Depression and Some Other Stuff

Hi. I haven't been here in awhile.

It's not that I don't have the time. Boy, do I have the time. I have the time to watch TV and babysit my niece and take long rides to the beach on the bike my legs are too short for.

I have the time. But writing or reading might remind me that I should write or read, and I don't think I'm ready for that.

But maybe I am. Yes. Here I am.

In May, I was put on a drug for nerve pain. I immediately had a bad reaction to it, and we reduced the dose. Two weeks later, I held a bottle of morphine in my hand and did the math.

It'd probably take a few of these plus a couple of Xanax to kill me. I held the bottle in my hand and thought about it, how I wanted to be dead without having to do it.

But I stopped.

I reached out and I got some help and I saw a guy, a doctor. He told me that the drug had caused a really bad reaction, making me suicidal.

I would describe myself as prone to depression. I have a million excuses: I've basically been bed-ridden for 9 months. I am living at home. I don't and can't work. Writing is fleeting when I feel like this. It's hard to get me out when I'm sick.

One thing stood out every time I thought about ending my life. My niece's face. It shone like a sun every time I collapsed into the blackness of my head, of my bed. I could never do it, I thought. I would never ruin my family and friends' lives like that.

But boy, did I want out. I wanted no more of the lupus, the pain, the depression. The loneliness and fear and boredom. I just wanted to sleep.

I don't know when I started to get a little happier. I think it was around when I booked my trip to Washington. That gave me something to look forward to.

Eventually the drugs flushed out of my system and I was no longer on the floor. But sometimes, I'll catch myself crying over nothing, though those days are less and less now.

I guess I wanted to say that there is where I've been. Under my covers, wishing the rain to stop and the sun to shine. Grasping for glimmers of summer and riding that until I am out of my bed and biking to the beach to see that sun rise.

If you feel the ways I've just described, please get help. Not everyone is going to understand but someone will, and they will save your life.

Thank you for your support. I am feeling less like a Cymablta commercial and more like a real person. I'm blessed. We all are.

I am out of bed and I am smiling and I wish the same for all of you.

I Fell Down a Bunch of Stars and Wrote a Rap About It

Saturday I was straight trippin

Itching to get my summer clothes

Went to my parents to search for robes

Found a bunch of sundresses to my delight

Little did I know I almost didn’t survive the flight (of stairs, doesn’t rhyme)

The pile of Forever 21 dresses lay in my arms

Barefoot, no socks to slip on

I approached the top of the stairs like I was pro

Been walking since I was 1, not to brag, yo

Made it down one step and much to my surprise

I almost had an untimely demise

I tripped then stopped then started again

When I looked up I was at the very end

I started to cry, man I started to scream

My dad found me face down in the stream (of blood, doesn’t rhyme)

My nose is bruised, my forearm broke

But I refused the ER, a $500 premium ain’t no joke

Been a few days and I’m all rusty and sore

This blog’s titled nine lives so again I endure

Can’t kill the Berg, can’t get her down

Maybe this summer I’ll up and drown!

END

It's been almost 2 months since I traveled to Colorado and Las Vegas. But in 8 days I head to Friday Harbor off the coast of Washington.

This lupus flare has had me back at home in NJ for almost a year now. I worry that I'm regressing, watching my friends bolt forward while I remain stationary.

I don't think I'd survive if I couldn't travel and write. They're the only way to get out of my head, and my body out of my bed.

One week, one week and I'm in the air again.

Location:Flight

National Magnetic Poetry Month Continues: God Edition

I wrote another "poem" at 5am, you know, because drinking a Monster energy drink last night was a good idea.

This one's a little God themed, but let it be known how I don't plot these, think about them, or even have an idea about what I am going to shove together on a magnetic surface until I sit in front of my sad, 20 year old mini-fridge. So maybe it's about God. Or maybe it's not.

Who knows? It's just magnetic poetry, yo!

Text as I'd have done it:

Some life
never needing
your coffee dark
or the
sky blue

It is almost
like asking
to laugh
to explore
to want
would poison
your sacred
vision of the
after world.

You are steel.

But you
must bleed.

For to be
healed
is to
trust
God.

and you must
embrace this
wild, broken, brilliant
present.

National Poetry Month

UPDATE: I'm free from the hospital. Thanks for the good wishes. Carry on.

It’s still National Poetry Month, or I have renamed it: National Magnetic Poetry Month Using the Geek-Themed Set I found at Target for a Dollar in College.

This was my attempt at romance but ended in a ode to food, as most poems do.

This here below would've been the actual text if I'd had more prepositions/control of my brain.

(I'm in the hospital because lupus may be attacking the old noggin.)

Anyway, here it is:

NACHOS: A LOVE STORY

Stun my

cloudy brain!

Boost me up!

Set fire

to this

native world!

But protect our love.

So we can be

content in this,

our new planet.

With you,

there is joy

and

love

and

nachos.

National Poetry Month

It's National Magnetic Poetry month!

Or just National Poetry Month.

Here's my contribution. If you can't read it, I'M SORRY. I sat on the kitchen floor during my insomnia (still haven't slept yet, hi drugs)...so here's the text. I really missed having more words but I only have the "Geek" version of Magnetic poetry that I bought at Target for a dollar.

I'm a pretty serious poet, guys.

Here's the text as I would have liked it:

If you need
to get out
of this world

Do it.
Battle evil,
live in action,
and write about the war.

But then, will you
please come home to me?

For I, too, am fire.

And together,
we are
love
light
and joy.

New Huffington Post Blog

Read here!

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/kelly-bergin/chronic-pain-and-pep-talk_b_3047579.html