This love and life are schizophrenic
confusing and bizarre
a psychotic freight train run-a-mok
searching for its freight train cars

This love and life are melancholia
contradictory depths and shallows
understated hyperbole
its verdant fields all fallow

This love and life are so neurotic
too bad – too good – too much – too small
plod and slog along that edge
‘til through the cracks we fall

This love and life are paranoid
para-normal even
monsters lurk ’round every corner
something to believe in

This love and life are anxious
fear this – fear that – fear self
hide that heart way up on high
up on the highest shelf

This love and life are O C D
chaos seeks control
prim and perfect to appear
lest the death knell tolls

This love and life are risky
unsafe and oh-so-perilous
jump to me – come off that ledge
else each breath be but vicarious

~Marcela; unfinished
For my work kid Einstein, with so much gratitude that we get to keep flying in the Tardis together, and all the others who have walked the edge, stood on the ledge, and for those who jumped and didn’t have us to catch them, in time.
October 24, 2015

This past week the Universe conspired to connect so many experiences and events in the various worlds I occupy; with a semi-colon. In the wee hours of another fitful and anxious night I struggled to turn off the demons; the ones I bring home from work more often than not. Those of the work-folks I care for so deeply, and my own. At four a.m. it was clear that the demons were not to be tamed, so I chose to get up and write them out in the form of this ditty. Later that morning I came upon the art and heart of one John Finn and found another kindred spirit via my big brother Tom. That work day consisted of 9 relatively unexpected hours in a hospital with the 12-year-old work kid I will call Einstein. The demons were so loud, so overwhelming, that this brilliant and beautiful child wanted to die. I need to get one, a semi-colon tattoo; for Einstein, for me, for you, for all the work-kids, for their parents, for so many people I have known and loved, for Marilyn, for Robin Williams, for Dorothy Parker and for Sylvia Plath, just some of the people who move me so deeply, long after their time here ran out. Get one too? Come on, I double-dog-dare you!

Image: “Pause” Courtesy of the Über-talented John Finn.