the moments  Stacco Troncoso, Madrid Smeared In regards to what I’m feeling right now, And if we were to take rearguard action, Within these halls of contemplations, And without the snap of the strings of annihilation, As a token of verbosity, I’ll leave you hanging from my promises. If you ever again believe me But if you ever dare break me, Wouldn’t and couldn’t we, make these verses simpler? Once upon a time, I’d light candles with a whisper It is what it was, but now it’s so much more complex, isn’t it? How we laugh at our creditors in this hour, ticking away from the heart This is all I want, in my hour of shame.
Electricity, water, your attention smeared. Stacco Troncoso These Haunted Halls What is it like? I wish to describe my current mental state. This is of course rather difficult as it necessarily involves describing something about myself from the inside. As in any set of objects they are most easily differentiated from the outside and most difficult to understand from the outside. Describing therefore unifies these problems as it is an inside differentiation and an outside comprehension is required. The mind is a wonderful thing. Powerful and exquisite in what seems to a naive anatomical observer such as myself to be quite uniform and simple in nature. Here of course I am equating the brain with the mind which is a technicality ridden equivalence but I digress. My mind in particular has gone through many strange phases. At one point I could not speak of my own accord, and this was established (as well as such things can be) to be psychosomatic in nature, and not one of the more normative aphasia cases. At another point I could not move of my own accord for similar reasons. This was at the time quite frightening though now when it irregularly recurs I don't generally have issues unless it seems to idle in its presence and refuse to leave after about an hour or so. What I fear now is much more abstract, and the fear itself is much more subtle. The fear that I felt associated with the loss of ability was straightforward enough I think. The fear of not being able to function again, the fear that death is an impending fate (more so than usual), and the fear of the unknown. But the fear I currently feel is much different. My memory has been in decline, though I'm not sure monotonic, since I began to be medicated. Fair enough, one might say, to blame it on the medication. This would be normally a reasonable suggestion, except that with the aphasia and paralysis states I had recently experienced, a decline in mental functioning because of whatever it is that goes on in my mind seems probable, in fact more probable. My cognitive skills in general are in decline, perhaps infinitesimal, perhaps exaggerated, I don't know. It is in human nature to be selfish at least in the sense that everything one can only operate in their own mental sphere. For my mathematics friends out there, I am well aware that many of the words here are ill-defined to say the least, but I am not out to make a rigorous argument, unfortunately in such matters rigor is not possible as I cannot axiomatize myself for difficulty in differentiation from the norm, nor can others for difficulty in differentiation from the norm relative to themselves. Maybe I have become lazy. At least to some degree this may quite well be true. But it would be the same sort of "laziness" that results when one is overwhelmed by the idea that they cannot do what is required of them and hence don't bother. However I have discovered that in this case those who have this "laziness" in things like math and programming aren't being "lazy" in the normal sense. It is a strong idea that success is unachievable, and working beyond this idea is extremely difficult and any problems encountered only stiffen the idea. So what's the fear? This is what I might call a "creeping fear", that is the fear of something that is happening not stopping or getting worse. So rather than the immediate fear encountered with suddenly inability to speak, this is a fear that lags around and manifests as something like a proverbial "voice in my head". I do not hear a voice literally, but it is similar to the apprehension one might have in a house that has all the characteristics of a "haunted" house. Except in this case, the ghosts are real, and I do not know whether I will ever be free. In fact, my guess is that I will not, but that I may be able to acclimate myself to the surroundings... the fear then is that this will not occur and I will become the literal avatar of "The Scream" by Edvard Munch. And so I wander through the halls... ***************************** Michael, California, Computer Programer
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Past, Present, Future .jpg.opt275x361o0,0s275x361.jpg) Jennifer Guidry, Louisiana Joy  Jennifer Guidry Flowers Series       Rick DeHaven  Stacco Troncoso circles  Stacco Troncoso |
 Rick DeHaven, Delaware Nameless Graves or A Letter to My Child Dear Petunia, (for this is what my mother calls me, and what I’m sure I will have called you), I write this so that you may know, what may strike terror in some should strike joy in others. You carry a gift inside you that most people can never possess, though at times it may seem to you like some shameful contamination. People fear what they do not understand. But that is not the last of it. For they tell themselves they do not understand what they fear. We are an active embodiment of everything they know to be true in themselves. We live in a world of extremity, one that threatens their concepts of self-control, of reality, of sanity. But, as Virginia Woolf, my lifelong mentor, says, “The eyes of others are our prisons; their thoughts our cages.” We cannot judge ourselves based on the judgment of others. We cannot let their fears dictate our worth. They cannot devalue our expression of humanity.
I am sure that by the time you read this, you will have heard me quote Virginia as the pious quote the Bible. Through her I learned what beauty comes from madness. Clearly, I cannot claim to have overcome the craving for mania. I am on my way, though. Hopefully, by your present now, I will have internalized how important it is to maintain a healthy, balanced lifestyle for the sake of my future. Maybe my best tactic will be to think of you. After all, She does say, “To enjoy freedom we have to control ourselves.”
But I will stop being so indulgent. I apologize. This letter is not for me. I can only speak to you of what I know to be true now, though there is much I have yet to learn. Death captured the nights of my childhood. I did not name it as such, but I would practice reaching it, thinking that if I could experience it, it would leave me alone. It was a sort of love affair. There is a Chinese proverb that says, at the bottom of sadness is love. When you feel wrapped in emptiness, when the inevitability of nonexistence overwhelms you, remember your present moment. Embrace the depth of your conviction and use it to appreciate all there is to love. Think of three things of beauty right now. Inhale them. Exhale them. Now pieces of them are inside you. Collect beauty.
Please do not tame your passion. As Virginia says, “I thought how unpleasant it is to be locked out; and I thought how it is worse, perhaps, to be locked in.” As long as you are not hurting yourself or others, go for it. And of course you will sometimes hurt yourself. You will go sleepless for nights on end. Or do drugs. Or go on a sex binge. Or overturn kitchen tables. Or spend obscene amounts of money. Or cut. Or beat down your spirit with mental self-destruction.
This leads to the portion on medication. I hate the stuff. I hope you have not been guinea-pigged around like me. You speak up for what you need. Mental health professionals will try to tell you what you really want. Most of them don’t know their ass from their elbow. But they know a sad face from a happy face. Either you are depressed or you are manic. Both can send them into fits of indulgent maternalism. If your girlfriend just broke up with you, you are automatically assumed to be suicidal. If you have sex you are automatically assumed to be promiscuous. I hate that word. If anyone ever calls you that, I give you full permission to spit right in their face, unless they would hurt you for it. Please be careful deciding in who you trust. Make them work for it. And the ones who deserve your trust, hold onto them tight.
I realize I have begun to put on my bitter tone. I should try to sound as objective as possible. But it’s best to show you what you come from. As I’m sure you know, there is bitterness and fury and despair. Only recently, I heard a professor say, “Maybe Romeo was bipolar. I mean, he did murder someone.” I just heard a story from my friend, another bipolar baby, who recently visited a sanitorium and, behind it, a cemetery. Just numbers carved into stone. Nameless graves. This is what you come from. Vincent Van Gogh, Sylvia Plath, Ludwig van Beethoven, Edgar Allen Poe, Winston Churchill, Virginia Woolf. “Someone has to die in order that the rest of us should value life more,” She says. Remember your sisters and brothers and cherish what can now be yours. Consider it your duty not to let them take it from you. Don’t give them reason to. You know what they don’t want to know and what they wish they could know.
But what is seen from outside is not at the root of that so-called contamination. It is how you see yourself that will determine how you survive. As Virginia says, “it is far more difficult to murder a phantom than a reality.” While the ferocity of your emotions may scare you at times, your intensity need not be a curse. You have access to realms of creativity and passion beyond the reach of most. You travel across realities unbeknownst to the common mind. My, my, I sound like quite the mood disorder elitist, don’t I?
“You cannot find peace by avoiding life.” Don’t stifle your secrets. Spread word of your thoughts. Give note to the sound of ideas sliding against one another in your mind. Let no one steal your voice from you, for the songs you sing possess the secrets of the soul. Love you, Mom Anonymous |
