Category: Therapy

Dear Character Defect

I need to let you go now.

Because you interfere with my ability to experience the joy of doing something for the simple love of doing it.  Because you have me spending too much of the limited time I have in this head focusing on who or what is better or worse instead of what is.  Because you rob me of celebrating my successes and those of other people.  Because you are an aging artifact of the behavior of insecure, immature people who could not make good decisions but were in charge of my formation.

You are a portrait painted by hurt people, no less a construct than the fairy tales I was nursed on and rejected.  Believing in you perpetuates the hurt and fear of your creators; keeps that hurt and fear spinning out into the world.

This doesn’t mean I give up my right to practice discernment.  I intend to use brain and eyes to the best of my ability.  I intend to be right sized.

I have people now who hold me in their strong hands – neither blind to my faults and humanity, nor disgusted by them; neither dazzled by my gifts and talents, nor jealous, fearful, and dismissive of them.

I can breathe.  I can stretch.  I can fall.  I can get up.  I can smile at the mirror and at the rest of this raggedy family.

Garage Satori

double-rainbowPulling out of my parking spot

I am meditating on whether kapotasana could be done in a chair,

whether one would feel enough pigeon-ness if she were seated,

when I awake to the chime of my front quarter panel kissing

the wheel well of my brother to the left.

Only paint.  Only paint.  No scraping, really.  I can’t handle this today.

The car will be fine.  The driver might not even see it.  I can’t handle any more.  

Out of the car, I spit on my fingers and rub along the Oregon Trail of Shame.

It’s fine.  I’m leaving.  Why should I be the only person on the planet to leave a damned note?

Drive out, heart pounding, hitting the brake at imagined vehicles.

Bring breath into belly, in and down, up and out.  Brain comes on line,

a light at a time, a Whoville Christmas in my neo-cortex.

I turn and spiral my way back up to brother Saturn to reveal myself.

The Sisters

The idiot sisters who live in my attic

are keeping me awake again; I need some rest.

They dress themselves in lengths of fabric, pretend

they are in gowns, capes, boas, and tromp around

to some new play they’ve written.  In the midst of this

romance one of them will remember some old imagined slight

and throw herself down, wracked with sobs on the the threadbare

horsehair sofa, which reminds the others of the play,

causing the lot of them to shriek in excruciating delight.

To shut them up I bring them gifts of cupcakes, candies,

plates of cheeses, and bowls of potatoes, over which they coo

for a while.

Then the fair one wants to save some for later,

the dark one wants to give some away to the poor,

the redhead wants to eat it all now, and they’re into another awful row.

I even taught them to smoke, a quiet, peaceful hobby.

They prefer cherry cigars, puffing on them dramatically,

wearing their fedoras, pounding out mystery novels

on their old Underwood.

Anything will set them off.

I went downtown to get them evicted.  I thought I could sign

a restraining order so they would restrain themselves,

but I was told I can’t because we’re related.  Now we’re in negotiations.

I’ve hired a mediator.  On Tuesdays, when we all get together

I try to calm them down; they try to make me laugh.

Therapy Day

Tuning up

Thanking My Parts

Now I lay me down to sleep,

my equilibrium to keep.

I thank the parts that make me me

even when they disagree.

The part that prays,

the part that smokes,

the part that tells the dirty jokes,

the part that eats,

the part that reads,

the part that knows my carnal needs.
All the parts that make me tick

flash by me like a grade-B flick.

And if I die before I wake

I hope I get another take.

 

The Therapy Rag

First you do some primal screams

kill your mommy in your dreams

Find out who you really hate and

Separate separate separate.

Own your anger, watch the hooks

thrown out by emotion’s crooks.

Do you resent your daughter?

Well you know you oughter.

Doing the therapy rag.

I’m okay and so are you

To your own adult be true

Get rid of guilt, there is no sin, you’re

born to win, born to win, born to win.

Went to the bank took out a loan

and now my integrated self’s my own.

And when she sees me

Oh how she frees me

Doing the therapy

Demand you be fair to me

No one takes care of me

Doing the therapy rag.

 

Dan

Dan’s a man who looks like a boy

in a Gilligan hat

with penguins marching around the band.

With his eyes closed

he recites poetry he learned by heart

when he was a real boy.

He’s a psychiatrist now,

pear-shaped from sitting on

other people’s problems,

trying to hatch them

into something that can fly.