Tag: mental illness

The Bonfire – an excerpt from the in-progress continuation of my first book, Serotonin with a side of fries, please – Tara Lesko

Tara A. Lesko - Writer

…Still, trying to resume some semblance of normalcy was harder than finding enough change in my jeans’ pockets when I wasn’t expecting a toll. I was still determined to create this illusion that everything was status quo when in reality, my racing thoughts fed off every organ in my body like some unknown parasite – a mental tapeworm that started in the brain and worked it’s way down, colliding with whatever light traveled up from my ass chakra towards my skull.

Although I knew I was going to receive a lot of weird looks, I decided to bring a supply of Post-it notes and pens with me to the bonfire. Prior to this, I saw advertisements for stacks of cocktail napkin-size papers called flying wishes. These papers were meant for writing down dreams, desires, and everything that was best to let go. Once these things were written down, you were then expected to set them on fire, the rapidly burning paper supposedly posed little threat of setting a house ablaze. I never quite understood why anyone would want to set their dreams and wishes on fire. I mean, I get the symbolism of releasing these thoughts into the air and allowing nature to take its course with them – burn something solid, it turns into a gas, basic science. But perhaps the hidden pyro in me felt it made more sense, and it would be more fun, to torch the thoughts that needed to be destroyed leaving nothing to linger. It made no sense to spend money on paper to burn because someone decided to call it flying wish paper and stick it in a pretty package. Plus, I was flat broke at the time, so I settled on a stack of old Post-its to scribble negative dross then light up. I hoped that other bonfire participants would follow my example. February wasn’t too late to start a new year by letting shit go.

Surprisingly many did follow along with my impromptu ritual, or they were simply drunk or high enough to stare intensely at the slow burn of Post-its with “fuck it” written on them. Regardless, I made the most out of my own little release party. 

I can’t do my job. 

No more Add to Cart days.

I’m going to be an indefinite freeloader. 

All I want to do is sleep. 

There’s no Starbucks nearby. 

I won’t be able to feed my dog. 

I like cutting off my oxygen. 

Am I going to write anything else but this?

How am I going to get out of this? 

I failed another test.

Something along those lines. You get the point.

It got to a point where I forgot about the socialization around me and how I should probably involve myself. I eventually had to put the Post-Its away, pop open a can of piss water beer, and be normal. The remainder of the night went well. There were plenty of laughs and for a good hour or so, life seemed to right itself. John and I came home with sticky marshmallow fingers and campfire smoke embedded in the jeans we never wanted to wash. I got ready for bed, and John, being the vampire he is, looked for a background noise movie to play while he crafted. Then he received the text from my father – a brief message that would hurl my universe into a wood chipper that at least wasn’t turned on at that moment.

Mom was in the hospital. Her glucose was coma-level. There was something on her pancreas. I didn’t know where the hell the pancreas was or what it did. But I never imagined I would develop a violent hatred towards an internal organ no one really thinks or cares about…

Happy National Woman’s Day

Tara A. Lesko - Writer

“Girls are not machines

that you put kindness coins into

And sex falls out” — Sylvia Plath

We’re more like the crane games

on a Jersey Shore boardwalk 

Hands maneuver our hands 

towards visible prizes

and treasures hidden in plastic shells. 

If what we have for grabs is too heavy

the plushness slips through fingers, 

weakened and rigged by the deceit of others. 

Still, these hands keep rolling quarters of promises 

into our waiting gaps, 

the lights and sounds fill the quiet, dark 

corners where we like to hide, waiting to see 

how hard this one and that one will try 

to catch our IPod hearts with irascible playlists – 

to win our unicorns stuffed with everything  

nobody else wants to know.

Driving to the edge of water – part of 10 & 2 – poems about drive

Tara A. Lesko - Writer

He called me a fucking idiot that night,

And I didn’t start screaming like the day

I told my father I hated him after calling me brain dead

for locking him out of the house.

I vowed that anyone who insulted my intelligence

would be pierced with arrows tipped with a venomous glaze,

never forgiven,

and I didn’t want to forgive my father back then.

I wanted to forgive the man I was about to marry.

And I did.

But not before I drove to nowhere,

debating whether to stay at a hotel

or sit in a bar until anything with a pulse

agreed to take me to more nowheres.

I left my wallet at home.

Could have gone to a friends’ house

and let them see what I refused to look for.

Instead I ended up parking in front of an abandoned pool

on the opposite side of my complex.

Staring at the tufts of grass and weeds breaking through

the concrete, and the chipped, pale blue of the pool’s floor,

I saw a child run then fall and skin her knee.

I saw her dive as if she glided into a life

where algae only grows where you can’t see it,

The water is the right temperature

for the hot or cold of the day,

the concrete leaves your face unscathed

when you swim too far down with eyes closed.

Her eyes closed mine and I wondered

why I stopped diving the way I did.

Why now do I leap head first

into empty pools of shit I’ll never change?

Why do I swan

right into what compassionately turns me

into flayed skin and ashes?

I should have kept driving until I hit the beach,

let the weeds of my mind entwine

with clouds of seafoam freedom.