Secrets and Lies

The world revolves around secrets and lies!

Crafted stories underscore this theme.

Initiates feast with innocent eyes

and drink from the cup of this sly scene.

With pure intentions, naive novices try,

the “Power of One” their motto’d phrase,

and soon discover this unpleasant surprise:

Absolute power corrupts in absolute ways.

They look to those who are older and wise,

confounding the essential part they play.

But eventually this passion for truth dies,

and dissolves in the deceitful  buffet.

Children taught not to lie in tender youth

yet, when older, slowly open the crafty door.

Discomfort follows in the wake of  truth

to reveal, “unpeel” the secret rotten core.

Failure to deviate now seems uncouth;

as we forget when we valued what was pure.

We sell our integrity at the character booth

and victimize new initiates once more.

This evil circle renews on the new crop of youth

as we  collectively seek to “even the score”……

∞

Secrets and lies are an unending circle taught to the young and encouraged by the world.  While it is rather “heavy”, I hope it strikes a chord in you.

And no matter where you work, even in the best of places, there are times when the truth is not encouraged or wanted.  “Political correctness” is the sly lie that slides off the tongue of those who want and need to suppress the truth.

On a more universal scale, it is time for the light of truth to expose the shadows, and in so doing, bring to light the desperate sin that is running rampant.  Shining the light in the darkness will do nothing but intensify evil unless repentance is part of the solution.

 

Unsynched Pendulum

Un-synched synaptic pendulum
An off-beat neuronal flow
Inherited from genetic lines
Disequilibrium my eternal woe

Pivotal weight heavy and sad
For long periods swinging slow
Hiding this emotional meanness
Time hangs heavy when it swings low

Light weight frantically swings
Soaring on my mental fly
Judgment goes out the door
“I am my own high”

Thank God for His mercies!
For when I focus on Him
The demons fade and grow dim
And, for now, a short term win.

∞

The highs and lows of severe emotional intensity and emotional dysregulation makes every day a hard-fought battle.  It is exhausting.  I really cant wait until I am perfected in Jesus.  He is my light, my salvation, my forgiveness.  He keeps me going and gives me hope and purpose for each day.  Thank you Lord.

Unholy Pain

I have a condition understood poorly.

Chronic pain the hallmark to sufferers all.

A syndrome of many symptoms, surely

the scourge of physicians, sour with unbelief!

Whiners, hypochondriacs we are called.

In restless sleep there is no relief;

the pain similar to muscles mauled.

Burning fatigue, nerves’ constant  bite

waxing, waning but never gone.

Vindication, every sufferers’ right;

yet support of others’ often withdrawn.

 “Fibromyalgia Fog” a lippy phrase

as we struggle with memory and tasks.

Life becomes a fuzzy, misty maze.

Raining inside, with smiling masks

as medications throw us in a daze.

To some, other problems appear

TMJ, IBS, stiffness and muscle spasms,

Healthcare now our unwanted sphere;

feeling well grows into a widening chasm.

Often undiagnosed for many years

as all other conditions are ruled out.

Then tossed aside, stepchild for life;

Unbelieved, even we begin to doubt.

Is it in our heads? Are we our own strife?

“Never give in” our mottoe’d shout

I may not conquer this Demon Beast

but some day I will even the score.

This unholy pain will surely cease

with  death’s long sweet kiss

and I will feel it’s sting no more.

∞

No, I shall attempt to not depress you too much, but I cannot ignore a condition that has affected me, and affects 1 in 12 new visits to a Rheumatologist.  I was 14 when I realized I Had A Problem that was diagnosed as fibromyalgia in my early 20’s. While 14 is unusually young, it does happen, and is associated with inflammatory disease later in life.

I will never forget sitting in English in Miss Yost’s class and trying to get comfortable for the 1000^th time and suddenly realizing that I couldn’t remember anymore a day without pain.  As a very stoic kid-I lived at my ENT doctor’s office due to a congenital problem—I had been told all my life how my parents paid for his kids’ college with my medical bills. And I somehow knew that this would not be an easy answer.

So I suffered in silence and tried in a typically weird teenage way to cope by exercise and anorexia.  Back then FM had a poor prognosis, so it was a good thing that I kept it to myself. But when I got married and got a very stressful job I just couldn’t do it anymore, so I went to my doctor for help.  He jabbed my arm, I yelled and he told me I had FM and there was nothing I could do, but he could put me on Prozac and BTW he thought I was bipolar.  I cried, it had taken 10 years for me to tell anyone and that is the treatment I got.  In a rather cruel twist of fate, bipolar was not my diagnosis either and I was finally diagnosed last year with the true problem that affects so many people in our culture today: Borderline Personality Disorder.

While he was partly correct, his uncaring attitude lost me as a patient.  I suffered for another 15 years, then began with weird and frightening symptoms with very high inflammatory markers so my GP sent me to a Rheumatologist, who said I did have FM and he did have some medications to help, but he was much more interested in my mystery medical condition.  I went to him for a year for an undiagnosed inflammatory condition, then I seemed to get better, so he released me and said he could see me every six months for FM.

Six days later I woke up in horrible pain with fingers as big as sausages.  In true Lori fashion, I tried to live with it until I couldn’t even put clothes in the wash, then I dragged myself back. His first response?  He sat down and yelled at me that he couldn’t do anything else for my FM.  I teared up and said I wasn’t asking him to then showed him my hands.  Ahhh….a  REAL medical problem!  So I got the icky news that I had a pre-rheumatoid arthritis condition that needed a load of medications to keep it from progressing.

While I am grateful for the medications available now, and for the medications that are helping FM sufferers, it still is a condition that is the stepchild of the medical community.  My Inflammatory Arthritis is more painful, but I can walk it out;  only one medicine helps with my chronic muscle pain. And shame on all the physicians out there who dismiss this as Something Beneath Them.  As the payer, THEY are serving ME, and I believe that most of them have forgotten this.

Pearl in the oyster? I am one  tough cookie; I have a wacky sense of humor; I am grateful to live in a time period where medications are available and I think my struggles to shine despite my tarnish have made me a better person.  Live, Love, Learn.

Physical and mental health are so intertwined. I recently discovered that I am my own worst enemy, as my “catastrophizing”  coping skill, and severe depression prior to the start of my symptoms (which were in turn the start of borderline personality disorder) probably helped to initiate the cascaded that led to FM disorder.  So if you have FM or BPD or emotional dysregulation and your doctor wants you to get a mental health evaluation, dont fight it.  It really is all related, and getting your emotional and mental health in good shape is critical.

Tethered (Triquain)

Tethered Heart

Grounding my Paupered Soul

Forever Bound by Undeserved Grace

Spiritual Strength in this World of Insanity

Purposeful Life, Wanderless No More

My Hope and Redeemer

Creator

∞

Triquain: The Triquain, created by Shelley A. Cephas, is a poem with several creative variances and can be a rhyming or non-rhyming verse. The simpliest form is a poem made up of 7 lines with syllables of 3, 6, 9, 12, 9, 6, and 3 in this order.

Ode to the Hair on my Chinny-Chin-Chin

Oh wiry, follicular weed!

You are tough as granite stone.

Why do you see the need

to make my face your home?

With manic frenzy you feed

on hormones and keratin.

Like a fertilized spider plant

randomly sprouting from my chin;

with impotent rage I rant

yet you return again and again.

My razor armies ruthlessly lead

the charge to remove, hurt and maim.

I mow and zap you with all speed;

you laugh as I  feel the pain.

Yet sadistically I still have the need

to remove this embarrassment and shame.

I fear my hairless creed

has left me slightly insane!

I wish to be fully freed

from your black spider legged train.

As beauty is our greatest greed

your loss will be my Gain.

One of the “joys” of getting older is the sprouting of wild hair.  These over-“keratin-ized” strands of protein are the superheroes of the hair community.

I can hang like a monkey from mine.

I have tweezed, waxed and home-lazered the little horns with no effect.  Chemo took out a lot of my hair, but not the thick posts sticking out of my chin.   What a fussy lot we are….hair is acceptable in only certain areas of the body and humiliating in others.  Who determines the placement of beauty?

I say be proud and not shy and let that hair fly!

Having said that bravely to my mirror, I will now once again remove the offenders from my face and count my pennies for a permanent hair removal session.  Sigh, I am weak, I am frivolous, and I hate facial hair on women AND men.  My husband grew a mustache at the age of 12 (in a long downward U-formation–ugh) and wore the stupid thing for 13 years straight, resisting all taunts and attempts to remove it until I told him that I would only date him if it was removed.  He immediately went into his bathroom and 10 minutes later emerged a new man!  Well….how could I refuse THAT? I mean, there isn’t a greater act of wooing sacrifice then a man removing himself from his beloved hair, the icon of his identity.  I have had women sighing and sobbing in tears over this sappy story of romantic love….

But I must say that it was also the finest moment of my dating career and a boon to all mankind.

Unfortunately, a couple of years ago, in a moment of extreme weakness, I let him try a beard, and “Facebear” emerged to my intense horror.

Yes, that’s right…he NAMED the thing.  Kissing a mouthful of wiry hair is akin to rubbing my face with a potato brush.  I can get a rash after just 30 seconds of it.  So I don’t kiss the man until it is all off.  And when I give this ultimatum, the tussle between his manly image and his desire for a smooch is palpable.  Hmmmm…..perhaps I should stop obsessing over my chin hairs and rub them on HIM.  So here is my (hopefully humorous) “poem” on facial hair, enjoy!

 

 

 

Ode to the Hair We Wear

Oh hair, individual and  follicular!

Though dead, you are a MANE attraction.

For we as humans are most particular

to positive or negative hair reactions.

Centuries long, you are ever evolving;

changing our human portrait anew.

Scientists, working long, still solving

how to keep more of you.

This chameleon changing image

(a transient gift to most)

leaves men  in a saving scrimmage

desperate to model  head as host.

The first change that many make

is to cut, curl, shine or color

if their image is to be replaced.

For hair changes, like no other

changes “the look” to those in haste.

Oh what men will try when hair is dying

the “comb over”, toupee (to name a few)

does not leave the women sighing

and wanting more of you.

The title “hunk” is often symbiotic

with great hair, along with other attractions.

Although styles are transient and quixotic

they are positively related to hair fraction.

Many image worshipers spend much time

on the current “creative” hairstyle craze.

Each Era thinks them quite fine

“What awesome hair” the worshiped phrase.

Hindsight twenty-twenty, generations next

find the hairstyles so adored quite ridiculous.

Of course their elders, tasteless and un-blessed

were sloppy, mundane and un-meticulous.

I fear our cultural worship of hair

(though silly, short-lived and vain)

will always be a-kin to  beauteous fair;

unless left out in the rain.  🙂

For a great style, if new and rare,

no matter the time or pain;

will achieve many a copy and stare;

And that is quite insane!

 

It’s amazing to me how an inanimate strand of protein-collagen complex can rock our world.  The glory of hair transforms self–esteem, gives iconic and succinct explanations of our day (as in “having a bad hair day”), crowns the world of fashion and Haute Couture, and supports a multi-billion dollar industry.  Before cancer I had great hair.  Long waves and curls, thick and cinnamon honey colored.  Now, I have a thin, somewhat curly, medium brown HOT MESS!  When I had great hair I did not understand the power of hair.  When I had no hair I was overwhelmed by the nakedness and loss of my only beauty.   Now I can sympathize with the ache of hair loss that so many men have to suffer through, even though my hair did return, though but a frail shade.  My hair will never be the same, and will always remind me of my body failures.  But my poem portfolio would not be complete without a nod to this ever changing obsession, set in a humorous style.  I hope you can laugh with me as I strip away the universal hair craze shared with humans throughout the centuries.

Rigid Thinking (Fibonacci)

Life

Game On!

Inner moves,

personality,

colors our inner perspective.

Positive or negative thought patterns create moods.

Black pessimism or white optimism? Wise choices change the outcome of your game.

≅

Fibonacci poems use the fibonacci sequence.  Each line contains the number of syllables in the sequence (1,2,3,5 etc

Odd poem you say?  Let me reframe it a bit.  I recently watched a thought-provoking documentary by BBC personality and journalist Michael Mosley called “Don’t Worry Be Happy”.  In it Michael explores the basic makeup of his personality and learns how to modify his naturally negative perspective.  Research into personalities has shown that persons with a natural bent toward optimism life on average 7 1/2 years longer than people who see ‘the glass half empty’.  Michael has chronic insomnia and anxiety and his personality testing showed that his right frontal cortex, where negative emotions are generated, was three times more active than his left.

Michael started a program to modify his negative thinking using two proven therapies. Cognitive Bias Modification is a simple process where one looks at mixed facial images and picks out the pleasant and happy faces for 10-15 minutes a day.  Mindfulness meditation is a process where one clears the mind and focus’ on deep abdominal breathing starting with a few minutes a day and working up to 20 minutes a day.

At the end of 8 weeks Michael  was sleeping better than he had in years and felt much more relaxed.  His re-testing showed that his right frontal cortex was only slightly more active than his left, a remarkable improvement.

Can depression and dark thinking lead to illness? It is known that persons with mental health disorders live shorter lives than the general population.  I believe in the mind-body connection, and I wonder whether some of my medical illnesses will some day be traced to my negative perspective.   I am the girl who, at age three, had two very interesting sentences to everything:  “I can’t like it” and “I can’t want to.”  While my family has laughed over that over the years, I wonder if I would have been healthier had I been given the skills to change my inner thinking.  To change what is so ingrained is a daunting task indeed.

Addendum:  I actually posted this a couple years ago in another blog. I did not know that I actually have Borderline Personality Disorder.  It is often misdiagnosed as Bipolar.

Ode to a Dust Mote

 

Floating tiny flakes of skin;

insidious, ghostly, an infinity within;

Combined, dust upon dust without end

you infiltrate every crevice and crack!

With futile attempts to catch and send

your army forces stick and stack

and drive our enthusiastic dusting friends

on ever aggressive dusting attacks

as we spend  our money, millions a year,

on expensive and exotic dusting gear

in futile attempts to hold you back.

Author of many allergy sneezes

you puff unknowing into our nose

and attack with sniffles and wheezes

just adding to our dust-laden woes.

Breathing in untold millions of dust

starts a cascade to dust unseen

as trapped in gooey mucus must

make them claustrophobic and mean.

Our bodies do not like you, not one bit!

Moist or dry, brown or green,

our ever vigilant cilia filters

clump and clog you as “bugger-shit”.

On rare moments we cease the fight

to view your beauty, your free-floating form,

visible in unstirred filtered light;

unfettered, your graceful circular flight

temporarily stops our dusting storm.

And on a more serious note,

you remind us of the Biblical quote,

“Ashes to ashes and dust to dust”

as in death our bodies must

return to a simpler, easier form.

∞

I am allergic to dust (or more likely, dust mites), so I have air filters in all the bedrooms.  But with four cats, four litter boxes and four people, dust is an enemy never conquered.  The only time I have real allergy issues is when I “dust”, and since I hate to dust  because I hate to sniffle and sneeze, it collects and coats every surface before I give up and remove it. Of course, removing it is really just a joke, all I am doing is swirling it around a bit and getting my immune system all riled up.  But it looks better, which is the goal of housekeeping, so I keep at it when my dust threshold is hit.  But there are times when it is achingly beautiful, and it was in contemplation of a moment of silent filtered light that inspired this poem.

Ode to the Air We Share

 

 I never hear persons with germ scares

fear the “healthy” air they share.

For all the air that we breathe,

is blown out from other lungs indeed!

Respect for air that moves here and there

should be our primary creed;

sharing air should also be nasally fair

and gas should be carefully freed.

For I do care as I sniff from there

and my lungs do deeply breathe,

the malodorous scents and body vents

that constantly assault my bronchial tree.

 As children we are frequently taught:

“the tissue is our nostril’s best reprieve”.

For some reason we prioritize nose blows

and covering our faces when we sneeze.

But the simple fact is that ANY breathing act

is recycled refuse,  an unfortunate lot!

And that is an air sharing fact.

≅

It does gross me out that I am breathing in what you just expelled.  We are all really just one big organism.  As  I write this at the start of yet another epidemic (Chinese coronavirus), it is a pertinent reminder that we are but a sneeze or cough away from the Big One.

Ode to the Nose that Flows

Our day quickly becomes distracting

when we have a nose that flows.

For we cannot help reacting

when our smeller becomes our foe.

There is nothing so subtracting

as when its color turns red as a rose.

And red noses are certainly detracting–

for in the toilet our looks go.

 

Whether an from allergy or cold

our sniffling, snorting woes

make us push up tissues to hold

the mucosal waterfall hose.

Most people take whiny issue

when sneezes shake their toes.

When people throw their tissues

selfishly here, there and down below,

sides are drawn and  friends become foes.

 

But ahh, a benefit to a snotty nose;

some days are meant for these mean lows.

For now and then we are meant to rest

and a flowing nose is an obvious show

and an excuse that is just the best!

My tongue-in-cheek homage to winter colds……