Tell me everything

Tell me everything

After bottles of wine and a dance or two

After you trust me and I’ve felt the physical parts of you

Lean back against my arm and have me tuck your hair away

Tell me everything

Tell me everything

Listening to the traffic pushing through the fresh snow

Drifting in the warm comfort of being so close to you

Watching your lips share your soul and falling in love with you

Tell me everything that has made you

Tell me everything

Tell me everything

Mmm, I want to know you

Mmm, I need to see you

Tell me everything

Tell me everything

Your childhood far away and friends making fun of you

That night in your college dorm and what he did to you

The funeral that lonely autumn and how it broke you in two

Tell me everything that has made you

I, I want to feel all the life of you

Not just this snapshot since I found you

If I could only bend back time and meet you years ago

When the world was fresh and so were me and you

Tell me everything

Tell me everything

Share the electric spark in your eyes when your child first looked at you

The love between that big dog and you

The swell of pride you felt when you figured out what you’re here to do

Share it all with me so I can know the love of all of you

Tell me everything

Tell me everything

Where do they come from.

These thoughts of you, of your mind, of your flesh, of the delicious, wet, hungry, willing surrender you feel almost as much as I crave. How does it begin in the darker corners of my mind. That need for you, that faint tickling of your presence when I’m alone.

You whom I’ve know all my life. Whose taste has filled my mouth, and soft scent has twisted my thoughts. How is it we’ve never met, but my desire hardens when I close my eyes and just feel what’s right with this world. With a deep breath in, feel you against my body, and see the sparkle in your eye that is our magic.

That melts me in a tender moment, and drives a primal carnal reaction of lust and wanton need in a dark corner together while the band plays and our world exists in only our fingers and lips.

You whose body was meant for mine, whose life has worked the mind to need our connection as I much as mine needs yours - an addiction to a drug not yet taken, a hunger not yet sated.

How do I know you so well?

Dream I have only half remembered, vision barely seen.

Time is a funny construct.

It is so obvious.

So powerful.

So self-evident.

But from a purely human perspective, it seems entirely abstract. In so many ways, we cannot experience time.

Yes, we get older. Every moment. We have a past. That past has varying degrees of impact and control over each of us. But I'm not sure that is the same as time. After all, we carry our worst, most frightening experiences with an immediate clarity, attuned to every detail even when it may have happened years ago. But many of us won't recall what we ate for lunch three days ago.

Great joys have a similar, timeless impact on us. Thankfully.

People who "live" in their pasts, who keep those memories unusually alive, vibrant and current, can suffer tremendously. At times it leads to mental breakdown and illness. Because as human beings, we cannot live in the past. It's physically impossible, and mentally and emotionally fraught with risk and danger.

That yesterday person, choice, indulgence, event or victory is gone. It can be remembered, but it cannot be lived again. Experienced again. It cannot be acted on, nor changed. That fragrant breeze, once felt, cannot blow again.

While the past can be remembered - sometimes accurately, sometimes not - we do not exist there. We are not there. We blinked, and it's now gone. It exists only in the complicated chemical soup inside our heads - remembered and prioritized not by when it happened, but what emotions we have tied to the memory. And no two people will remember the same event in exactly the same way. It may forever change my life, while you remember it like lunch three days ago.

The past can be a powerfully terrible prison, or a forgiving and seductive avoidance of life.

But, aside from death, no matter what happened - earth shattering, heart rending, devastating, elevating, joyful, hope filled, or affirming - "blink."

And the next moment came.

Is here.

And "blink."

Is gone.

It didn't come any slower from that joyful moment, nor any faster from the pain.

Blink.

As a human being time only exists on the clock. Our non-linear, emotive narrative of the select highs and lows of our past doesn't count time.

I remember being a boy in that Lake like it was yesterday. Trust me, it wasn't.

Blink.

But there are two pieces to time, right? If the past is subjective, and time only a construct, what is our future? We plan for it. Prepare. Schedule. Commit to it. Manage it. Eat right, and cut down on the cigars for it. Pray for it. Desperately pray for it. Imagine the shit out of it. Madly thrust our blind hopes and dreams into it.

When.

After.

If.

Then.

Only in the future.

Only after now.

But never now.

Blink until your eyes dry out and you can't focus. The past may expand and grow, but the future sill won't be here. Won't be now. In a very real, physics-based, science-defined way, it does not exist yet.

And it never will.

We can't live there either. Physically, we actually can't. And physic-ly too.

How is it that we surrender so much of our lives and emotions to two places we cannot exist in? Two places, where no matter how hard we try, we cannot love in? While the past may cage us, expectations of the future can crush us emotionally too. It can lead to an Alice-in-Wonderland-I'm late-I'm late-I'm late-White Rabbit-with-an-iPhone-existence.

Never blinking, and never seeing ourselves, or those around us as anything more than a list of what we will be, who they could be, how they will be so wonderful after, how I will finally ... be.

And even if in some Star-Trek-steam-punk-infused-alternate-quantum-reality we get to that future.

"Blink."

And the next moment will come.

And "blink."

It's gone.

Thinking about suicide is part of the background noise of my daily life. When I’m well I catch myself thinking about how people in my life would react to my death, or inventing elaborate scenarios that kill me. I often invent some heroic, self sacrificing death that validates my life and existence at the very end.

When I’m not well, or let my mind wander too far afield, my thoughts become actively suicidal. There is almost always an active plan in my head. How I will do it. Method, avoiding trauma to others who will find me. The plan evolves and changes over the years, but there is always one. I sometimes enter a kind of practical, macabre state and assemble the things I need for the plan and make sure I have them around in case I choose to end it all. I have those items now around my home.

Mostly, I waffle between the two extremes. Not really doing all that well, and not really plunging down the rabbit hole into the dark. Just bouncing between the two, because I can’t really trust either one - feeling good, or feeling bad. So I hang out in a melancholy garden of life that never blooms, but never quite dies either.

News of high profile suicides always has an impact on me. Especially by successful people, or people I respect. My mind always starts asking the same questions.

“If he/she, with all that money, those resources, all those people around them, couldn’t survive their mental illness, how can I possibly avoid killing myself?”

“Maybe they are right. Maybe there is a limit where you eventually have to follow through. Am I there?”

“Is my next bought of depression destined to be the last? I don’t have money, resources, or people around me. Is it inevitable?”

Robin Williams was really hard. And I know that I’m not the only mentally ill person who deals with suicidal thoughts who feels that way. A good friend of mine has a child fighting mental illness. When I came out to him and really showed him my illness, I mentioned how the Williams suicide had hit me. It had hit his kid very hard as well.

“Fuck Robin Williams,” he said with some bitterness in his voice.

Kate Spade is having a similar but less intense effect on me. I generally hide my illness from everyone in my life. My closest friends know the details now. They saved me a couple years ago after I checked myself into the local mental health ward so I wouldn’t follow through on some particularly powerful urges to end myself.

I didn’t know much about Spade, and didn’t have the respect and admiration for her that I did for Williams. But it’s still grabbing me more than I like. She had supports. People who loved her knew about her illness and challenges. She could afford any treatment or resources she wanted. She had no financial worries. She was in active treatment and on medication.

She still killed herself.

People don’t understand this illness. Or the random, role-of-the-dice nature of treating it. There is no model that we know works. Sometimes, there is no truly effective treatment. Unfortunately, unlike other illnesses, it take only a moment of surrender for the disease to jump from managed to fatal, and no way to predict and intervene in that internal momentary process.

This tragic death, like all the high profile suicides before it, will inspire others to follow through on their own suicide. Not inspire, no. It will convince them that their despair will never be conquered, and be the tipping point in their own struggle.

Should we be covering these things in the media openly?

I remember the days when celebrities were dying and no one would talk about the disease that killed them - AIDS.

There was so much shame and disgrace associated with that disease then. If you had AIDS, it was because of your choices, your lifestyle. It was your fault.

Mental illness carries the same disgusting labels and prejudice. Often its much worse. We are convinced we are weak, broken, less than everyone else. I’ve lost a lot of people in my life since I checked myself into that hospital. People I loved, whom I thought loved me.

We must discuss it openly and beat down that stigmatism. But we have to look around, watch the people we love who are struggling and make sure they know you love them as they are. You accept them as they are. Not in spite of their illness, not because of who they have the potential to be, and not because of the great person you think they will be when they get over their illness.

Replace “mentally ill” with “has cancer” and re-read that last paragraph. We must treat the mentally ill like they have a disease. We must treat them the same way we would expect to treat someone with cancer.

Neither one is a choice. But many of the mentally ill must find a reason to choose not to kill themselves at times like this.

Be that reason for someone.

You will never be responsible if someone chooses to kill themselves, that is their disease and their tolerance for it.

But you can be responsible for someone choosing to live.

Everyone’s fighting something.

That happy-go-lucky guy at the office chokes down a handful of pills everyday so he won’t kill himself.

That successful, has-it-all-together, fit woman at the office can’t eat without suffering debilitating pain and spends her night curled up in bed.

That loving grand-mother in the park has spent her life overcoming nightly visits as a child from her own grand-father.

One of those basketball players on the court just there sits in a hospital ward 3 times a week for dialysis, and another lost her father at the age of 3

Everyone is fighting something.

Every life has a story we will never get to read.

Yeah, sometimes that person is just an asshole, but sometimes its just how those hidden stories bleed.

When we’re young we wait for the great healing event that will fix all our pain. The myth of after.

Time heals all.

Wait until you get a bit older.

Once you get out of school.

When you’re an adult.

But the pain endures. Time deadens but doesn’t heal shit. That’s not something that happens, that’s something we have to go and get. It ain’t coming to us on its own.

But we hang on to that concept like a thirsty man to a dirty water bottle. We await the great event as they continue to pass without our pain even slowing down.

Once I find my soulmate.

After I get that promotion.

Once I earn a hundred K.

Once I’m a writer.

If I only had that car, that woman, that house, that look - those fucking abs.

Even then, we’re all fighting something.

But the pain endures. Time deadens but doesn’t heal shit. That’s not something that happens, that’s something we have to go and get. It ain’t coming to us on its own.

“You’re always so happy whenever I see you around here,” she said. And I smiled and laughed with her.

“Yeah,” I added, “it sure seems that way.”

It’s funny.

Do you know why some dogs become so strongly territorial and aggressive? From little rat-dogs to pit bulls and German shepherds? Why they become controlling and neurotic – unbalanced?

Are they alphas?

Are they genetically wired to take charge and be that way?

No.

Actually, its quite the opposite.

Outside of abusive or dangerous upbringings, most true Alpha dogs are calm and balanced. In control but not controlling. They are comfortable, knowing that they are where they should be, leading, protecting, deciding.

The trouble starts when there is no Alpha.

When dogs need that calm, strong, and confident force around them to be truly comfortable, but can’t find one in their pack, or in their lives. It’s in these circumstances that dogs who don’t have the drive, need, and composure to be a real Alpha, feel they are forced to become one.

There must be one for them.

They can only be content, be happy within that strict social order.

Leader – followers.

Protector - pack.

Without any other option, these dogs try to be the top dog – the leader.

They assume the empty role and try to exert control over a situation they find unbearably chaotic. But they lack the calm, stable, confident outlook and world view that would allow them to be comfortable enough in the chaos to lead others through it.

They cannot become the thing they so desperately need for themselves.

That’s when dogs become strongly territorial, aggressive, and unstable. They are raging against the chaos, trying to vanquish it, defeat it. And the harder they try, the more they realize they are losing. They are not in control.

They need an Alpha, because that dog understands you can’t vanquish, defeat or control circumstance. You have to accept the chaos as it is, as life is, and control what you can – your actions, reactions, and your beliefs.

Its then, when they let the pack know that it’s OK, that someone understands how it all works, that the rest of the pack can become confident, believe they can handle the chaos, and settle into their lives in a comfortable way.

I've always pushed myself to lead.

So have others in my life.

I'm not sure I have it in me right now. Maybe I need to follow for a bit?

I once slew dragons.

Endless dragons.

Rode recklessly into battles

Of mine

Of others.

Needed or not.

Wanted or not.

Trekked fearlessly into forbidden woods.

Stood by for others

Friend

Stranger

And foe.

Suffered slings and arrows.

Explored unknown lands.

Earned scars.

Took beatings.

Stood alone.

Fought.

So many scars.

It was never easy

This epic

This life.

But I endured.

Continued.

Fought.

Won – less.

Lost – more.

Found comfort.

Offered more.

Indulged.

Two truths in all the chaos.

Undoubted.

Unexamined.

Unassailable.

I got back up.

I fought again.

And again.

Found my footing.

Pushed forward.

Always.

In that chaos.

From the loss.

Two truths.

When others were overwhelmed

I thrived.

And I survived.

I thrived.

And I survived.

Now.

I am a body broken.

A spirit bowed.

A life remiss.

I fear dragons now.

I succumb.

Survival – a faint and sour reward.

To live in the sun.

Full.

Sated.

With grace

And peace.

Love

And belonging.

That is my battle.

Defeat fear.

Live full.

Survival alone feeds only an anorexic soul.

There's a white woman in her 50s, I think, sitting across from me on the City bus. She's wearing a long, dirty, green coat, about three sizes too big, and far too warm for today's weather. Her grey-streaked hair hasn't been cleaned in weeks, and the smell suggests neither she nor her clothes have either.

She's making herself as small as she can. Her shoulders rolled forward, head down and her hands are gripping a small plastic bag with a few belongings in it on her lap. She leans away from the aisle and into the window and wall of the bus.

She sits still, not moving. Uncomfortably still, not trying to get comfortable. Her hands are shaking noticeably in her lap and her mouth and side of her face twitch randomly, almost like she's chatting about something the rest of us can't see. Shouldn't see.

I wonder how far I am from being her. How close was I, when I was really off-balance, living at the shelter. Watching homeless men openly despair, and broken kids tweaking and OD'ing on fentanyl in a horrifying seizure, carted away from the church dinner in an ambulance.

Have I escaped her suffering and state of being? Will I ever see that?

I want to touch her shoulder and say, "don't give up. Keep fighting. Keep moving," quietly so the rest of the bus doesn't hear, doesn't notice her more. But I don't. I know how big a trigger touch, or a stranger can be.

But really, I'm just not that generous. I'm selfish. I want her to fight, to make it in my mind, so that I can believe that I will. That I have a chance. It's my shoulder I'm aching to touch and it's my ear that wants to hear, "don't give up. Keep fighting. Keep moving," from myself.

From anyone.

There is something I lost along the way. Something vital. In some past version of me in a cyber punk graphic novel reality where I could truly feel, was part of some deep, organic tribe of found love and true passion for that whole. I suffered a heavy, devastating, unremembered loss that blew me into a plain, mundane, Douglas Copeland indifferent reality with the force shockwave of that loss.

I had it this morning in my dream and struggled so hard to force myself awake and to just remember. That world. That woman. Those writers who inspired me. Who I was when I was there, but I just can’t. In that world I was frantic that I had to wake up, now. Fuck I had to remember. Further Connection. A song. Lyrics. Further Connection. A key to the whole thing.

But that’s all I’ve been able to keep with me. The rest faded like a soap bubble popping on a table and leaving only the little rainbow sheen on the surface.

Beep beep beep. Beeeep. Beep beep.

Beep beep beep. Beeeep. Beep beep.

Beep beep beep. Beeeep. Beep beep.

"Do you know what that noise is," he asked with a smile and nodding his head toward the plastic bin. "That beeping from the box. Know what it is?"

Every 10 or 20 seconds it starts again.

We're sitting on a couple of comfortable office desk chairs, an unplugged massage pad on mine, in a nondescript workshop, the last at the end of a row of identical units. Concrete floors, bare drywall, and a gold-coloured mini-van surrounded by workbenches, tools and stretchers. A couple doors leading to more finished rooms in front of the van.

He's thin, middle-aged. A chain smoker. Close-cropped hair and a clean-shaven face. Well dressed in a black suit, with a textured grey tie. You have to look closely to notice the cargo pockets on the pants, or the steel-toe dress shoes.

My imagination can't process the black-humoured possibilities. "I have no idea," I say with a smirk and a hesitant tone.

It's his turn to smirk now, he knows he's going to love the effect so he pauses and let's the moment linger.

"It's the pace-makers," he points to his chest just below his clavicle, "they have to come out before we send 'em for cremation." He takes a big breath as he starts another cigarette.

"After I collect a bunch I send 'em down to a university in Michigan. I guess they refurbish them and send 'em to a needier part of the world."