First off, my kindest thanks to Korrinne for her adamant response. And, although I'm feeling much better, you, dear Korrinne, are going to have to get out your Bible and prove to me that "God doesn't make failures." Paul's (somewhat caluss) statement in Romans 9 makes it clear to me that He creates and uses people in whatever way He wants. And even if you can prove this to me, there is still the problem that we can make failures of ourselves.


Next off. I am in Baton Rouge, using a laptop with an extremely non-sensitive keyboard (I'm gonna break this thing, I know it), and drinking a surprisingly yummy 24 oz. Red Dog in my motel room. Tigger is here and very confused. But, he takes comfort in my presence and in that of his toys. Heather is at a regional archivist conference - that's WHY we're here.

Unfortunately, the pool this place advertised is a joke! Its barely a friggin kiddy-pool. And it's heated, which is great since the air outside is 95 degrees! So I am in my air-conditioned room, getting various odds and ends of my hobbies done.

Have you ever had an experience that you didn't know whether to write a poem about, or just plain write about? (Thank God for prose poems.) Well, I had one at Waffle House today. But I think I'll just notebook-it for now. But my thanks to Cliff and Diane working lunch shift alone at the Waffle House in Port Allen for helping me feel human. I spend too many of my days in numbness.

My haiku was/is this:

Words have no meaning
if unlived by you and me.
I made Love last night.

I failed.


It was me against me, as usual. And I failed.

I am not the Ozark Poetry Slam Champion. And I did not lose because there was someone better than me. I could have handled that. I lost because I made a stupid mistake when I should have known better. I slammed my heart out like a badass mofo, but a 2 point deduction, because I did something STUPID!!!, in the final round, lost it for me.

I placed fifth. Doug gave me third. I owe him for that.

I would have tied for first, and she and I would have had a Haiku-off tie-breaker. . . . I could have handled that.

And it was in the wake of that self-defeat, and with 1.5 hours of sleep, that I faced today.

My beloved wife now has a masters degree in English from U of A. And her family couldn't give a shit. It makes me furious. She alone is worth more than all of them. At least MY family appreciates her, and knows how to love her. She is ours, now. And I am truly, truly proud of her.

Then I ditched my friends tonight. Again - a failure. But, I feel like I'm on the verge of an emotional breakdown. You see, I was half-catatonic this afternoon (could only move half my body, repeated the sames phrases over and over - my mind unwilling to move at the shock of . . . of what I percieved to be financial doom laying at my feet) and barely functional this evening. This was my worst panic attack in years, and one unlike any other. . . . Heather deserves better. So do my friends.

After forcing myself to do what could be done among the shards of Tigger's wrath (poor Tigger - he should NOT have been left inside the house and alone for 9 HOURS after a full night's rest!), I layed down, and I could barely move. Music helped; the heavy stuff - with powerfull riffs and sweet breakdowns - cutting through my numbness. I layed there and begain to think in straight lines again, replacing the frozen-brain mantras with a piecemeal confession to God. I told God what he already knows, as usual (it is for our sake that we say it), and what he has heard from me a hundred times before. I told Him that I am a failure. That there is no good in me that cannot be undermined in a second by my own stupidity, by my own chemical flaws. (Last night, the feeling that came over me when I realized I had caused myself to lose the slam was one of the most familiar feelings I know! All I could think was, " not again.") And then I said something that I don't believe I can ever say, and mean it, in a non-psychotic-episode frame of mind. I said I don't want to be special! ...I don't want to be good at something. I don't want to be looked-up-to. ...Or looked-at! I am truly no more than filthy rags - a peice of shit at His feet.

I said I don't want to be special. Because it is all a fool's hope!

I told him that I don't want to be special (and I'm repeating it over and over again right now because I may not ever say it again aloud), because I can't be special! I am unable. Dis-abled.

BUT, I said I believe that He is God of everything - even a piece of shit, even a failure. And so what I ask, what I beg, is all I CAN ask, all I can EVER ask. It is this: ...to be USED. I asked him to forget the special, forget the good, forget the glory, the praise, and every other credit that I long to have ascribed to me, and just simply USE ME!

Then I will at least mean something. Then I will not fail.


The "truth" of this may be covered in holes. It may lose, in translation, all practical application to your life. But I'm talking about having a massive panic attack, a half-frozen brain. And I'm trying to distill and communicate where my mind went and what it came back with.

I don't know where to go from here. Well, I probably do, but I can't make words of it right now. Perhaps, for now, I'll just go to sleep.

The next two days will be important and memorable. They will be important days. Will life be in me? Will love be in me?

Heather graduates (sort-of) with her Masters in English on Saturday. She has completed the requisite hours but she still has to complete and defend her thesis, due in December. Tomorrow I test myself against myself. I think I care more that I will have, of my Siloam life people, more than only Heather at the slam to support me. Saturday we also have a lunch, a wedding, and a party to go to.

I will be taxed. My bipolarness will want to flux. But I trust in God first and Cymbalta second. Cymbalta has helped a lot. There may be something better out there, but this'll do for now.

I have sick and my throat has suffered. I am trying to care for voice as best I can. My performance tomorrow matters a lot to me. It's about identity remember. The question is whether I can deal with not being one of the slam poets, and just care about the people around me.

Dreams. Motivation. Identity. It's all gone right now. And in this amorphous state, loving people is all I have left.

"Love is everything."
-The Juliana Theory

My comment function finally works again. Huzzah!

Do you have any idea how important you are?

I come to you to pour out my mind, my heart . . . and you listen. Well, you read.

My friend Emily Culella has gotten into a creative writing MFA program in Chicago. That makes two. She and Nate Parker. One came before me, and one came after. Nate's at U of Alabama. These are important names. These are the names of poets. The glass that poets look through are often not as dark as ours. More than the rest of us, these two find words closer to the origin of truth. "In the beginning was the Word." And they arrange words so as to more closely resemble that divine language, that truth.

Despite my furious desire to be a wordslinger, a poet, a writer, a person in touch with the language of creation, I am convinced that the words I leave off the page are what matter most. My parents are both dynamic people in their fields. Each of them could have written a number of books and become established, recognizable, members of of the literary elite. But I would NEVER trade the words and actions they gave to me, and to the friends and family around them, for any such printed longevity. Love is a word. Love is perhaps the Word. But a word means nothing without a behavior or an action to give it meaning. And not all the written words of the history of this world can communicate love as well as a single action. And so what I DO matters. What I SAY matters. More than anything I write, it is the words that I say to you that matter. And it is the actions I take that change lives and minds and hearts.

All of this makes sense to me. Loosely, anyway. To you it may all seem obvious. But the most simple fact can come upon you like an epiphany. Like seeing a word given meaning for the first time.

This Friday I complete in Fayetteville at the Ozark Poetry Slam finals. There will be no Ozark team going to nationals this year, but the winner will be featured (along with other "prestigious" slam poets from across Arkansas and across the country!) at the Fayetteville Arts Festival later in the summer. I am becoming a part of this scene. I am becoming, at least by slam definitions, a poet. . . . and I am terrified.

In fact, I am terrified of becoming anything. For as long as I can remember I have feared failure to the extent of inaction. Here and there, especially in college, I have overcome it. But as I draw closer to the issue of identity, I become more and more afraid. From the beginning, I was the pastor's son, the superintendant's son. Not just any pastor, but a man no one seemed to disrespect or dislike. As I've grown older I've seen the powerful force that my mother is in the lives of her disabled students and her fellow teachers. My parents have raised a son in the image of Christ, the likeness of which is a light of hope to my wife (who suffered a harsh parentage). Over and over I heard, while growing-up, that Marty Crain is a great man. Or, "I LOVE your mother!"
And that pressure, unintended by anyone, has built upon my back. As much as I treasure the traits they've given me, I am not my father or mother. I have to find my own identity. And yet I have to measure up! And whatever that identity is, it had better be freaking GOOD! My parents have never imposed such pressure on me. They have been lovingly supportive through many pains. They have always encouraged me. . . . but what if I fail? They will love me; take me back. But I will still be the son who couldn't measure-up to his parents. ... or to his grandfather! Do you have any idea how many people came to my grandfather's (mother's dad) funeral?? People he hadn't seen in 10's of years! From all over the country!! The made that much of a difference to so many people as one simple man. And I am his heir.

I want that!

I am desperate to be somebody!

And I am scared to death to be anybody!
Because my synapses have me convinced that I will fail.

In highschool and college I cried into my pillow, and now I cry into my wifes arms, the same phrase to which I always return after I chastise myself for an endless list of percieved failures: "I don't know who I am."

[I have been, and still am, anchored by one thing, and that is love; that is Jesus Christ.]

I have written before that I feel like I am simply pushed and pulled by the waves, the forces of life outside me. How do I find any identity in that?

Perhaps, for some people, the current of identity is subtle. Gently tugging, moving us slowly, toward discovery.

If you have read this far and are not bored or have not rolled your eyes more than a few times, then I want you to know how important you are. You give me a voice. You give me a chance.

If you have read this, then you matter.

Ok check this out. I haven't slept for 19 hours, I'm listening to the music of unsigned bands, reading HM Magazine, and I just put Gold Bond on my crotch. . . . yeah, I feel like I should be at Cornerstone Festival. Of course, most outdoor odors make me feel that way. There is truly no other experience to make me know I'm alive than C-Stone.

But my reasons for being in this mini-training session are not positive ones. I'm cycling about every four to five days, with the manic periods suddenly motivating me to do stuff and keeping me up all night long.

I've never manifested symptoms so distinctly before. And they are totally out of my control. I almost had a panic attack yesterday because I couldn't find dice (I needed to roll-up hit points and ability scores). I KNOW there are dice in this house, but I couldn't find any! I had to talk myself out of flipping out!

This is not healthy.


I did go fishing on Monday, though. I broke my reel within 15 minutes. . . . but I didn't freak out and go into a self-abusive anxiety/depression rage and might have the day before. Nope, I was in mellow-mode on Monday. I went to Wal-Mart, bought a new reel, and went back out to city lake and kept fishing. I didn't catch a damn thing, but I honestly had fun. And so did Tigger - he ran and explored and dug-up mole holes. He was so wasted, there wasn't a peep out of him the rest of the night.

I love the feeling of getting into bed and completely crashing - being unable to lift my eyes. I hate the timespace between laying down and sleeping . . . which is odd. I used love it. I used to want it endlessly prolonged so that the morning wouldn't come. But of course, morning isn't an issue right now. While unemployed there will always be time for recouperation, so I can abuse myself in the now.
For instance, I may crash soon, but I'll be dragging myself up again at noon so that I can listen to the Red Sox game on internet radio. I'll continue working on any of the following while I do: D&D characters/plot-line; CD collection cleaning and reorganization; and narrowing-down the publications, found mostly in the Poet's Market, to which I will soon send out poems. And if I can get enough caffiene into me, I may then go fishing. Just for a little while. Then I'll come back home and crash again.

Friday will probably be spent depressed and lethargic.

O Discordia.

I may be changing this blog's format soon. I want to separate my personal emoting crap from my discussion of music or movies or books . . . which, admittedly, I haven't done much of. But I'd REALLY like to be a music reviewer. Which is utter bullshit because I am NOT a musician, I simply own freaking tons of music and listen to it all the time. Honestly, I have NO business assessing the quality of anything (music in this case) when I am a failure, fraud and joke in regards to any of those subjects I might try to speak athoritatively on . . . shit, a dangling modifier.

I am having spaz attacks on a daily basis. Whether self-abusive breakdowns or muscle-wrenching anxiety attacks, this is some unhealthy shit. I also swear too much.

I see no point in going to bed, nor do I see any point in getting out of bed.

How can this be who I am?

If God put anything good in me, to coincide with all of this mental garbage, when I was forming in the womb, then where the hell is it? I see no evidence. I have no positive identity.

My wife deserves better. I have forgotten the face of my father . . . and my mother's father. ...But I'm going to try and go fishing tomorrow, so maybe I can remember it. So maybe the someday funeral in my mind's eye won't be so empty, and maybe my heart won't feel so heavy. Because it weighs a lot right now, and I can barely move. ...and I am a shitty poet.

This is my mental illness.

This is me. (or at least the only me I can see)

Is it something YOU would want to be friends with?