed, then is fighting it as sad to see as a funeral? Or is this our epic marathon, and it is as exhilarating as the Olympics?

07/03/12
M. L. Michael

About…

that crumple in your smile

that crumple in your smile,
those wavering pond eyes,
reflect the pitiful creature you see in me.

as sweet as it sounds,
don’t tell me you are sorry you can’t take it all away,
because you shouldn’t shoulder such responsibility. […]

that crumple in your smile,
those wavering pond eyes,
reflect the pitiful creature you see in me.

as sweet as it sounds,
don’t tell me you are sorry you can’t take it all away,
because you shouldn’t shoulder such responsibility.

as dear as it may be,
don’t tell me you think I deserve better,
because there was little reason in the toss of this dice.

as lovely as it can feel,
don’t tell me that you wish things were different,
because then you and I and us and this would cease to…


/07.03.12/
M. L. Michael