facts, truth, and the liar

Imagine this:  You are lost, and trying to get home.  You don't know how long it's been.  Your feet hurt, your knees hurt, your back hurts, your head hurts.  You are exhausted.  You are physically, mentally, and emotionally drained.  There is nothing left.  It's just you and the fog.  You have no idea how long the fog has surrounded you.  It seems like it has always been there.  You don't really notice it anymore.  And then there are the voices.  They slither through the fog, insidious.  They whisper of fear and sadness, anger and despair.  There is no reason to go on.  There's nothing to go on for.  It's just you and that damn fog.  The fog is worse than the voices.  The voices speak helplessness, but the fog shows it.  Because if the fog would lift, you would see that you are almost home.  But it doesn't lift, you can't see where you are, and you give up.

That fog is what depression is like for me.  Luckily for me, through Grace and Mercy, it lifted long enough for me to hear a friendly voice and get treatment.  The fog doesn't lift for everyone, and not everyone has a friend who will take them by the shoulders and tell them to go to their doctor and get on Prozac or something.

It has taken me a long time to write about this.  It's hard, to find the right words and to get the courage to post.  It's especially hard to do both at the same time.  But today is World Suicide Prevention Day, and I needed to do something.  To be the friend who takes you by the shoulders.  To let someone, anyone, everyone know that is it okay to ask for help.  There is nothing to be ashamed of.  There are other people like you out there.  You have worth and are loved.  And it's hard.  I know.  It is still hard for me and it's been twenty years.  That damn fog still follows me around.  Most of the time, it's just a wisp of a reminder.  And sometimes, it's dense enough for the voices to start up again, telling me lies.  But I struggle and fight, because while the fog is dense, now I can see home and I know I can make it.

Facts, Truth, and the Liar

by Catherine M Braun

In this world, we know, there is Fact and there is Truth.

This is Fact: there is a serotonin deficiency in my brain.

But this is Truth: there is a Liar in my head.

And the Liar tells me, “Of course, the sky is blue.”

And, “Of course, the sun is shining.”

And, “Of course, your family loves you.”

But also, “Blue is really gray.”

And, “Sun is really rain.”

And, “Everyone would be better off if you and your moods were gone.”

This is not a piercing grief or a glancing blow.

This is a smothering, a sinking:

an avalanche of despair and all I see is snow.

I think, Maybe there is too much blood in my chest, and that is why it aches.

And the Liar says, “Yes, yes – if you open your veins the pressure will ease.”

And I think, Maybe.

In this world, Fact is not necessarily as important as Truth.

This is Fact: I'm treating my depression.

But this is Truth: I'm silencing the Liar with every breath I take.

sorrow

I have been wading through grief these past few weeks.  The anniversaries of the death of a family friend and 9-11, a dear family friend in the hospital in grave condition, and a few other private pains that are not mine to tell.  I haven't written anything in over a year, but it's times like these when putting pen to paper is cathartic.

This is for everyone, because we've all had our seasons of sorrow.  And if now is one of those seasons for you, time may not heal all wounds, but Love will bring you peace -- maybe even sooner than you think.

Sorrow

by Catherine M Braun

The sky was cloudless today,

a bright cheerful thing

when I would have wished for rain.

And my heart is heavy tonight,

weighed down with this grief –

engulfed in its echos and aches –

winding around and through my chest,

constricting my breath

and emptying my soul.

I feel the whisper of your ghost in my ear,

gnawing with sharp, poisonous teeth,

telling me what I want to hear.

But all there is,

is this demon of silence

mocking me.

ocean breezes

Ocean Breezes

by Catherine M Braun

It could be opal

or mother-of-pearl

abalone shell.

Maybe a puddle on the road,

slick with oil.

A perfect glass surface

iridescent in the waning sunset.

The hazy horizon a dusky purple

as the sun slips down

behind islands that look like mountains.

Down here in the valley that is not

I ache; I’m awed by the beauty.

I taste salt on my lips.

This, this is what I miss

when I’m surrounded by rolling green hills

and mountains that smoke,

when I taste damp with every breath –

only this –

and blue mountains, golden foothills

that fall to the sea.

The salt finds its way.

Ocean breezes flow overland

two thousand miles to roll down my face.

happy birthday, rosie

Today is my sister's birthday.  A few years ago I wrote her a poem for her birthday, and I thought I'd post it here today.  Happy Birthday, Rosie!  I love you!

For Rosie, on her 20th birthday

by Catherine M Braun

A vision of pink

with peach voice,

music to the poet.

Sweet blossom –

delicate petal –

brilliant goddess –

Rose angel.

Soothe my heart;

hear my cry above the sound

of the sunshine.

I cannot myself.

Blood not water saves.

inspiration

In a previous post I mentioned how sometimes the words just flow, but I thought I'd expand on that a bit more. The words usually only "flow" when I've been inspired (or when my muse decides to drop by for a bit). Luckily for you, this happened recently. :-)

I was listening to one of my favorite songs, "Show Me The River", by eastmountainsouth, and one of the lines just hit me. It's not like I'd never heard that line before. I've listened to the song multiple, MULTIPLE times. But for some reason it jumped out at me:

Got love on my mind, but death on these hands

(It wasn't really italicized in my mind. It just echoed.)

So I pulled out a piece of paper and started writing. What came out is the following poem (slightly edited and expanded upon, and formatted for your reading pleasure, although I haven't figured out a title yet).



They marched us long and hard,
for God and Country and Freedom.
But the heat of righteous conviction is hard to hold onto
when winter sets in and the men seem to drop like flies.
Every hole in my boots,
every child marching next to me,
every friend made and lost only serve to drag me down.
The more I fight the less I understand what we’re fighting for.
My heart was left behind with you
– in its place lead enough for a cannon ball.
I can no longer see the green fields or blue eyes I yearn for;
their hate has stained my hands red, my soul black.

If I make it home, I will plant my feet with the corn
and wait for the rain to wash me clean.

great poetry reading day

In honor of Great Poetry Reading Day, here's the first (and so far only) prose poem I've written. { Also, this one's for Amy, the main reason we made it from Nashville to Santa Barbara in four and a half days, even with all our stops. That girl drives even faster than me. :-) }



8 Hours in Abilene
by Catherine M Braun

We limped into town three hours older than when we started, mouths Texas dry, skin drowning. The A/C gave up the ghost 630 miles ago, while we were looking for the King in the Jungle Room. Hell would be a welcome reprieve after Arkansas without recycled air. We made do with Dallas. 13 hours out of Nashville, that first night we crashed and I hoped whatever was wrong would work itself out with a 12-hour rest.

Hope may spring eternal, but sometimes it’s smothered, stifled, soaked, and heat-stroked. That second day we thanked God for the Texaco man who knew a place we could go. The dealership had a waiting room and a shuttle. We chose the shuttle – and the mall. Things always look better after pizza and bookstore browsing (my version of retail therapy). Until they look worse. And I didn’t have that kind of money.

Back at the dealership a deal made, a compromise. Forget the A/C, but fix the oil leaks and the dodgy camshaft. Tomorrow we’ll do Carlsbad in two hours, with the shin-splints to remind us. Tomorrow we’ll have lunch with aliens, be the first visitors from Santa Barbara at the International UFO Museum and Research Center – at least this month. (And I’m no longer from Nashville.) Today we haunt two leather couches and a cow-hide rug.

I had hoped to sleep in El Paso the second night. We only made it to Pecos.

magnetic poetry

Sometimes the words just flow. Sometimes I work in fits and starts. And sometimes I use a gimmick to help. One of my gimmicky techniques is to use a "magnetic poetry" kit. I like how the limited word choices make me think about what I'm trying to say.

Dream Song
by Catherine M Braun

The meager carnival of summer
has faded into fall.

In the blue prison of the sky a solitary whisper rose,
murmured still music into ecstatic symphonies.

Gardens blossomed to Paradise;
meandering streams to immense seas.


Beneath the picture moon
red petals scent purple shadows.

The night sky dances to rain rhythms and storm music.
Blood sizzles in my veins – thoughts tingle on my skin.

My voice aches to sing
the raw beauty of this moment.


I'm drunk on the taste of my dreams.

in which i explain myself

I've always wondered about those recording artists whose sophomore albums are named after themselves, and not their debuts as is the norm. Could they not find a title they liked? Did they run out of ideas? Maybe they had more artistic license the second time around and felt the album was more theirs.

Whatever the case may be, I seem to have done the same thing. My first post flew from my fingertips and shouldered its way in before I could explain what this blog's purpose is supposed to be. (It's a family trait, though. I have three brothers, of whom the oldest is the only one not named after someone in our family. The youngest has our mom's maiden name as his middle name, and the second is a junior. Although, technically, he's not. Yes, that's right, my parents forgot to put "Jr." on his birth certificate. Of course they didn't. That would make things too easy.)

So, the purpose of this blog is poetry. (You might have already figured that out.) Specifically, poems I like and poems I write. It's supposed to make me write more. We'll see how that goes.

In honor of the unseasonably warm day we had today, here's a piece about one of my favorite places in the world.

Franklin, Tennessee
by Catherine M Braun

Cicadas and porch swing creaks
serenade fireflies
as wet earth and mossy pond
perfume the air.
A slight breeze stirs,
reprieve from the still night.

This is the quiet time,
when the world winds down,
emptying the mind.
When there is nothing to do
but breathe the loamy air
you wade through
during the heat of the day.

If you stay long enough,
blood thickens,
weighing veins down
‘til they sink to the bone,
and the brick wall of humidity
you used to hit lung-first
disappears.

You think if God dropped you
into the thin air of the Rockies
you might just float away
and not touch down
‘til you reach the river Harpeth.