Fucking amazing

Griefs wake

What are we to do

When our heroes fail us

What are we to do

When those sent to protect us

Instead cause harm

Should we take up arms against the aggressor

Is it time to curb our enthusiasm

Or is it time to throw down the gauntlet

Face the oppressor with righteous anger

Weep for us who have to make that choice

Weep for those left behind in griefs wake

Chris McQueeney    4/28/15

I have written some about my addiction issues and also about losing my mind due to brain trauma...things have been hard for a long time, not only physically and emotionally also financially. For the first time in almost three years I am doing well, amazingly well. I feel amazing, fucking amazing!

Let's talk
about the day I died
it was nice out
kind of like today
I was rolling hard
I couldn't wait
for that spoon
flag that shit
pull back on it
like there was nothing
else in the world
the cute girl I was hitting on
paled in comparison
to the rig in my hand
hit the stream
flow the vein
stop the heart
beat beat beat
go flat
line
pain like nothing else
stutter skip hop slip
goes the struggling beat
Concrete sleep
or a dirt nap


Chris McQueeney

twelve years

I feel

Fucking right I do

I feel amazing for once

No drag me down

Sky’s on the horizon

Feel Good Inc blaring on the phones

Fingers flying over the keys

The world tis good

Isn’t it

I will hold this day tight

Like it might escape

And leave me behind

that was yesterday...today not so much. My dad died today, twelve years ago. I am sad today. I often wonder what he would have to say if he could. a lot of life has happened in the last twelve years...fuck I miss him...........................

If not for you there would be no me

Again today

I dreamt of you

Again today

You were there for me

In my dreams

Twelve years it’s been

And I remember like it was just yesterday

I miss you so

That grief thing rears its ugly head and bites

And that motherfucker has teeth

Twelve years or fifty it is all the same

You are gone

And only in my dreams are you real

At first I was sad

Then I got mad

How could you do this

Now it is an ache

Like a missing limb

Ghost pains

I keep a piece of you here

In my chest

You told me when I was young

Real men don’t cry

After a bit of life went by you told me you were so wrong

That tears don’t make you less of a man

I am glad to know that

Because I still have tears for you

More for me without you

Chris McQueeney    4/25/15

Echoes of insanity

My decent into madness happened with me unawares. The first warning sign would have to have been the day after I got hurt. The scary thing is that it doesn’t feel any different than normal. I guess the madness becomes the new norm. I was on my sister’s couch on the phone with an adjuster from workman’s comp. I say I was on the phone with her but in reality I was screaming at her. The day before, I was injured on the job…I had my lungs burned by some caustics that I was using to strip the paint off of a house. Have you ever smelled the scent of human flesh burning? It smells sweet, sickeningly sweet, cloying. Tastes like nothing else I have ever tasted before. Disgusting. The trauma was so overwhelming that I didn’t notice that anything had changed in my thinking. The human mind is an amazing thing, it can gloss over almost anything and make it normal. Like I said the madness was the new norm. I was convinced that the woman I had on the phone was trying to destroy the life that I had left. I was having flashbacks of the truck ride from the worksite to the hospital. I could taste my lungs cooking. I could also taste the blood that I had coughed up. I could feel the glass of the truck window that I had my face pressed to as I was grasping for breath. All I could think of at that point was what were my kids going to do without me. I knew I was dying. I couldn’t breathe. I could feel it, over and over. I can feel it as I write this. In the hospital they put me on drugs for the coughing and the pain. I think the drugs masked the results of the brain damage. I remember telling my x wife that I was having a hard time tracking, was easily confused. But still had no idea the extent of the damage. So there I was screaming at this woman absolutely convinced that she was trying to destroy my life. Looking back now I can rationalize what she was actually doing, just trying to get my general information for their records. I don’t remember much from the next month other than the fact that I spent it on my sister’s couch recovering. I was in such poor health that I was consumed by the pain, the coughing and the opiates. I was scared all the time. That is one of the major parts of my madness, the fear. It is like a forest fire, all consuming. I became convinced that my x wife was going to try to take my children from me. I didn’t try to talk to anyone about my suspicions. That was just the tip of the iceberg. Then one day as I was driving home I found myself looking at the abutment of a freeway overpass and I caught myself thinking that I could let go of the steering wheel and gun the gas and it would be all over. I realized then that I was fanaticizing about killing myself. I kept driving. What really jolted me about the episode was that I had had that same exact thought every time I passed that particular point on the freeway for the previous three months. At that point I went to my doctor to express the fact that I was not doing so well. I didn’t tell her the extent of the problems I was having. Even rattled I wasn’t able to open up enough. I tried to manage a life that was descending to unmanageability with a mind that was broken. I remember talking to my AA sponcer about how bad things were financially, and how bad my physical condition was but left out how I was faring mentally. The doctors couldn’t figure out why I was still having difficulties, and why the treatments weren’t working. That went on for about five months. Then I took myself off the opiates because I didn’t like what they were doing to me. That was early December. Without the buffer of the drugs things got worse. Sometime in early January I was at a jumping off place. I was going to kill myself. It was as if the switch for live or not live had been turned to the not live position. I got a wild hare up my ass and decided that if I was going to kill myself that I would get drunk then do it. I went to the Plad Pantry and bought some apricot Ail and proceeded to get drunk. As soon as the alcohol kicked in the need to end my life disappeared. It was that quick. I got the first night of real relief in almost six months. The next day I realized what I had done. I had drank after having not had a drink in over three and a half years. In my mind I adamantly declared that I wasn’t going to go down that path again. I decided that I wasn’t going to drink again. That declaration lasted me about nine days. Again I was going to kill myself. Might as well get drunk before I did it, what did I have to lose. I got drunk. Again I was relieved of the need, no, compulsion to end it all. And again The next day I was resolved to stay sober. This time I made it thirteen days before I broke down again. The third time I just decided that it was safer for me to drink. My mind was clearer than it had been for six months and I didn’t want to kill myself anymore, and I didn’t hurt. The fear was gone. The fear was gone and I could breathe. I talked to my sponcer about my drinking again, and the fact that I would much rather be sober but that I couldn’t handle what was happening to me physically. I still didn’t admit to him that I had been suicidal, nor that I thought, or rather that I had been thinking that my x wife was plotting to take the kids from me and that she may be plotting to kill me. No, I kept that all to myself. I quickly picked up the being drunk all the time. I would drink at night and stay dry during the day if the kids were with me. That’s right I had my kids at least half the time. Soon though the drinking started getting to me. I was drinking about a fifth of booze a day, had started getting the shakes. I decided that I was going to quit the drinking so I told my doctor all about what was going on, about the needing to kill myself and the fear and of course the drinking. She proscribed me some benzos to combat the withdrawals from the alcohol…I think I made it about three days before I drank again. So I worked it out with my x that I would enter a low bottom detox center. I knew that I wouldn’t get in for the first two days so I got enough gin to last me and begged a ride to the detox center. The thing about alcohol detox is that it can be deadly. You can actually die from alcohol withdrawal. The first day went by without incident but day two didn’t go so hot. I passed out in the lobby of the detox center and started vomiting on myself. The staff tried to revive me but they couldn’t so they called an ambulance. I vaguely remember the paramedic yelling at me saying that I needed to quit drinking or it was going to kill me. The next thing I remember I was coming to in a hospital bed. I had to piss so fucking bad that I thought I was going to wet myself. It took a bit but I was finally able to get myself out of the bed at that time a nurse came into the room and asked me what I was doing I told her that I was trying to go to the bathroom. She gave me a funny look then told me that I could have just pissed into the jug hanging from the bed that I had been in. I think they thought I was homeless because the doctor quickly told me that I couldn’t stay there that I had to leave. I had no Idea where I was, I knew that I was in a hospital but not which one. I had to ask for directions just to leave the emergency room. I called my x and asked her to come pick me up then I walked to a convenience store to buy some malt liquor. I finally made it home to my gin supply and my own bed. The next day I was admitted to the detox. Hooper detox is a center for low bottom alcoholics and drug addicts…I lasted three days then I checked myself out AMA and was drunk forty five minutes later

Chris McQueeney

Flat

I feel flat

Not a care in the world

What do you think of that

Sitting here in the middle of it

Shit spread like fertilizer

To make the crappy decisions grow

Like flowers

But I can’t be bothered with that

You know

Because

I’m flat

Can’t be bothered with that

I see it grow

And I want to know

If it is getting your goat

You may think me cold

I’m not

I should care

But I can’t bring my self

To enter the world

And be part of

I feel flat today

What a fat way of pay back

For being a spikey prick in the past

Now I just feel flat

What you think of that

Chris McQueeney    4/18/15

dəˈfiSHənsē/

Wholesale

You are just

Another cog

In the murder machine

It trundles down your street

Waiting to meet

You on the corner

The sound it makes

Is hard on the ears

I wish I was

Just a piece

In that broken beast

The murder machine

Leaving corpses

In its wake

Trundle on murder machine

You fulfill a very integral

Place in society

Population control

At its most base form

Come with me as we walk a mile

With the murder machine

Watch as it churns up the pieces

Of civilization

Taking what is left and slaughtering it

Wholesale

Chris McQueeney    4/18/15

Here is a side tangent …I fucking hate that I can’t spell. I have all the words I will ever need to describe any situation, but I can’t fucking spell them. Spell check picks up a lot of the slack but doesn’t quite cover what I need. I find myself having to rewrite sentences because I can’t figure out how to spell something. This diffencency…That is misspelled and I am going to leave it there to serve as an example of a strong descriptive word that I have to write around because spellcheck can’t even figure out what I was trying for. This is a handicap that I am not quite sure how to overcome. de·fi·cien·cy

dəˈfiSHənsē/

noun

1.    a lack or shortage.

"vitamin A deficiency in children"

synonyms:

insufficiency, lack, shortage, want, dearth, inadequacy, deficit, shortfall;

I can go the long rout to find the spelling of the word with an internet search. If I am lucky I can find what I am looking for. One thing that whole process does for me is break up the flow of my writing. I am flowing along the words coming all natural like, then bam, a break in the flow, a misspelled word. I have to decide at that point weather I search, or do I rewrite the whole sentence. What a fucking pain in the ass. It sucks also that I can’t spell the frigging synonyms either. What do you do when this arises for you?

Fucking super amazing

Feels good, that’s why it is so destructive. Drugs and alcohol feel good, very good.

I have destroyed everything in my life more than I care to admit. Everything. I am sober so I am rebuilding a life. Sounds like an after school special…the twelve year old alcoholic. I started drinking when I was twelve. I had a hard childhood. I was already broken at twelve, so when I found alcohol I was pre-disposed to abuse it.

My first real drunk happened on a trip with my older brothers. There were five of us and we had five cases of beer. I have never been a blackout drinker so I remember my epic drunks like they just happened. Keystone light, that was what we were drinking, warm keystone light. I remember thinking that something that felt that good couldn’t be bad for you. I was very insecure, skinny with big ears and socially inept.

We pulled over at a bend in the river and set up camp, Geoff Jacob Robert and I. I have no idea why my mom let me go. She had no idea what we were going to be up to. The camp site wasn’t even ready before we started drinking. About five beers into the night it hit me. I felt amazing. Not just amazing, fucking super amazing. I remember looking at my beer and smiling. This was how life was supposed to be. Everything was perfect. I didn’t feel awkward at all. In fact I felt like I belonged. I kept drinking.

At about ten beers into the night we were hungry. I don’t think I have ever felt that viscerally hungry before in my entire twelve years on this rock. So we started cooking. Steak over an open fire. Now I have to confess something. At that point in my life I didn’t like steak. But it was what we had so I drunkenly resigned myself to it. We were listening to AC/DC’s greatest hits. It took four beers to cook the steak. I was keeping track. Finally the steak was finished.

Fifteen beers into the night I experienced steak on beer. It was fucking amazing! I don’t think I have ever tasted anything that good. The night was perfect! We were all sitting around the fire eating our steaks. I was completely engrossed in my beer and my steak. Just as I was finishing that amazingly yummy chunk of meat I was also finishing my fifteenth beer. I picked up my beer and tipped my head back to take a gulp. All that came out of the can was foam. I swallowed convulsively.

As soon as that beer foam hit my stomach I started vomiting. The vomit came out in a solid stream splashing all over my feet and legs. I barfed so hard that the underside of the lawn chair I was sitting in got coated. After what seemed like forever the throwing up stopped. My brother Jacob, who had been sitting next to me, asked me if I was alright. I started to say that I felt fine but just as I started respond the barfing started back up.

Finally the barfing stopped. I didn’t feel sick at all. In fact I felt more alive than I had ever felt in my life. I cracked another beer. One of the others called me ralph and laughed at me. They all laughed. I didn’t mind at all. I cracked another beer.

After finishing my seventeenth beer I realized that I had to pee. The feeling was almost overwhelming. So I walked, more like stumbled, away from the fire. The piss lasted as long as the vomiting. I felt a relief that I had never experienced before in my life. I was done for the night at that point so I stumbled to the tent and laid down on top of the sleeping bag. It was like laying on the ocean with the waves rising and lowering me. I slept.

The first thing I did when I woke up was crack another beer. That night was twenty five years ago but it seems like it was just yesterday. For the first time in my life I felt like I fit in.

Street walker

prospective

Life leaves it’s marks on your soul

Mine has been stamped for sure

Walk until you can’t walk anymore

See just where that will leave you

After a while the veneer of society grows thin

If you are lucky you will find a meal

And a place to sleep for the night

Growing up no one ever told me how cold it could get

Living under a bridge downtown

No one ever told me that if you stop to rest

For even a minute you will freeze to death

Puts life into prospective

I was homeless only a short time but being so left some scars. It has been over a year now since I lived on the streets but still it seems strange to be in a place I can call my own. I still sleep fully dressed. I have a hard time sleeping if I undress. There were times when I wore the same cloths for weeks at a time without changing. Have you ever worn your socks until they turned hard. I was a bum, a street walker. I never understood what being a street walker meant until that life was forced on me. Even after more than a year I feel as though the other shoe is about to drop. I wonder how long that will go on for. I now have a roof over my head and am of sound mind…it takes a kind of madness to survive being homeless especially in the winter. My situation only got better because of the legal system and a friend or two. 

untitled

Parade rest

see me as we breathe 
under water
we stand stoic 
as if in parade rest
backs straight 
chest forward 
hard of hearing we strain
to catch the latest news 
chin up 
arms down
we stand stoic
so that others can 
see how it is done
come join us
be as one 
with waves stirred
by falls sun
and winter's moon
held captive 
by tidal pull

wander

In your touch

Whole again

A shimmering light

Twas your smile

Twin sunrises were

Your eyes

Striking the center of me

Never to be the same

Ever after

My heart stood broken

To be mended by your smile

My soul to be soothed

In your eyes

Your touch is a soothing balm

On my winter chapped lips

Let me breathe you in

Exhale

Whole again

You do that to me

Whole again

And again

In you I am whole

Broken though I was

In your eyes I am whole again

In your smile I am made anew

In your touch I am healed

Chris McQueeney    4/12/15

fly away

Im off today
To find my
Flying machine
It has got to be
Here somewhere
I wasn't that drunk
Have you seen
My flying machine
It is short and stout
Wings stretching out
Both of us need it here...

Chris McQueeney

500th post

Hand in hand

She walks with me

Hand in hand

Near the wishing tree

Her unshod feet

 Through the grass

Like a plow

Un-caring at what it turns up

The sunlight dances among

Winter bare branches

Though it holds all our dreams

The wishing tree looks

Barren

Defrocked denuded

She walks with me

Hand in hand

To the wishing tree

We lay our souls

At its feet

Root in soil midnight dark

Twining our dreams we circle

Its base as if

As if it would change a thing

She walked with me

Down to the wishing tree

We laid our wishes there

To be taken up by the

Next to wander through

Chris McQueeney     4/9/15

If I am reading things correctly this is my five hundredth post on my blog...that amazes me! when I first started my blog I was just learning how to write now five hundred posts later I feel that there is much more that I have yet to learn about being a word smith. Thank you all who have stopped by to read my words..............

I had a

I had a

I had a memory once

But I left it somewhere behind

Can you help me find it

I am not sure what it looks like

Or where to look

I am sure you can help me

Try for once to see like me

And maybe you will be rewarded

I wonder what it would be like

To remember what I have forgotten

I had a memory once

But I lost it for sure

Who but you can help me find it

What I pain I know

But knowing what I forgot

Will be well worth it

Maybe it will be like a light in your eye

Or a smile on your lips

Or the twinkle of your laugh

Can you help me please

I had a memory once

But I lost it somewhere behind

Chris McQueeney    4/8/15

The less of which

The less of which

You see me here

An empty shell

Of my former self

Held together by stitches

Like some freakish doll

Piece me together

Pick up my pieces

And try to fit them to

The specifications you have

Before you

Watch me dance at the end

Of your strings

Look ma I am a real boy

As my nose grows

Because broken as I am

The truth is an abstract idea

The less of which

I find comfort in

Chris McQueeney    4/8/15

Dude, he stole my car

I had planned on writing about the biggest failure as an adult but decided on writing something else instead

 My dad stole my car once. He drove over four hundred miles just to steal my car. Sounds bad…My dad the car thief. The whole thing started as an idea of my mother’s. She didn’t have a thing to do with the car being stolen but she did have something to do with the events that led up to the car theft.

I was seventeen and living with my dad at the time. He wasn’t very happy with me because I had been fucking off quite a bit. I had been working for pizza hut and bought a little Subaru from a co worker for four hundred and fifty dollars. I only had my permit at the time so I couldn’t drive the car without a licensed adult driver.

My mom called me and said that she wanted to go to Idaho and wondered if I wanted to go with her. I said I did so we approached my father about letting me go and about taking the car. He had some misgivings about the whole affair but said that if my mom was willing to accept responsibility for me we could go.  

So we drove from Oregon City to Nampa. I say we drove but the reality was that my mom drove the whole way even when I asked to drive she said no…I was kinda pissed but I let it slide. We got to Nampa and proceeded to get fucked up. Getting fucked up occupied a lot of the time we spent over there. We were smoking pot and snorting crank in large quantities.

One day about a week after we got to Idaho I was itching to drive my car so I badgered my mom until she said ok. Finally I was going to get to drive. I got behind the wheel and started driving. I already knew how to drive I started actually driving when I was nine years old, so I knew what I was doing. After about five minutes my mom started freaking out, telling me to pull over and let her drive. I told her no and kept driving. About three seconds later she cold cocked me’ she actually punched me straight in the face, three times.

I was driving about thirty miles an hour when she punched me so I couldn’t react then she hit me again and again. I kept my mouth shut and pulled over at my sister’s place and told mom the get the fuck out of my car. I stopped just long enough to get her out of the car then I took off. I remember it just like it was yesterday, mom standing on the side of the street as I left in her only mode of transportation.

I then went over to my buddy Brent’s house and proceeded to binge for the next five days or so. I don’t have a lot of recollection about what I did those five days I remember the day I went to sleep. I was exhausted, having spent about a week and a half wide awake on meth I had worn myself out to the point I could barely keep my eyes open.

I went to sleep

About five the next morning my dad tried to wake me. “Chris you can come with me right now or I am going to leave you here.” My reaction was to say I am sleeping, just let me sleep. So he left. I thought it was just a dream until I woke and went outside and saw my car was gone. My dad feeling like it was his responsibility grabbed a buddy and drove the four hundred miles to get the car from me.

I say my dad stole my car in jest. He actually wanted me more then he wanted the car but knew he couldn’t force me to come home so he did the only other thing he could to keep me out of trouble, he took the car. Needless to say I was pissed off. My dad stole my fucking car...but As an adult now thinking back I am just glad he didn't kick my ass for being such a fuck up. 

Chris McQueeney    4/7/15

Trying sompin new

You know you are

Baby you know you are

Compromised by self interest

Fellating your sense of being

On top o the heap

Baby you know what I say is true

You think you are the one

And only one

Sad to see the others go on below

When you know for sure you

Are numeral Uno

The whole world is at your fingertips

Pick it up

The mantra keeps the doubt fairies

From flying to close

Baby you know you are

Compromised by self interest

Fellating your sense of being

On top o the heap

But what kind of claim to fame

Is being on top o the heap

This pile of shit

Is the measure of your accomplishment

How high can you be

Being just another soul on the heap

Chris McQueeney    4/6/15

Life is a trippy thing. What I thought of as insurmountable obstacles were actually just blips on the map. I thought the mental health regimen, that I was compelled to be involved in, hamstrung my life. I was wrong...the regimen was the only consistent thing in a life riddled with inconsistency. Goes to show that I may not always know what is best for myself. I am going to get back into writing every day, I have been slacking. What a thing to have in my life, this writing. Tomorrow I am going to write about the biggest failure of my adult life, and how I handled it. I am going to open myself up and put it down in black and white......................     

Fluffy x 3

Fluffy

         I sit on my back porch in fear for my life. Fear consumes my every waking moment! You might ask what has me so fearful; you might ask, but you probably would not believe me. My days and nights are consumed with a dread so intense that it is hard to function. I muddle through my days acting as if everything is normal that the world isn’t overwhelmed. Rotted from within by an evil so pervasive, so deceptive that the fabric of our, yes our very lives could be consumed in an instant. Roaming my backyard this very instant is the source of my fear. A beast so mind numbingly evil that most hold them close to their hearts, deceived as to their true nature. I speak to you with anonymity for fear that they will find out that I know their true nature. Contrary to popular belief rabbits are pure evil. I did say you probably wouldn’t believe me.

Let’s start with their appearance. At first glance the average rabbit is a fluffy ball of cuteness, but upon closer inspection the telltale signs of evil are apparent to the educated eye; the signs are many, but for now we will focus on three of these. First, the claws, if you were to shave the fur from around the paw you would see sharp hooked daggers better suited for disemboweling than digging. Next we observe the teeth, curved to better hold onto unwilling flesh, and sharp enough to cut through the toughest skin. Finally we come to the eyes, the portals to the rabbit’s truly evil soul, balefully pinkish red they glow with hatred for everything live.

Having covered their deceptive appearance we move on to the rabbits habits. Only six months after birth the rabbit starts to fornicate. With only one breeding pair the coven can grow to hundreds in nine months. Imagine that, hundreds of blood thirsty rabbits in the time it takes to make one human child! If rabbits had innocent intent they would live above ground, instead they live in darkened holes, holes that are constantly growing to provide space for their legions of progeny.

Have you ever wondered why it is that on Easter so much focus is shined upon the bunny? Some would claim it is because of the children, to keep them occupied and excited for Jesus’s resurrection, this is not so. It is no coincidence the bunny is associated with the death of Christ. Easter is only a thinly veiled form of fear worship and supplication, with offerings of decorated eggs and candy our forefathers hoped to avoid the apocalypse the bunny represents. Christ had much reason not to stay in the mortal realm where the rabbit held so much power.

I hold my fear close, tightly wrapped up and hidden. The world will never know from my actions the terror inside. I lay my offerings of egg and candy with a smile, I laugh and act happy when others speak of the affection they hold for the rabbit. For I know, yes, oh yes only too well do I know what evil lurks inside the beast. You have been warned! Don’t ever try to find me, if you do you will lead them to me. I pray one day enough humans will know the danger, but that day is not today. You have been warned!

Chris McQueeney    4/29/11    10:00    P.M

I wrote fluffy as an essay for a college writing course. The assignment was to write a claim of fact. The claim did not have to be true, and I asked very carefully about that. Not only did I get a very good grade on the paper, I used it as my final…I defended this paper in front of the class. They were for the most part speechless. Who could, or would defend a paper like that, well, I guess I can, and I did. I also got a very good grade on the final, and the class. Fluffy was one of my early posts, and I felt it appropriate to have it on my one hundredth post almost a year later.

At the end of my defense of the paper (slightly revised in its current posting) my instructor, Paul Crumrine (a very good teacher by the way) asked if I had used a book called Watership Down as the basis for my paper. I had to tell him I had no idea what he was talking about, not only had I never read the book, I had no idea what it was about. He dropped it at that point and the class continued on.

On the last day of class we got together to get our final grades, and to discuss the class. About five or ten minutes into the class Mr. Crumrine stopped and called me to the front of the class. He then presented me with his first edition hard bound copy of Watership Down, by Richard Adams. I can’t express how much that meant to me. I have sense read the book, and it is a very good book by the way...give it a shot if you get the chance.

I would have to say that he is one of the reasons I am writing today. Had he been like my first college writing teacher I would not have this blog, or one hundred posts. I wouldn’t have the friends I have made through this blog or the fulfillment I have gotten from writing. Twenty three days from now I will have had my blog for one year, and I will tell you a bit about how that came to be, and whose fault it is that you have to suffer through my words…