CPAP and the Cancer Clap

Going on two and a half months now.
Tough old bastard.

His wife has been next to him the whole time,
she's slowly dying of congestive heart failure,
showing all the signs but refusing to see a doctor till he's taken care of.

And every 28 days like clockwork,
they move him to another facility saying
"This is really their specialty, and They can help him, and They're the ones you really want on this"

Thing is,
if he stays at any hospital more than 30 days they start losing money.

So every 28 days,
we're referred to a new facility,
a new specialist,
a new town.

And the cycle starts all over again.

They fuck up his meds,
they don't listen,
they know better than anyone else,
and he gets worse.

Loses a little more ground,
forgets a little bit more,
slides a little further away.

The transport bills alone are worth several times more than the house I grew up in.
And the hospitals charge a half million a piece to do this to him.

We'll never get above this financially, but that's ok.
I've already given up on most of the dreams.
I have no house, I have no business,
I have no children, and my sister has spent years distancing herself financially from the family in case something like this happened.

So the banksters and the collection agents will only be able to bankrupt two generations of us.


That's why I don't have any savings,
at least that's what I tell myself.

Someone will just steal it from me at the end anyway.

That's why I don't take care of myself,
at least that's my excuse.

No death with dignity in this brave new world of ours.

I'll end up stuffed full of tubes and shitting myself,
babbling incoherently and begging to die,
just like him.



And in the midst of all this I got one final message from my secret admirer.

At first I was getting them every couple of weeks, that quickly dropped to once every few months, to maybe once a year once I quit responding.

But I think this one is the final one, in no small part because I got a new phone that lets me block people without having to actually go to the carrier and pay a fee.

Not that the last few years haven't been entertaining.

The goading and shit talking I took as rote.  After the first few months I was about 60% sure that it was being done without her knowledge.  One of her little yippie city friends putting the stupid hillbilly in his place.  Maybe some rival trying to keep me out of the way so he could have his shot ( I knew of a couple who would not be above such behavior).

But I really didn't need to see pictures.


The latest,
the last,
supposedly of the one who I thought was the one,
going down on a trio of guys,
entitled **** pays the rent.

And to tell the truth,
with all I've got going on,
I didn't even bat an eye.

I fucking laughed.

Because if it wasn't photo shopped then I have proof that things turned out for the second best (the best being if she had walked away before gifting me with a dose of the cancer clap).

And if it was photo shopped, then someone wasted a lot of time and energy trying to get under my skin.

Because I honestly don't have the energy to care anymore.

Because for years I've been wasting my sanity with this bullshit,
and with a couple of keystrokes it is out of my life.
At least until this fine individual gets a new phone number.

Funny how,
even though we're older,
even though the technology has changed,
we're all essentially the same level of fucked up we were as children.

Playground rules...



But this new drama,
the constant anger,
the knowledge,
the unceasing worry for those who have earned my love,
this has forced me to evolve.

I liken it to my 25th year when I learned about the half brother I did not know about.
I'd always suspected,
known I was being lied to,
but it wasn't till he introduced himself that I knew I wasn't crazy.

I've always known that the world was crooked,
known that we're only tolerated as long as we can be of use to someone,
known that the only reason any of us are alive is that someone hasn't yet decided to profit from our deaths.

But in a way it's comforting to have an example this blatant to point at. 
Something that cannot be so easily explained away.

It's clarifying.

To the point that it generates what can only be called a surety of purpose.

I take comfort in the belief that the pain I feel is but a precursor to enlightenment.

And by holding this thought,
my suffering is greatly diminished.