Reserves

A poem about fatigue / A deep low bow to Andrea Gibson

Poet Andrea Gibson helped me understand that there is a place in this world for sick people, and also people who are soft, sensitive, attuned, prickly, dealing with some shit… In gratitude for Andrea, and in some kind of attempt to imitate their way of approaching the world, I’m gonna share a poem.

It might feel heavy to read. For the first time, this year, I am experiencing a freedom and space from the worst of my illness in a way that is allowing me to see it as a whole thing, not just taking it one hour at a time. So there’s a lot of “woah, that was sad.” And, “dang I wish that hadn’t happened that way.” And it’s healthy for me. So here’s where I’m at right now: well-fed, broke, and re-connecting with some hope.

Reserves

You wake up one morning with nothing left

Your stuff is all there

Your schedule is full

But you

Have nothing left

Starting from zero

Your vitality bar or whatever that metric is in video games is empty

What do you do?

You dig

First you dig into the thick cream layer floating at the top

And it feels good, at first, to dig, to push, to realize you have way more to give than you ever knew

Then you dip into the milk, much thinner than the cream, but it sustains you

It feels like it goes on forever

A tall glass bottle, straw burrowing

all the way down

It thins to water

Salt water

Ocean water

The salt sends your blood pressure soaring

The minerals stand in for sleep

And the kelp makes you gag

You can live on this too, you think

Not forever of course

It’s not pleasant

But you’re surviving

Maybe for months on salt water

Maybe for years

And then it dries up

And you are grabbing, pounding, scraping at dust

The color of stained enamel

Drying and flaring your cuticles

You continue to dig

Because even handfuls of dust can go into the engine and make it go. Just a few more miles, a few more hours, one more drive, just pick your head up off the pillow. Good. Now take a sip of water. Now rotate your head, look toward your bedroom door, and make your body follow. Nice. One more step. That was the hardest one. The rest will be easier. See. Now you have momentum. Now take another handful of dust.

The problem with dust - my mechanic uncle will tell you - is it gums up the works. It scrubs the finish, clogs the joints, and if you don’t flush it out every once in a while, it’ll shut the whole thing down. Not all at once of course. Piece by piece. The exhaust. Then the wheel bearings. And then one day something vital and volatile like the gas tank will fall out, dragging sparks on the tar behind you.

These things happened to my car. They also happened to my body, you know,

metaphorically.

It’s not just the infection. We killed that off three years ago. It’s the dust that I put into my system for decades, running on empty. It’s gummed up the works and now everything runs slow.

It sounds weird, like, how would you know that? But if you’re a person whose cells ran on dust you know what it feels like. You can actually feel the clogs.

Lately I put everything good in: vitamins, vegetables, oily fish, love.

I’m sorry I fed you dust for so long. I didn’t know what it felt like to wake up with fuel in the tank.

But I’ve come far. I’ve stopped digging for dust. I’ve re-established my ocean. Deep deep in there I can sense that brackish fuel. But I don’t want to rely on that either. Lately the pads of my fingertips are pruny all the time - maybe it’s the salt?

I even have a small bottle of fresh milk. The cream at the top is gone almost as soon as it appears - like it does in any household when the milk gets delivered.

I’m still waking up at zero. Zero spoons. Zero pep. Like if I close my eyes too long at any point during the day I could fall asleep right there. But now I can sense when I’ve run out of the good stuff. I’m watching the gauge. When I start into the seawater, I almost panic. Not this briny shit again. I stop. I cancel. I mope. I ask for guidance. I ask for help.

And by some miracle, the bottle fills again.

How are you lately, you ask.

I’m trying very very hard not to finish the milk.