A lot of folks are trying to talk me into "getting medicated". I just can't see doing that (unless by "medicated" one means giving up on the sobriety thing, since I think quite frequently about that sweet oblivion that I used to know). I mean, 90% of the time I'm FINE, it's only when I have to deal with the money stuff that I lock up, get twitchy, start stuttering and spasming, and the whole panic attack "can't breathe" thing. Of course, it really doesn't help that EVERYBODY in my life who SHOULD be in a "supportive role" totally dismisses my difficulties. Hell, The Wife acts like "it's all an act" ... like I'm TRYING to hyperventillate, like I'm somehow "pretending" not to be able to get through words I'm trying to say, like I'm making up sudden localized screaming headaches! I just can't see turning my entire perceptive system over to some shrink to "medicate away" what would take care of itself IF I ONLY COULD GET A FUCKING DECENT JOB!!! I mean, I've NEVER been able to "deal with" financial stuff, but I used to always have enough income to keep the ball rolling ... now, every little thing is a CATASTROPHE and NOBODY fucking cares about how it effects me! Well ... not nobody ... Daughter #1 is quite worried about me and keeps coming up with ideas like how she could wash cars or walk dogs for money ... I haven't been able to figure out how to explain to her that the sort of money we need is WAY more than what that would bring in. No, Daddy needs a REAL JOB, but who the FUCK is going to hire Daddy these days? Hell, who the FUCK is going to hire Daddy if he's letting some shithead shrink load him up with zombie dust?
Damned if I do, damned if I dont ... story of my fucking life. That's why the "let them collect the insurance" option looks better by the day. I just can't go on feeling like this. I am stripped down to raw nerves and the god-damned world is spritzing me with lye.
The ONLY thing (except for The Girls, and even they have the GUILT thing hung all over them) that keeps me going is my poetry ... it's like my "baseline" the ONE THING of value that this god-damned mundane hellhole of a world hasn't figured out a way to tear out of my hands. I am SO wanting to get the damned archive site ... http://i.am/btripp ... finished ... I want that to stand as some sort of marker that I WAS HERE ... I DID SOMETHING ... and then let the fucking chips fall where they may. Right now the poems are the only thing between me and that world ... my last buffer ... the last wall holding back suicide or total psychotic rage. Here's another one ... hope somebody bothers to read it.
UNENDING PAIN
the dread attacks,
forgotten horrors
spring from shadows,
nightmares surprise,
unfolding in the day;
and every evil
wells to the real
to strike us down
we can not prepare,
we can not defend,
blindside assaults
eviscerate at will;
we are broken and bleeding,
we are wounded and lost,
fallen in our battle,
defeated by their world
we wake sometimes
and think that terrors
were of the night
and gone away,
how hideous the seeing
that these monstrosities,
these trials and agonies,
are irrevocably here
no, it is the good
which is the mirage,
it is the pleasant
which fades at dawn,
it is the joyous
which is banished
when mundane worlds
rise as they are
every time
we sense a freeing,
every time
we feel we might escape,
these crueller truths
flood in upon us
leaving only anguish
and this unending pain
- Brendan Tripp
02/12/2002
Copyright © 2002 by Brendan Tripp