To flee from memory

| 2024-04-17 

To flee from memory
Had we the Wings
Many would fly
Inured to slower things
Birds with surprise
Would scan the cowering Van
Of men escaping
From the mind of man

Emily Dickinson





I have a past. Once, I had a mother and a father and a sister. I had a first husband. I had a baby in my belly. I was in love with a soccer-playing waiter. I had a dog. They’re all dead. I am overwhelmed, usually because I’m on the floor, and everything is tall. I’m so hungry that when I try to eat I just puke, naturally. My throat and my fingers have been on a break. I feel like I’m washing away. I feel like a melting pile of snow. I feel like I should be in the forest, climbing redwood trees. I feel like I need a nap but I can’t sleep. I want to feel because I don’t know. I want to die. I want to live. I want to live a different life. I want to write something good. And I want to write something well. But I don’t know what good is, and I’m convinced that nobody knows what is good. I want to stop dwelling in the comprehensive state of my racing pulse, my speedy heartbeat. My mother’s voice. I am forty-three. My mother died when she was forty-three. She died right after surgery to remove her brain tumor. She didn’t make it. The last time I saw her, she was on a gurney, sedated, her long, curly brown hair looking like it was being mulled into a cap. I watched her being pushed, under a blanket, on the gurney, through blue hospital doors, that closed. That was the last time I saw my mother breathing. Two days later I saw my mother again. She was in a hospital room, dead. Her bed was against the east facing wall, and there was only one bed in the room. Her Stanford Hospital room window gave a view of a parking lot in Palo Alto. It was the Nordstrom’s parking lot for the Stanford Shopping Center. My mother still had that cap on her head. It was the only time I ever saw my mother’s hair look so lifeless. The walls were also blue.





1978 Trinidad, Ca. Dear Mother- Thanks for your nice long letter. Michelle wanted to send you the deer she colored & cut out, so I’m writing you a note to go with it. She doesn’t like to color between lines & needs to practice that & cutting with scissors to prepare for printing letters on the lines. The teacher says she goes too fast. I’m so glad I go once a week so I can see what she’s doing & where she needs help. She is also working on recognizing what letter a word starts with, by sound.









 







Tell Don’t Show
 


 | 
2024-04-14








I’ve been here working in the yard. It’s all clear now – only a few vines & I’ve started planting vegetables and flowers. I’m starting everything from seeds.





Kathleen, 1981





​My brain is just a bunch of weeds. Dried up, crispy, sun-fried, brittle. I am forty-three. My mother died when she was forty-three. She died right after surgery to remove her brain tumor. The last time I saw her, alive, she was on a gurney, sedated, her long, curly brown hair looking like it was being mulled into a cap. I watched her being pushed, under a blanket, on the gurney, through blue hospital doors, that closed. Quietly. That was the last time I saw my mother breathing. Two days later I saw my mother again. She was in a hospital room, dead. Her bed was against the east facing wall, and there was only one bed in the room. I learned that there were always only one bed in those rooms. The dead people rooms. Dead people and machines that should be beeping and moving. The machines in those rooms were also dead. 





The only other time I felt this shaken was in 1990.  Behind the shuddering glass at the one-hour-photo, where I worked. That was the ‘89 earthquake. Everything shook, rolled, dropped, broke. Seventeen seconds of rolling destruction. Everything seemed to be wanting to be pulled under the surface of the earth. And invisible force. It was such a quiet, deafening shaking. Like now. Like inside of me now. Looking at my dead mother. Like now. Me. Standing there in a ray of sunlight, on the weirdly soft hospital floor. Always, hospital floors were weirdly quiet. The wheels of wheelchairs and gurneys were loud. Rolling around, squeaking. Everything was always, it seemed, rolling. I felt more shaken by how little I felt as I looked at her, sleeping without breathing. She still had that cap on her head. It was the only time I ever saw my mother’s hair look so lifeless.





​Today, I am alive, technically. I often wonder if my mother and I had brains that weren’t built to work for more than forty-three years.





I want to see flowers. I want to feel warm water. I want to feel waves crashing against my back. I feel stupid. I feel smart. Do I feel smart because I’m so stupid? “Feelings” are supposed to be shown, not told, when writing. I want to feel happy. I want to eat. I want to know. I want my hair to not fall out. I need a break. I need a brain. I want a break that lasts me the rest of my life and beyond. I don’t want to remember being eight years old with my gymnastic teacher’s hands in my pants. I’ve been working for something since I could walk to school by myself. I want my hair back. I want my life back. I want a sandwich. I want ice-cream. I want to eat without puking into the nearest toilet. I want to sleep. Forever. I want to live happily. Indefinitely. I want to hold my newborn son. Every fuckin’ day. I want to be in love and mean it. I want to hide in a lake. I want to hide with fish. I want to write about people who exist, and who are good. Instead I’m swimming fiercely in shallow water. My knees hit rocks. I taste blood. I remember the metallic, plastic, blasting sound of my typewriter smashing cement after I threw it over my balcony. Little brown buttons with letters in a dark courier font splattered the ground. H and I, two stated.





When the typewriter hit the concrete, the black ribbon spool still pressed against paper. After it thudded, I remember brown leaves drifting around my brown typewriter, like ballerinas, floating in the blasted air. I want to see the brown leaves drifting across the scuffled concrete of my patio. I want to look between the brown patio stairs and see the ground. I want to hear the shuffling sound of shoes as people walk on the other side of the fence, unaware of what they’re missing over here.





Michelle, 2016





September, 1979





Dear Mother/Maga,





Meanwhile, at night, when you lie in bed, concentrate on the areas that bother you (your sinuses) let your mind sort of float through your sinuses. Then feel that the spirit of the lord is flowing there, soothing & healing – drying up your sinuses (you can even try it at work when you are troubled). You can ask Him to remove the pain. Just say, “Please, Jesus, take away my suffering.” Just try it.





-Kathy





 







Crazy As Fuck
 


 | 
2024-04-14








Michelle Kathleen O’Kane Feisty shares her journey of using alcohol as a coping mechanism after being diagnosed with hereditary hemochromatosis. The lack of routine testing for this disease in the U.S. leads to delayed diagnoses, often causing individuals to turn to alcohol for self-medication. Michelle’s struggle with alcohol and subsequent health issues, including hepatic encephalopathy, are detailed. Despite feeling isolated and misunderstood, a friend’s candid observation prompts her to stop drinking in 2018. While medication helps manage her erratic heartbeat, she acknowledges the limitations of alcohol and embraces sobriety. Michelle, also known as Feisty, describes herself as a complex, sarcastic person dealing with iron overload, finding solace in knitting.










This bio was generated by AI. Crazy as fuck. Like me.