ode to confusion

Confusion
like peppermint in the oregano patch
like a child waking up
at the new babysitter’s.
The perfection of a madness
when dishes go in the bathroom
and cell phones in the freezer.

Keep your eye on the car keys. . .

The confusion of brain cells dying
like lemmings off cliffs.
Wear of hope,
longing for perfection,
and reaching,
reaching,
reaching. . .

Where memory touches
dreams –
touches movies
and stories
but the "I" stringing it all together
gets
mis-
placed (?)

Confusion creeps in
and takes
thoughts
leaving
empty s p a c e s
just to antagonize.

Leaving us
gasping for air
and wishing,
wishing,
she (I, we?) was the tidy
slightly disorganized
person
that she (I, we?) used to be
instead of this new
unpredictable
kind of
crazy.

writing

I remember sitting under the umbrella in the shade with 9 other people and writing.
I remember the way the ants crawled on the table.
I remember how the little yellow forklift sat next door and there were bails of straw stacked up behind the Vision office.
I remember the quality of blue in the sky – a light, almost smokey blue and the sun was just barely blocked by the peak of the terra-cotta colored roof.
I remember sitting on the hill above my house with friends and talking about life, the universe and the nature of things, while looking over the valley at the canyons I could only know were there but not see, and let the falling stars wash through my retinas and fall into the pool of memory that is a brain/collection of neurons – which are the same neurons that are failing in her brain; I have no idea what I should be doing to help.
It breaks my heart – and all the stupid things that everyone forgets every day is further proof of her disease and we are all pretending, pretending, pretending to be okay. To be fine – to not be absolutely heartbroken by this world and all the suffering that is just part of being human and all the suffering that we cause one another unintentionally and otherwise.
And this.
This I remember.
This being human – this ache that is vast and laps upon the void.
And sometimes it’s hard to tell where one begins and ends and it’s a free-fall into the vastness that is also held by this body and gravity and this world.
And sometimes, that just doesn’t feel like it’s enough.