Outside&Calm 1 Oct 2011 Poem by Margaret Alice Second

On The Outside

At home alone - kids visiting
you asleep, Carine called, she
can walk without crutches, her
leg is healed; wish it could be
the same for her broken heart

It will take two full years at least
she says she can never forget
she still laments her mother's
death eight years ago, yet -
time heals every injury

Patience will prove the adage
true; she shall be independent
even if she thinks the memory
of her friend's death will never
be erased from her mind

Everything keeps improving
step by little step; thank you
Carine, the image of you
healthy again makes me
ecstatically happy

Even if I am only on the out-
side - as stepmother of
course…


Calm and Well (Revised)

As a child I hated the life I was born into,
detested humanity, averse to everything about
my overexcited brain in a family where the misery
of nervous tension was normality - no-one ever
calmed down - led to multiple allergies

The body changes when a new personality asserts;
as a child I inadvertently programmed myself to
think of mealtimes and food as the worst possible
experience in my life, mind in overdrive as
family interaction drove me nearly insane

Today I can't eat breakfast unless the allergic
reaction food triggers is mollified by migraine
medication - if I eat something wholesome to
stabilise blood sugar, unbearable depression
and pain reduces me to a zombie state

I am Marvin the Paranoid Android, a state
so unnatural doctors and dieticians cannot
rectify it, I live a precarious balance between
excessive pain and being comfortable as a
submissive human being

I marvel at the Dog Whisperer - my psyche is an
anxious, uncalmable dog unable to live in the now,
maybe my brain is that of a canine who needs the
right discipline - if only I knew how to provide it
in order to feel calm and well permanently


[When I eat whole-wheat breakfast cereal my eyes go out of focus,
electricity dance in leaping flames in my head and I become too
depressed to pick up my pen - or anything else. When I eat other
things like fatty bacon and eggs or chicken mayonnaise, a migraine
pill relieves the distress and I do not become so depressed - simply
put on weight at an alarming rate, nearly choking myself with the
growing girth around my midriff - and eating nothing is not possible
as hunger and light-headedness make working and concentration
impossible. I am still trying to reprogram my mind to reprogram my
body to secrete different chemicals in different amounts, convinced
that life as a calm, stable, submissive canine type would be much
easier without the horrific allergy symptoms. My diary notes
explain all this.]