put me in your pocket

like the satiny skin on the back of my hands, patience thins. so easily ruptured, like tissue, just with the faintest bit of pressure. after a tear, will it mend? will there remain a ghost of stress and frustration veiled over almost everything? like the close glove of humid air, it's suffocating. oppressive. i've felt and written this again and again. i wonder if things will ever change. or is there really no escaping?

my throat feels raw from screaming loud as i can. trying to drown out the maniac seated behind me to the right. hoping to release my tension. my son is a train wreck, today especially. he screeches and flails, moans and careens. he's out of his mind, and taking me along with him. he's hurtling toward a seizure. i can feel it. it sickens me. i give him an extra half dose of thca cannabis oil, hoping it will calm and fill the void—the one left by lowering his keppra again. we're hoping to get him off it like we did his other meds.

i'm pent up and seething. have loathesome feelings. i love him and i hate him, if only fleetingly. it's not his fault, i know. not anyone's, really. well, perhaps dr. Rx should take some blame. i'll gladly lay it on him. all those pills. drugs on top of drugs on top of drugs. benzos—for a toddler! no way to tell for sure which ones are hurting or helping. i try to trust my gut. mostly, it seems the drugs just inflame his fits and bad behaviors. but maybe it's just the seizures. i wonder how godawful he feels.

how long can a body and mind take this hell—his and mine, our family's? almost no time these days away from my messed-up kid. just short walks with the dog, evenings with michael and nights while asleep dreaming of people i love and who love me. even my writing is punctuated by my son's moaning, stomping and madness. he's a mini frankenstein. a jekyll and hyde kid. at times, i'm repulsed. i have to forgive him. forgive myself. we're all monsters once in awhile.

on days like these, driving along my beloved back roads offers no escape. i'm tethered to my little freak. and when i'm home, i can hardly do anything for all his insanity. it's insufferable. so, in fits and starts, i surf social media. live vicariously through other's photos—weathered docks and lakeside cottages, galapagos rocks and iguanas, western sunsets, cocktails, pasta, and crisp white tablecloths on city sidewalks. the images save me. give me a window of respite from shitty days like these.

put me in your pocket, please. from there, i can better imagine escaping. can view what lies beyond these walls. can see all that we are missing.

On one such day, photo by Michael Kolster