i got hard breath.
beatbeatbeat goes the heart but faster so they overlap. can you imagine?
painPAINpain, comes and goes across my chest down my legs, up out my fingers through my mouth until it's not air but sick and blood.
crycry goes wifey in the corner on a couch of a dark room wondering why.
prior condition went the insurance company and gone gone goes private coverage, gone gone goes insurance at all and the vultures circle steely scalpels aimed for the lumps aimed for the curve of my spin aimed at the great expanse of skin and skull created by baldness.
i can not carry the mail anymore so byebye goes the payroll hello comes poverty. it is quick, where everything you undervalued is now out of reach. the bank moves the house gone the credit moves and the car gone the stomach moves and savings gone.
crycry goes the wife.
hawaii for next summer is gone, it is now half the cost of an x-ray. i spend my time idle in bed enveloped in painPAIN. physical to mental and crumblecrumble goes wife. her skin ashen her eyes bagged, she works she cleans she mothers the baby and the other almost here. so fast it all fell apart.
it's the eyes of my son, always wet, he doesn't understand he knows health goes dad goes everything turns to black. the picture won't come in anymore as they came to shut the cable.
i can hear here through the makeshift walls of this place.
ghetto.
wino's and hookers call out to angels of some other heaven for 'tin dolla fr cab riiiide' or 'justa little to get to the morning sir.'
i try not to eat. i try not to use the toilet. i try to die.
doctors who work on credit, they come, they call they never ask about the bill. nurses they clean they slip us samples they never ask about the bill. receptionists they wave, they smile they never ask the bill but the phone rings and a voice unknown to a body unseen asks only about the bill.
i am weak.
ways i have tried to kill myself
suffocation with pillow/plastic bag
swallowing all my samples
stabbing my chest and stomach
electrocution
i tried to fall out the window but the screen could not be broken.
each time i am woken, each time their faces smile back, concern back white long coats and clean hospital gown.
cry cry goes wife.
cry cry goes son.
life life goes the hospital
finished finished goes me.
my father never calls or visits. my brother came once but kept his wallet shut. i received a call from my sister but there was no donation and my mother is here for moral support.
charge charge calls the doctor
pay pay the disembodied voice.
i take to screaming and cursing. i hurl whatever my bony hands will collect and i hurl it at her. i make moves to slap her face, i strike out with ashen legs and arms, when she comes for a kiss i hiss and try to bite her lips off. i will force her out.
most nights:
enter wife to corner chair.
enter son to corner chair.
lay me wheezing, hacking, embarrassed at this sick and death.
i curse and rattle the frame. i demand they go to her parents house...
they wait out my fury, they let my withered body rage for they know it soon will burn out. i lay just barely able to move me eyes, my mouth heavy, limbs impossible to move to grasp to hurt to get away.
goGOGOGOGOGOGO! blink eye
never never stares her.
when able i use the phone to charge sex calls. as the women seduce, moan and call for more of my 'good stuff' i fade, placing the phone against the floor turn my back and fall to sleep.
rage rage goes wife with the phone stack in the air.
go go GO! scream i.
cry cry goes son.
'lemme see you home safe now,' says outside.
if i spend it all the rent come due, if i spend it all the rent come past due, if i spend it all eviction and off they go home free to inlaws an off i go to the gutter to the park to somewhere close i can't walk far off i go to die...think i.
she defends she protects we suffer on.
where once her lips matched her toes, where once she met for red robins with friends where once we took our son to omsi where once life flow now the cold the reaper the End.
blue cross blue shield, i always paid on time. the only thing i ever went for was my physical. the only medicine i was ever prescribed was for depression, only once no refills. i was good. the checks cashed.
then this the cough the pain the sick the time the diagnosis the prescribed care the wait for approval the letters from insurance the letters from the lawyers the calls from doctor the strength withering.
i bled from most everywhere now.
i get sick and need to be changed now.
there is no get up now.
the samples stopped the medicine stopped now.
the lights are off.
there is no lunch there is no dinner now.
she just sits. our son to inlaws most days now most nights now.
we would have gotten here anyways think i.
love love LOVE, blink i.
love love LOVE, says she.
it is tender when she strips me. it is heart aching when she, almost ashamedly, turns sideways to strip herself. naked we lay, her head against my chest she listens to my heart beat beat beat...
an then i fade.
Wednesday, August 26, 2009
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