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: painmeds
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…
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. […]
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…
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…
my rickety-crickety (broken) back
Racked by the racket
of my rickety-crickety (broken) back
I’ll…blind-baby-grab… for anything transportive,
That is, I’ll see your Crown and Coke, and raise you
a midnight toke, I’ll see your Seagram and Seven,
and call it with these two little pills prescribing heaven.[…]
my rickety-crickety (broken) back Racked by the racket of my rickety-crickety (broken) back I’ll…blind-baby-grab… for anything transportive, That is, I’ll see your Crown and Coke, and raise you a midnight toke, I’ll see your Seagram and Seven, and call it with these two little pills prescribing heaven. Wrecked by the wreckage of my worn-torn (broken) back I’ll… come-humbling on my knees, and in your arms, Meaning, I’ll sing your song, if you’ll right my wrong, I’ll swear your good-god name, if you can take away my god-damn pain. Heckled by the hell of my helter-skelter (broken) back I’ll… cry-scribbling some heart-soaked words. What I mean is, I’ll try-fiddling some poetry-steeped meaning from a blood-soaked world. Racked by the racket of my rickety-crickety (broken) back I’ll… blind-baby-seek for anything transcendent, That is, I’ll see your chanting mantra, and raise you to bodhisattva, I’ll see your hours of nirvana seeking mediation, and call it with a day of Woodstock likened celebration. M. L. Michael 05-03-08- <---> 05-10-10-
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
About…
Healthcare
Without a moment’s hesitation,
I’ll dig into my pocket and produce
two little blue pills that
represent everychance I have at
feeling some semblance of comfort.[…]
HealthCare Without a moment’s hesitation, I’ll dig into my pocket and produce two little blue pills that represent everychance I have at feeling some semblance of comfort. Without any second thought, I’ll swallow whatever you hand me, whatever you say that’ll take me one step closer to a reality without what ails me, sans that fire that ails me. So sell me anything that can cure me, because I am desperate for whatever snake oil you can offer, any remedy other than the reality of accepting what I have to accept. So sell me exactly what I want, which is a vacation from what I face, I’ll give you whatever you want in return if you save me from this horrid place. 4-2-8 M. L> Michael
About…
you’re so vain, you probably think this poem is about you
before you stabbed me somehow real–
before i was bleeding out all over the field,
all i could see was your siren-beauty
singing, all I could feel was your hot face bathing,
against the searing white– that astonishing raw–
seconds after I had opened my arms:
i felt the definite betrayal of your knife
violating my hungering space.[…]
"you're so vain, you probably think this poem is about you."
before you stabbed me somehow real--
before i was bleeding out all over the field,
all i could see was your siren-beauty
singing, all I could feel was your hot face bathing,
against the searing white-- that astonishing raw--
seconds after I had opened my arms:
i felt the definite betrayal of your knife
violating my hungering space.
(i am nothing but disdained and craven
in my addiction for your novocain lovin)
then, you dressed me down, and
dressed my wounds, and
undressed yourself,
to address me down.
to take care of kissing me, to take care of caressing me
where my aching has consumed all sound.where my consumption
has caused aching all around. so i can barely think to think
my way out of the box-- because all is alright, right
when ill take any warmth,
as a ward against the freeze that defines every month.
(i am everything but accomplished and winning
in my race for that 100percent numbed feeling.)
until, i am almost better, i am almost ready
to pull myself out of your venus such embrace,
when your knife finds my ache again, and my back
finds the floor, again, as willingly as someone broken again,
someone to be that one repair, again,
someone to be your one fix, again.
i am nothing but disdained and craven
in my addiction for your novocain lovin
i am everything but accomplished and winning
in my race for that 100percent numbed feeling.
-m. l. michael.
-05-29-06-
About…
The ebb and flow of pharmaceuticals
White ravens cawed their best – a blasphemy of tradition.
Sounding all of dissonance, their mark is made in deception.
Where it begins with a
tumble
down (cavern or cavity)[…]
The Ebb and Flow of Pharmaceuticals
White ravens cawed their best – a blasphemy of tradition.
Sounding all of dissonance, their mark is made in deception.
Where it begins with a
tumble
down (cavern or cavity)
Manufactured escape, the mettle and sinew of tragedy
And still they
tumble
down (a white meteor seconds to downtown)
Until they
*touch*
down (a white explosion to dissolve and drown)
White ravens cawed their worst – a blasphemy of saviors
Blessed with conditional reception, masked miracles for favors
When it all happens with a
f l u t t e r
up (standard or stream)
Fog of mind trailing their wings, opiate laced to dull the regime
And still they
f l u t t e r
up (measured by time – they’ll divide the flock)
Until they
foul
up (measured against time – silence without the shock)
White ravens cawed their last – a tragedy of blasphemy
Gone before forgotten with an absence marked by misery
Where it all ends with a
tumble
back down (highway or mindway)
Return of the sword, truth of situation embodied, must we obey?
And then I
tumble
back down (as my design is my deduction)
Until I
*touch*
back down (as my design is my dysfunction)
M. L. Michael
04-23-04
Every Breath Poetic 