Eulogy of Hope?
I’m sorry
I’m sorry for being
Unable to care
For myself.
A vibrant intellectual life,
An empty vessel of inneptitute
Poisoning the mind of what has been,
But no more.
No more.
Like a ghost haunting the world,
A swing rocks back and forth
No one on it.
The bed sags under the weight of lost dreams
The chair breaks as the hopelessness masses upon the doors to the psyche.
“What is hope?”
The phrase has become a mantra,
Repeated and repeated
Reflecting on the nature of hope.
“We’re close,”
But are we?
We’ve said that before
Brain tumor
Heart failure
Low testosterone
A body falling apart
The body refusing to act its age.
60 year old body in a 29 year old.
“Bullsh**,” “But you don’t look sick,”
The mantras of others bear down like bags of rocks tied to my feet
As I try to tread for water.
Sinking, falling, tired.
So tired.
So f****** tired
of all of this.
“We’ll figure this out,” “I promise I won’t give up,”
They say until they can’t and they give up
“I don’t know what it is,
But something’s wrong.”
Ladif****** dah motherf*****.
One says everything’s fine,
The second finds heart failure
One says everything looks good,
The second finds a brain tumor.
Many say “your fat,”
I ask them to elaborate,
But they recognize they can’t.
Hope?
What is it?
Is there any point?
Dysautonomia because:
I don’t sweat
I am so confused
I can’t remember things
I can’t regulate temperature.
I don’t do these things,
They are automatic.
Or at least they should be.
But they don’t.
I feel abandoned.
But not by people,
Which is a first.
I have been abandoned by my body,
Betrayed to live a life of non existence
Of non substance.
Several years ago,
I presented at conferences all of the country
I had been accepted to present in Scotland
I had published several things
I had an active blog
I was going to school
I was learning.
Now,
Now I sit in my chair or lay in my bed,
Hoping to god or the devil or whoever may listen,
Recognizing no one is,
That it will end.
That they will figure out what I have
And I have a name
A hope in the form of others who have it
A community.
A new part of my identity.
There is a possibility
That something will happen
But that has been the case with 48 other doctors before
51 before the summer ends.
51 and that’s it?
Maybe
Ho...