Your Issue is the Title

This was written Wednesday 1-18-06. I read it the next night at the open mic poetry reading at Beatnix. Your own personal interpretation of what the poem means to you is appreciated. Feel free to make comments.

Click on the link to hear me recite it.

Your Issue is the Title
By Maryee

ominous
It lurks, slinks, swaying, saying something devious, and sly...
to seduce me
to entice me
to entrap me
to encapsulate me

At first I thought you came into my life to entertain me
To take away mundane
melancholy
moments of trite unsunlit grey skies and overcasty
moonless nights.

At second, I felt secure, with you, you sly fox
but seemingly unsure of the subtle enmity slowly developing between you and me.

I was fake as a 3 dollar bill
You were standing in the gap as a known imposture

But I impudently ignored ALL of the passive as well as overt warning signs-

My eyes along with my good God given senses went on a hiatus...
until further notice,
No, until I noticed the spine of my back curling,
irregularly in the most horrid shape-
And I drink milk!
And I work out EVERYDAY!

I then noticed when looking in the mirror
my face
which I religiously mollycoddled often
with the latest creams, moisturizers, astrigents, make-up and the such...
was now dark, scaly, puss-filled
rancid, with absolutely no glow...full of rancor

My face along with my thoughts, depraved from all innocence
external and internal decadence seeping through my pores
piercing even to the dividing asunder of my soul
and my spirit,
and of the joints
and marrow,
of me.

They call if debilitation.
It wants what it wants, you know.
And when it's incessant
constantly digging away with me, not IT
unsheathing the sharp shiny metallic scalpel,
slaying and assassinating ME
And I did it...all by myself

Now there are some things only God can do
And some things only I can do.

God, I hear you're in the restoration business.
Your fine craftmanship is displayed all over this place
and in other venues my naked eye can't fathom
here while I sit flailing in my self-made muck and mire.

My part I understand
is to simply stop, drop, and turn

Turn away from...self mutilization
and...find a better way
a better way to love me
to love you
to love what is good
and abhor what has obvious doom-filled
fatal consequences on ME and MY life

I want to live!
I want to love!
I want to do what ever it takes to get this monkey off my back!

And if it means I need to stop, drop, and turn
BELIEVE and RECEIVE

I'm in!