© Andrés Castro
Uneven Piece for My Online Therapist
Our start wasn’t bad,
what with uneven
asynchronous
writing.
Yet
line breaks
in this poem’s
first stanza point
to a psyche leaking
why
I suddenly
canceled you.
Wait. Hear these
endings read aloud.
Bad.
Uneven. Asynchronous.
Writing. Is this what we had?
Is this really my stream
of consciousness?
Yes? Figure in
I like to play.
So
easy to cancel someone
these days. Click Cancel.
Auto-email confirmation
a bonus.
Forget
I paid a month ahead: You,
sales reps, platform crew,
keep the change.
Still,
I want to be done with abrupt goodbyes.
Bugging out is not attractive.
I thought I was more responsible.
I wonder what got into me
last night?
Perhaps
the shots of Grey Goose & Absolut,
before seeing Birds of Prey
kick-ass eye candy
pronouncing
“I’m Harley fuckin Quinn.”
Have you seen her ex-lover,
Joker? They were good together.
Then
I was out
on a winter night,
pierced by a full moon.
Home,
I took in my new & framed Satanic Temple certificate
perfectly set on a cute silver easel between typewriters;
after checking out TST Grey Faction’s Facebook shade
on shady therapists, started thinking about Szasz’s Myth
of Mental Illness, then looked for my copies of Glasser’s
Reality Therapy and Choice Theory. Then looking through
your mix of conventional online responses felt senseless.
Crazy.
Crazy to think virtual therapy would work.
I may be a little too immature for sixty-one.
Must have been one glorious babbling baby.
Then too, you told me upfront you were not
who I asked for: someone at least forty-five,
with addictions expertise, who had worked
with
artists; should’ve said poets. My gamble.
Who is giving up more right now? You?
You remind me of my son: much too
quick to interpret, conclude, lead,
rather than pace with me,
not knowing the pain
in
a degenerating spine;
did I mention how I work,
as well as dream, stretched out
on an anti-gravity recliner?
Is this where both of you
see me trying a guilt trip?
Love
Frida Kahlo: Who was more creative
knowing pain & death as collaborators?
Kick me in the head if you think I’m asking
for pity; bend over if you believe it, I’ll kick you.
I was serious asking you get to know me on my blog.
It’s a pretty easy read, decorated with provocative images;
admittedly, some are a little disturbing. Braver, I’d go for more.
If I were you, my work would’ve been the first place I looked; voicing
what you honestly saw would have been a realized dream. Allen Ginsberg,
(strategically name-dropped here) told me this kind of reflection was precious.
But then, I would begin to make you out: there’s the rub. Safer to stay hidden
on the silent dark side of a two-way mirror, as you watch an other sweat, yes?
Yes,
you remind me of my son. He’s a good kid. “Fuck you, Dad!” I can hear him yelling,
for calling him a kid at his age. He’s not that disrespectful: his hate is more elusive.
He rattles around up in my head with some other voices I’ve gathered over a lifetime.
Doctor, guess I didn’t want to let your voice join the club. I suppose it’s an exclusive one;
the front door bouncer is a large lovely black transgender named Prudence. What voices
hanging out in your head, Doc? I’m suspicious of the one turning Psych PhD into “Doctor.”
Yes, I just used scare quotes. I can’t help myself: What’s up Doc? Always loved Bugs Bunny.
Take care, Doctor. IMNSHO, I suggest twice-a-week on-the-couch Freudian psychoanalysis,
for at least two & half years, with a good, authentically empathic woman. Freud may be old;
the craft is not. It helped me out after my back quit; my tennis pro dreams evaporated; married
just after twenty-one; Mr. Mom to son & daughter, never knowing twenty-five; sixty dead pounds
of fat; a deep depression, black-out drinking. There’s more. Should I continue, Doc? A Psychology
BA should have never taken me a decade to get. Why did I stick with it for so long? Who knows?
Should I continue, Doc? I have. I’m still here. Far more has happened since back then to now. Do
you remember me writing I enjoyed living in the moment & asking if you too? Why no answer?
Now,
I’m looking for something else at my age: perhaps someone willing to pace with me, know crazy is
in the eye of the beholder, someone to help me have my way after giving way to others for too long.
Need to meet the right ones or create them: There’s no other way. Walking by myself may have to do.
If I were younger, looking for a timely seductive religion, I might loudly proclaim: Hail Satan!
Reality check, please.
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