Time Suck
I begin to feel
Like I'm not even real
Because I have so many obligations
Obligations that exhaust me
Obligations that consume me
Obligations that doom me
Or at least gloom me
As the water drains around me
As the weariness surrounds me
I feel my life begin to flow
From a wound that seems to grow
As I attract more and more
Time vampires with insatiable needs
Which only I can feed
What happened to my dreams?
My hopeful, youthful schemes
More and more of them fade away
With every passing day
I watch them wash down the drain
As I wonder how I even remain
How did I get here
And can it end any way
Besides being carried out feet first
Bled to death by too many obligations
Too little money
And too many time vampires
Who want to consume every minute of mine
~Cie~
Notes:
The suggestion from OctPoWriMo was to create a shape poem using the word and sentence prompts. Well, this is the shape of chaos!
Actually, I didn't create a shape poem at all. I didn't even see that part of the prompt or I probably would have driven myself crazy trying to create a shape poem to satisfy the OCD part of my psyche. I literally have OCD, I'm not making a joke at the expense of those who live with the condition. As a person living with the condition, however, I reserve the right to joke about my particular manifestation thereof.
I've been extremely sleep deprived this week. This poem is an expression of that, as well as an expression of the frustration of never having enough money. I make 41,000 dollars a year, which may sound adequate, but it's not. I'm always having to fall behind on one thing to catch up on another.
I have a very high interest rate mortgage plus lot rent. Here is a warning never to buy a new mobile home. If you are going to buy a mobile home, buy an older one and pay for it all at once. Never get a mortgage on a mobile home. If I had known now what I know then...well, I might have had to do it anyway. I was in a bad situation and needed to get out, and my credit wasn't good enough to qualify for a loan on anything but a mobile home.
I have two old cars that I have to keep running. I have student loans that I'm still paying off from nursing school to get my LPN license. I'm still in school to try and get my RN license, but costs for testing are prohibitive. I just finished paying off a bunch of medical bills and finally caught up on my utility bill. Then there's groceries and gas. It never ends.
I have a very intelligent son who is on the high functioning end of the autism spectrum. He is 25 years old and has never been able to get a job or finish his bachelor's degree because of depression and anxiety issues. I believe in him, and I believe one day he will triumph. My mother, however, constantly lectures and berates him, and I end up caught in the middle. My relationship with my son is good. My relationship with my mother is strained. My son can't stand my mother. My mother demands to know why my son isn't better yet when he's been in counseling for so long. And on and on it goes.
I was so sleep deprived this past week that I had a couple of what might be described as minor psychotic episodes, where I woke up doing bizarre things that made sense to me when I woke up but later had no explanation at all. I didn't sleepwalk, which I sometimes do when I'm very tired. I was still in bed, but engaged in strange actions, i.e. trying to pick the wall apart or tear the covers apart or picking at my skin. These sorts of things only happen when I'm severely sleep deprived, and they scare me.
Through all this, in spite of the fact that my mother thinks that my creative pursuits are foolish and the fact that I long ago realized that I would never be a success in the arts, I continue creating or at least being involved in creative efforts by supporting others. I will not give this up. It will be part of this entire lifetime, and I intend for it to continue to be part of any subsequent lives. It is who I am, and I will not allow anyone to take that from me.
~Cie~
