The Cycle (of Pain Pills) // So the cycle goes… You’re hurting more, so you take more pain medicine. “Surely, I’ll be hurting less in the future.” Is your reasonig. Or – “That’s a problem for future me!” is your answer. Really, it doesn’t matter what you tell yourself. All that matters is an end to the pain. And then there you are, a week before you medicine is to be refilled, either almost out or completely out. So you ration. You go thru withdrawal. Cold sweats. Unescapable aches, Jesus Christ, give me a bullet or give me a pill. You make it thru (you always do), you get your medicine refilled. And you hold it together long enough until the next time you break down and take an extra. Because surely, you’ll be hurting less in the future… or – that’s a problem for future me. …So the cycle goes. 05/16/2021 M. L. Michael
Tag: addiction
Scars & Hooks, Scars & Hooks
the hooks sink in slowly.
(…they know where the scars are…)
and you barely notice,
as they subtly slip back in without a hiss.
and already, just like that.
it’s just. like. that. […]
Scars & Hooks, Scars & Hooks
the hooks sink in slowly.
(...they know where the scars are...)
and you barely notice,
as they subtly slip back in without a hiss.
and already, just like that.
it's just. like. that.
.
.
.
....it feels good,
-a kinked sort of pleasure-
-the sick scratching of a sore-
-the perverse picking of a blemish-
god dammit all. it just feels right.
so these hooks sink in deeper,
drawing up that buried over pain,
letting it pool to the surface;
and still you let this happen,
because, let's be honest, the hooks were not the beginning,
and because, let's be honest, the hooks begin the game winning.
.
.
.
The hooks:
...their names are etched - inscribed in their sides,
...just like your name is printed -
prescribed for all your aches and tides.
The hooks are so defined:
just take two as needed.
okay. that's not enough?
okay. take four instead.
...you know what, whatever,
take however many is needed
to stop that never ending, forever crashing tide.
(...that last bit is never said, but it's always implied.)
.
.
.
and so you're strung along - reeled across reality,
unable to tell up from wrong, right from down,
just grasping... hook after hook after hook,
hoping that one, that one special one, will be the one that finally reels you home.
.
.
.
let this nightmare continue, ad infinitum.
if you wish...
.
.
.
...unless, ultimately, it's up to you,
and it's only in rare brevity, those moments of lucid fire,
that you comprehend this reeling
as a vacuous, fast-forwarding, feeling of rising ire.
and only in this brevity, in your briefest moments of clarity,
will you have the flash of courage to resist
the force of dozens of hooks
dragging you through their rough and salty sea.
...and so it's instantly in that moment that you must resist.
as much as it hurts from the drag
of dozens of hooks tearing the other way...
you must resist.
you are stronger than this.
you are stronger than hubris or shame.
strong enough to grab a hand,
to take a step back,
to see a hook coming,
to see your scars proving...
01/03/16
M. L. Michael
About…
15 Months later
This is almost a nightmare.
The setting is right, it’s 4 something-god-awful AM and you’re in a dark bathroom, trying to escape the ravages of a body gone ape shit, trying to shut all the dark doors it has kicked open, trying to quell the murder of thoughts threatening to blot out the sky.[…]
15 Months Later… This is almost a nightmare. The setting is right, it’s 4 something-god-awful AM and you’re in a dark bathroom, trying to escape the ravages of a body gone ape shit, trying to shut all the dark doors it has kicked open, trying to quell the murder of thoughts threatening to blot out the sky. But this isn’t a nightmare because you feel a monkey clawing up your back, you can hear it screaming in your ear, “this is not a dream, but you still better wake up. because this. is. not. a. dream.” Those words hit like thunder and throw out flashbacks that disorient. Flashbacks to nights of no sleep, days of exhaustion, and the blurry gray, guilt inspiring, times of wanting to give up the fight. This is dangerously close to a nightmare. A totem in the form of a pill bottle is what drew you to this spot. Your pain delirious steps brought you here, and your spirit-fueled stubbornness holds you back. Here you are…and there it is – the bottle with the quick answers and backwards directions. The simian in the spine screeches, “you can take just one, just one will be okay. And the coven of crows caw, “You’re in pain. You’re exhausted. Just one is understandable. Just one is an honest break.” Their noise is so convincing, so conniving, that you feel yourself falter for a second, a second where you are too indomitable to fall and only human enough to falter. Faltering on the edge of that cliff overlooking a terrible abyss, where you can see the past tense threatening to swallow the present, a shudder of revulsion causes you to take a step back. ‘Just one’ holds the gun, ‘just one’ is apathy on the trigger, ‘just one’ and the abyss has won. No. …The abyss cannot win. As long as you are feeling, the abyss cannot, it will not, win. With one step back, the memories flow in and the tape plays back. Mute and out of focus, the tape plays back. Feelings of the abyss reach out from every moment. The tape plays back and you step back, again and again. Again, until you find yourself out of the bathroom, into the hallway, and finally back in your bed. Instead of a bottle of pills, you reach for headphones and lose yourself somewhere between the ears and on a river. This is not a nightmare. You made sure of that. 7/23/13 M. L. Michael
About…
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 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…
wake up to this
Wake up to the sight of a dozen crows perched on the horizon
and the dream of Dorothy becoming a fickle thing,
and her ruby toed goodbye being a sour sort of thing,
because now a swollen bruise hangs in the sky, and the crows wont stop cawing.
Wake up to find there’s no place like a home that’s haunted.
-there’s no reason to fear the dark- but reason enough to save yourself;
its the do or die test– the water is coming, its a sink or swim race;
now try and run with your dreamers legs and your clown shoes. […]
Wake up to the sight of a dozen crows perched on the horizon and the dream of Dorothy becoming a fickle thing, and her ruby toed goodbye being a sour sort of thing, because now a swollen bruise hangs in the sky, and the crows wont stop cawing. Wake up to find there’s no place like a home that's haunted. -there's no reason to fear the dark- but reason enough to save yourself; its the do or die test– the water is coming, its a sink or swim race; now try and run with your dreamers legs and your clown shoes. Wake up to the racket of a dozen crows ready to roost, (there’s a murder causing hell over your roof, ready to rain away any chance of a parade if you don’t claim your higher ground.) Wake up to the panic of there’s no time left on the clock. the storm is here, and the flock has found their cuckoo nest. ready or not, you better fly and finally soar like the rest, so take heart, steel your mind, and summon old courage and forget the crutches – they’re only handicaps on a brick road. Wake up to the alarm of a dozen years dreaming, so encumbered by your heavy coat of slumber - you fight familiar demons masquerading as nightmares, discouraging you from leaving a house now flooding, making mute this place you called home where now only the crows sit and the water waits. Wake up to find Dorothy had bailed from this merry-go-round left a note saying you weren’t ready this go around – that the storm is here and you’re still struggling with the baggage. still sluggish from a longish slumber, yet to comprehend the emergency of sobriety. Wake up to the sound of sirens singing the murder song and you cursing out your best swan song - “the ship is sinking – abandon all ye sleeping, make out for land! No time for weeping, break past the line of constant return. This time, wake up for real!" M. L. Michael 04/30/12
About…
By April of 2012 I had enough with the cycle of taking more and more pain medicine until it eventually unraveled into a destructive downwards spiral. As soon as I noticed this happening I told my pain management doctor and we decided I should go to a 30 day rehab clinic right away.
This poem was written in the middle of that night from a dream that woke me up. In a mere six hours or so after this was written I was being driven by my parents to the clinic.
(addiction observed)
Addiction can be so insidious … a muted snake in the grass…
without a hiss or rattler, one can easily become bitten…
And depending on the snake in question –
because of the local anesthetic of a devious snake
one can doubt if they’ve even been taken;
and only the widest-aware, can recognize a ‘minor’ sting of irritation,
for the spreading disease of the venom’s deconstruction.] […]
(Addiction Observed)
The Story of the Serpent’s Aisle
[…]
Addiction can be so insidious … a muted snake in the grass…
without a hiss or rattler, one can easily become bitten...
And depending on the snake in question –
because of the local anesthetic of a devious snake
one can doubt if they’ve even been taken;
and only the widest-aware, can recognize a ‘minor’ sting of irritation,
for the spreading disease of the venom’s deconstruction.]
[–1–]
This courtship begins…
I was lead into the tall brush by people who we were all told to trust,
White coats that I came to revere, in a unquestionable, priestly, veneer,
who –upon the moment of finding traces of venom from snakes they well knew,
drew me an arbitrary line – like drawing perfect circles in the Sahara sand,
that gave them the power (or divination) to plot a schedule to work with their appointments]
‘Physical Dependence’ –which is now part of most medical jargon,
and ‘Psychological Addiction’ – a weighty term that’s cropping up more often…
[These words are always defined in referenced books; but never taken as seriously
as anyone who from anyone has felt the dehydration, the delusions, from the weeks,
the years, of confusion; when one’s delirious decisions making more hills for the all inclusive desolation of their desert resort. their regrettable conclusion.]
White coats, with allegorical colored collars,
gave me the venom I readily desired,
and explained it all away as an, ‘increased physical dependence’,
and, vehemently sold that anything else was rarely ‘physical addiction’.
“Because, based off what we have here in your chart – you have every good
reason to hop a long our pres cription branded ponies…
You may not see it…but your body’s failing at its internal-repairings.”
So, under the threat of breaking down in the middle of hell’s nowhere,
I billed my repairmen by the hour,
and in return they gave me everything,
all of their super-synthetic everything,
…in increasingly, unaffordable, increments.
And always…”psychological addiction” was the word next on their lips.
…they warned me of a desert of addiction,
yet they’d mentioned it first, in its lowest key…
so that by the time I found myself in the desert,
I was already over so many sandy hills – that this mind’s desire to thrive
created mirages out of things I knew to be an ongoing desert’s divide…
But then!
White-collar-coats swoop in as soon as I give the signal;
and rescue me to another prescription…maybe, now, an anti-venom.
And, now, their saying it is my mind that’s malfunctioning too,
and as my only repairmen, I bill them by the hour,
for their super-synthetic rewiring,
of incredible, damageable, redefining.
[–II–]
Now, this courtship is finally revealed…
Although one is called “dependence”, and another is called “addiction”,
They’re two sides of the same, unbalanced, coin.
That can only balance when I decide to say, “I do”.
…with words that taste of sand, and sound of broken acoustics…
…with a taste that thrashes the throat, and a tone that irritates the ears…
But when it reaches this heart…
when it reaches this heart,
it hits upon a well of buried wishes,
it gushes up promises of a shooting star,
that if I honor it at all,
till death do I, and only I, depart…
[–III–]
Finally, this courtship is threatened…
When I can snap out fast enough from the delusion,
and fight back for my life, my freedom of choice;
to become that lovable lion,
and fight for my courage to make all right.
To defeat my beat of being so snake entangled,
and come out with my life stronger - via that divorce…
06/17/11
M. L. Michael
About…
fishy awareness
I have a dream…
and in this dream… I am a fish:
I’ve been swimming along for a while now,
out in this fascinating, seemingly endless, ocean…
I see little worms, wriggling, deliciously, ahead,
and I eat ‘em as I go along… as they make me swim on, with a bit more steam.[…]
Fishy Awareness
(This is for “National Fish Awareness Month”)
I have a dream…
and in this dream… I am a fish:
I’ve been swimming along for a while now,
out in this fascinating, seemingly endless, ocean…
I see little worms, wriggling, deliciously, ahead,
and I eat ‘em as I go along… as they make me swim on, with a bit more steam.
I swim along fine, for a while…
until I notice…there are hooks! dragging me against my current-will –
draining this fish’s steam powered body of more internal combustion!
So, I fight and swim, I fight and swim, slowly losing against so many hooks…
until I am just too tired…and I cant find a good pair of hands…and I give up…
Watching the ocean I love being reeled away faster, I think –
Ok, wow, ocean; so, this is it…
Some of those bullshit worms, actually had deceptive little hooks in them.
…thanks for the great warning…
And then in this dream… I, gratefully, wake up.
Happy I am not, really just some dumb fish…
But still, oh-fishily leery,
about delectable, detectable, worms,
and possible, horrible, hidden, hooks…
05/08/11
M. L. Michael
About…
The Fisher and the Addict
Addiction starts off with this hook—
That there is this worm that you are hungering after…
and, If you lured into biting at it: congrat’s… you ‘ve been had…
and, If the Fisherman is stronger than your “inner master”…
Then he already has you reeled into his vessel,
slipping around spastically…dying to jump out,
‘lest you are seconds away from becoming supper. […]
The Fisher and the Addict Addiction starts off with this hook--- That there is this worm that you are hungering after… and, If you lured into biting at it: congrat’s… you ‘ve been had… and, If the Fisherman is stronger than your “inner master”… Then he already has you reeled into his vessel, slipping around spastically…dying to jump out, ‘lest you are seconds away from becoming supper. M. L. Michael 05/01/11
About…
the monster behind the eyes
In this waking nightmare called chronic pain,
I am afraid of a Monster that lurks within me
that I wish I could gamble away.
Let’s call him Firo, and let’s call me Kindle.
Firo spends his every waking hour terrorizing
the villages along my spine,[…]
The Monster Behind The Eyes (Trying to Poetize My Chronic Pain) In this waking nightmare called chronic pain, I am afraid of a Monster that lurks within me that I wish I could gamble away. Let’s call him Firo, and let’s call me Kindle. Firo spends his every waking hour terrorizing the villages along my spine, but his home is somewhere in my mind – a place I can never quite seem to find. When Firo is in his mere, normal, foul-fever, I only have a tiring time of quieting every scared and hurt villager that comes to me crying. All that energy and stress is gobbled up and processed… but it is never anything I’ve ever fought against and lost… But there are times…sometimes only once or twice a week, sometimes every, wretched, handful of every hour in a day, when Firo becomes this frothing-flame-flinging-fury, the hellfire-demon who attacks my villagers with all the pent-up rage of an imprisoned Devil, frozen up to the waist in a lake of ice; …his beating wings – only solidifying his prison. These poor villagers, they cannot bear to stand it, they cry, and they scream, and they beg in my ears, for every second that Firo rages, and roars, and rips at their heels. …These are the times that I am at my worst. …It is during these times I am afraid the most. Because it is the clamor from my spine that drowns out the baritone of Reason from my mind. …and I just can’t seem to think solid, straight, or right. All I can seem to muster are crooked thoughts of the any ways of appeasing my poor-vilified villagers, wishing to silence Firo, and his never-ending violence, for once and for all, so they can have their goodnight… …. Now, suddenly, I’m the Monster. I’m doing things I would never do in a quieter mind. Like, Being capable of the slight of hand slipping of pain medicine, similar to vein-slapping, dragon-chasing, addiction-based-actions. Of waking up wasted, and going to sleep shit-faced. Of disregarding taking more than I am prescribed, to shut that fucking Firo up, to give those constantly-complaining villagers, their good-god-damn and good-god-given peace. Of praying to some Super-Hero-God, to grant me my magical-reprieve, to grant me my mystical pie in the sky. and, ,worst of all, Of debating taking a bottle full of what-the-fuck-ever, and drowning it down with a bottle full of what-the-hell-ever, to chance sweet oblivion for a ticket to the pain-free, forever-and-never-after show. … ….but it’s only that there’s this brave little voice that can still be heard, now, only barely…over the din of this diseased, pissed, Monster… Which is the weakened voice of Reason passionately begging of me, that I know I cannot gamble on the only thing I ultimately own – my life, that what I know to be so breathlessly beautiful, and so wordlessly wonderful, is not a gamble worthy of losing anything as awe-inspiring, such as the southern sunset. Ignore Pascal. This is My Wager: There’s the gamble of the nonexistence of the eternal, of the internal loss of all pain and/or pleasure, and of some unknowable deal of any(kind of)every(kind of)thing, possibly (un)imaginable… ….Against the gamble of an esoteric Creator, who [I can hope upon faith], understands just how torturous his Creation can cruelly become, and [I can hope upon faith] will welcome me, with [what I can hope upon faith are] eternally forgiving arms… So, you see, I’m the Monster, with the chip not worthy of such a large gamble… I’m the Monster, the only real Monster, there is to fear in this nightmare. M. L. Michael 03/07/11
About…
monkey on back syndrome
if you are silent, then you can see it,
beneath the din of reality
there’s the subtle screeching
of this pervasive pain situation.
what doctors dub as a ‘chronic pain condition’,
I illustrate as ‘monkey on back syndrome’ […]
monkey on back syndrome
if you are silent, then you can see it,
beneath the din of reality
there’s the subtle screeching
of this pervasive pain situation.
what doctors dub as a ‘chronic pain condition’,
I illustrate as ‘monkey on back syndrome’,
(…there being this cliché of a monkey on my back,
…all too real, the monkey has become my back.)
See, this simian is my spine,
it’s imbued with fire,
the breath of blisters,
and the scratches of scars;
… it burns with all the
wrong kinds of warmth…
so, my doctors repeat: chronic pain is chronic,
and some kind of pill will always be necessary
to quiet this monkey’s riot,
to slow this monkey’s roll…
like some kind of pill
my doctors are ready to prescribe.
(…a shout out to all those poppy seed plants,
…here’s a little pill capable of belittling a lot.)
oh! some kind of pill!
that has me battling an everyday absurdity,
that in order to circumvent my monkey’s will,
I must fall under the pain pill’s authority.
oh! some kind of life!
spent with either the long racket of the monkey,
or the short leash of the prescription pain pill,
no! it is no kind of life!
when you are unable to reflect on beauty
without the tyranny of those wretched two…
05-19-10
M. L. Michael
Every Breath Poetic 