Witness again this prison where I abide. A prison constructed of love as surely as hate. Love for my grandmother, the only one who has been there for me in the past, the only one who has loved me as I�ve sought to be loved, unconditionally and completely. And hate, a burning and intolerable pit of hatred that can only mirror my love for I am watching the one true person on this planet perish slowly.
Hatred of my own helplessness. Anger at my own frustration watching the slow step of time and disease take her away from me, languid.
After cancer she got better, after the insufferable hell of chemo-therapy, the nights when her madness set in, a product of her raging body, she would scream at me for hours on end. Inane and inconsequential were her criticisms, meaningless yet vehement. I would sit there and resent her for getting sick, for letting these things ravage her and for her taking it out on me. I would cry softly in the darkness, uttering the mantra the doctors told me, clinging to it in desperation �It�s not her, it�s the medicine.� But worse yet was the recognition at what she had done shortly after, what horrible despair.
After all this, she had her bad days but she was well again. Over the years she ceased having her bad days and then set into having her good days and now? The slow unstoppable steps of just days, endless misery after endless misery. How I despise old age and sickness. How I long for the fierce and undeniable vision of my past.
Her voice cracks, she can barely talk at times. She�s become one of those silent shuffling creatures we all try to ignore, trapped in her own miserable reality, looking back upon a wasted life and of all the mistakes she made. She hates life and she hates death. Yet she perceivers for me, I know this. She knows how I cherish her and at how the thought of losing her tears at me so, yet I lose a piece of her each day!
Why should I be so upset, she laments, she�s the one facing death! How little she understands of my love for her. Her death is my death and much like her spirit, mine is slowly perishing. I�ve no will to fight anymore, to raise my voice to the heavens in defiance. I trudge along next to her as I�ve always done and will always do. Impossible to let her go, to live without her, yet resenting and hating the miserable state she�s in. How I hate when she speaks to me at times!! Her weak voice so full of doubt and reproach. The keen intellect has dulled to where trivial tasks often pose insurmountable obstacles.
And yet, the worse thing is her awareness of it, her own loathing for it. I can�t control my anger at times and she knows it, I coddle and care for her as best I can but rage for those days when she was the vibrant and beautifully brilliant woman who saved my life. Glorious in my selfishness for she longs for those days even more strongly then myself. To come home and see her sobbing on the floor, frustrated, tired, and unable to follow a simple recipe as she�s done countless times before.
Yet she obsesses about trivial things as that is all her life has become. Her connection is family and matters concerning the family, which is to say, things that I don�t only have no interest in but also a fair amount of contempt for. I loathe the majority of my family, the lot of them can be cast into the deepest pit for all I care, yet forced to listen to even the slightest happening out of respect for my grandmothers want of speech. She tells me of goings on in the neighborhood, again, something I care not for. She sits by her police scanner as if it�s the last portal to the outside word and gobbles every little piece of drama so that she may have something to talk to me about. This isn�t her fault, what is she supposed to speak with me about? Why do I get so angry? Her cracking and broken voice are all I can concentrate on! Remembering the beautiful bird song voice of the past and inwardly weeping, what care do I give to the world around me?
She comments that she�s rotting in her chair, in front of the TV, wasting away in boredom yet lack any strength to do much else! The guilt and burden of this cripples me! How do I go out and laugh and joke with my friends while my beloved grandmother sits at home wasting away?
She was beautiful. She would take the world on if it challenged her, nothing stopped her. Not even her own ingrate children when they raped and pillaged her love and devotion to them. Her cobalt blue eyes were sharp, wise, and full of care. I sat listening to an old tape she made for me, probably back when I was 12. She was going to work and left me a message saying how proud she was of me and how much she loved me, she said these words in her wonderful sing song voice, distorted by the age of the tape but still beautiful despite the sadness of it all. I wasn�t anything to be proud of at that age. Conflicted and toiling with the loss of god and the sick and sad realization of the lies perpetuated by fear and lust for power, I fought with everyone. I wanted nothing to do with �playing� and other such frivolous childhood activities, the teachers were my true friends at school, and yet she would always say how proud she was. How smart I was that I would read all the time and toy with my stone age computers. Even after blowing fuses and frying stereo�s in my curiosity she was always loyal and always loving. Her punishment was her disappointment if it ever came to that, so afraid I was of disappointing her!!
The thought that this will never be again is unbearable. How I hate life in it�s cruelness. How I hate everyone. No.. not out of vanity for my own suffering, I mock it. My miserable whining and sniveling. No, but for hers. This world where we cry that we�ve come to this great stage of fools� I would see it all burn out of utter and loathsome jealousy.
And yet each day when something amazing or beautiful catches my eye I can�t understand how both of these things can exist in this world. Can life really be so vile when such beauty exists? Even still, the beauty is tainted and often discarded out of hand by blindness or ignorance perhaps. Pity. I�m confused and I�m sad. Romance is not only dead, it never existed. Created by man to mask the immutable misery and hopelessness of reality.
My love for it all is only match by my supreme hatred. This is my prison.
-G