I reflect

on what’s coming;

the funeral.

I remember

when I was made

to feel badly

by my father’s other

that my mother

had bought a car.

That child

support

money had bought a car.

Which was false,

but it didn’t matter.

I was made

to feel badly.

That I should

be held responsible

for being born.

That I was a burden.

Who says that to a child?

To me?

I was made

to feel badly

that I had to leave

Christmas early.

That it was

my fault

that my family was broken.

“I wish you would stay.”

I was emplored

as if I could do anything

but feel badly.

I remember

calling

my father

and telling him that my roommate

couldn’t make rent,

and that I couldn’t cover it

and would be evicted;

no place to go.

“I’ll get back to you.”

I was made

to feel badly

for my roommates poor budgeting.

“No can do.” The decision

made by the other,

obviously

without fight.

I guess

I’ll just get evicted.

I remember breaking

up with a girl

I was living with.

I asked to stay

with my father

until I found a new place;

a couple of weeks at most.

One day

I stayed home from work,

sick.

I sat at the office computer

and saw a chat open

between my father

and the other;

odd.

It was live.

She told him,

“He hasn’t even said thank you for staying here.”

I was pretty sure

I had,

but

being self-reflective

and not a fucking asshole,

I immediately went to her office

and told her,

“Thank you

for letting me stay here for a few days.

I feel badly

if I haven’t said it.”

Seemed fine enough to me.

And I was sincerely grateful.

I went back to the

office computer.

“WHAT DID YOU SAY TO HIM”

“I WANT HIM OUT OF HERE TONIGHT”

Was all she said to my father.

That night

I was made

to feel badly

that I had lingered too long.

And I left.

I remember

my father calling from Colombia,

“We’re adopting a girl.”

First I’d heard of it.

Now estranged,

as intentional as any of the rest of it.

I remember

my father leaving

Colorado

without telling me.

And I remember

writing

grandma.

Telling her that I no longer felt

a part of the family.

That my father’s other

had excised me.

And that I didn’t know what to do.

I received no support

from anyone,

save the useless

murmurings,

“Your letter made me sad.

I wish you would get along.”

As if that were somehow

my choice.

Then no more.

Instead I chose

another path

where no longer

I was made

to feel badly.

Voluntary exile.

Complete disassociation

from expectation.

“Call more, sometime.”

I’d be advised;

commanded;

attempted

to be made

to feel badly.

But now

no more.

Replaced instead

with anger.

Anger that I,

as a child

should ever

have been made

to feel badly.

Barely restrained rage

takes the place

of those attempts

at guilt.

I’ve grown

too strong

in my knowing

I was actually made

to feel love.

And I do,

and I feel not

for those ichor-hearted others.

But now I do feel

anger;

the impending funeral

looms.

A ravageous plow

tills my past,

unearthing calcified

failures done to me;

long buried.

I should like

to throw them

hard,

bone splintering

and bloody

to their owners.

“Remember,”

I’d whisper,

“this?”

Anger unbound

and unbridled

and unrestrained

and unrelenting

I hurl

those memories,

to scar.

Grandma’s death

rains clouds

of unresolved daggers,

piercing

all the things she did not know,

but never asked.

I’ll allow this

until it is over.

And I will never

return to the farm.

It is done.

The chapter finished.

No,

the book.

She journaled

as long as I can remember.

I always thought

it was strange

how impossible

her handwriting was

despite daily practice.

I don’t think she knew

I wrote too.

Though I know

my handwriting

is impossible

so I do this

instead.

What’s left to say

of a life

complete?

Our last words,

“I love, love, love you,”

she said.

“I love you too, grandma, so much.”

As I walked to the hallway

knowing

it would be the last.

What’s left to say

of a life

complete?

This morning I mused

between Roko

and UBI,

fueled

by pain.

Apparently,

giving up chocolate

stops pain

or some such nonsense.

It’s a bit more complicated

but is it?

I think I need to take the afternoon

to charge batteries

for tomorrow.

I need to be

sharp

tomorrow.

We’re talking about change

tomorrow.

I see that it is no small irony

that I am partially the reason

we are talking about it.

The things I push for,

dragging

others

kicking and screaming

into the future.

Well,

not so dramatic as all that,

but metaphorically accurate

enough.

I have held onto

some failure of thought

that Utopia

is possible.

That if others could just be

like me

that we would be

better.

I don’t know if it is possible

to conceive of

a more arrogant thought.

I don’t think I’m wrong

anymore

than anyone else thinks the same.

Difference is the problem.

Irreconcilable inertia

of culture,

of history,

of time.

So instead of a Utopia

where we all have the same

tollerance

for change,

instead I have to be sharp

tomorrow

to discuss it.

I understand my role.

I understand that I am the problem.

I also understand

that the future is better

for having me in the present.

I had a whole Monday off

yesterday.

I read a book.

I had a light workout.

I changed the filter.

I wrote for hours.

I cheered for my team.

I baked some bread.

I played a game.

I supported my wife.

I felt the need

today

to celebrate

yesterday

when most of my writing

lately

has been complaining

about this and that.

I even started my day

in a bad mood,

but managed

to turn it around.

Three day weekends

for sanity.

I can’t wait

to retire.

I’ve heard that

some people

lose their meaning

in retirement.

I can’t imagine

a life

where I’m bored-

I have too much life to live

and not enough time for it.

Haven’t these people

seen a library

before?

I suppose it is more difficult

when you don’t worship

letters.

But still-

there’s something

for everyone.

This morning was,

am,

overly introspective

if that’s a thing.

Maybe the word

overly

is

overly judgmental.

Whatever.

I think something about losing

last night

and tossing and turning

and tossing and turning

and waking sore and tired

has something to do with it.

Or maybe it’s the wind,

incessant,

unstoppable,

irritating,

cold.

I could reach for a metaphor there,

but I won’t.

Too easy.

Too trite.

Maybe that’s

overly judgmental too.

Because my thoughts

flowing unevenly, crashing

as much like waves

as like wind

isn’t the worst metaphor

for a morning like this.

Incessant.

Unstoppable.

Irritating.

Cold.

Though I feel sharp regardless,

like thoughts could cut,

but into what?

I developed a useful guide for my team;

refined and carefully considered.

Quality.

I feel some sense of pride of work

because I know it is good.

Sharp.

Though it is a rare problem

it is an elegant troubleshoot, and

I have solved it

for all.

And I sit in satisfaction

though others are unlikely to appreciate

its quality,

its sharpness

as I do.

What have I cut into?

Why have I cut into?

Overly introspective

perhaps

was apt.

I have a change management training coming up. It is based on the ADKAR ProSci model. I actually like this model- I had a similar training many years ago when I first started at the Division. I even read the book. There’s a small amount of “pre-work” for the training: think of a personal change I’d like to make, and think of a change impacting my work. Work change is easy- I’m driving more of it than everyone I know, likely to the chagrin of my peers. I’ll happily drag them all into a better future, though I think I’m cursed with some kind of foresight that others lack. It makes me good at what I do, but gives me no small amount of pain.

Personal change is harder. Not that it is harder to think of something- I’m well aware of my multitude of flaws, but that it is harder to just “be” different. I’ve been driven by goals and advancement for… ever. I find a lack of focus and discipline from simply doing my job. I’ve always wanted to be this, or to be that, but now I am this and that and I find myself lacking a direction of what to be next. I guess that’s why I’m always looking for new projects. I lack stillness. I find guilt in stillness- a perennial restlessness due to a lifetime of training for “tomorrow.” Brave New World’s soma isn’t a threat or a fear, it seems like a gift to release from this incessant need to look forward. My curse.

Today, for example, I’ve wasted near an entire morning, loathing my simple duties. I have no interest because they are simply the status quo- they do not drive toward anything that I do not already foresee. Some find comfort in the routine- my mother is like this. I think some enlightened student of the mind might find some connection between us, and my unavoidable rejection of routine. But the reason for the outcome is irrelevant. So I lack focus and a direction for my ambition for ambition.

So I’m asked to think of a personal change, and I wonder whether I really want to change any of this about myself. My curse is my edge, as it were, and I shouldn’t really like to lose it. But then, it seems, I’m destined for days like this where I lament and wax obnoxiously instead of just doing my simple tasks.

This is all far too long to fit into the little box where they’d like my little thoughts on what little things I’d like to change about myself. So I’ll just tell them I’d like to write more. They may ask what I write about, “this and that,” maybe I’ll say. The truth is maybe too personal, not that I actually write about anything in particular. I probably whine more than I should, but my unguided curse beckons. What else is there to write about?

The fight was fought.

Never leaving the farm

but for a moment

to return

to the end.

Almost 30 years

since the same fight

took him;

in the same place

at the end.

No fear

in her confidence

of the end.

I hope she is right,

and the next chapter

is everything she knows to be true.

And in that walk

the end is new.

Last night there was a windstorm.

Hollydog maybe hates the wind

more than I do.

But not by much.

I slept fitfully

with earplugs.

And I dreamt.

What is the reverse of a nightmare?

Some emotional high;

wordless.

I don’t even know what it was about,

just a feeling.

Random unknown

and wordless.

Then waking,

startled to the wind

and general discomforts.

Feeling like something was taken away.

Starting like a child

with unbothered history

chasing butterflies;

with nothing getting in the way

of that joy.

To something more real-

stress

and gravity.

That jarring sensation

with my typical headache

and poor sleep-

there is a reason

I try to forget

my dreams.

I’m pretty sure that I got it from

a baby.

Like a literal baby.

Bunch of nonsense.

Now

as I sit and try to type

my nose

drips

drips

drips,

and it is driving me insane

insane

insane.

I acknowledge

the vanity of writing.

Specifically my writing,

this writing.

Writing

as an art

is beautiful

and useful.

Some writing is beautiful and useful.

This

is not.

This

is vanity.

The idea that this writing

does anything

more than allow me to move thoughts to permanence

is vanity.

But I’ll allow it.

For myself.

But now I find myself in need of a justification

for vanity,

lest I lean on it as a weakness of will,

which I hate.

Expression,

as vanity,

appears to clean the house of my mind

and makes room for other

better

things.

Or at least cleans the detritus

to be filled anew.

In that

it isn’t what is written

but the act of that is important.

Apparently,

then,

I can write whatever I want

in vanity,

and a clean house justifies. Neat.

Hippopotamus.

Electron.

Fields of seeding grass.

Cleanliness.