Diabetic Demon

Shrouded in DarKness

This Diabetic Demon

Tightens Its grip

Relentlessly squeezing

Down but not out

Three times before

But now this Diabetic Demon

Drags Him towards Death’s Door

We all have our doubts

We all have our theories

Doctors cannot answer

All of our queries

Reasons are mysteries

But his history

Is misery

Will He come to

Will He succumb to

Will He walk with me

Or will He walk with his brother

That is their belief

Not mine

I believe

There is no life

After you leave this behind

My mind wanders

Bottle and pen in hand

Alternately

Bottle then pen

Pen then bottle

Maybe this is the End

Maybe I shouldn’t bother

There's No Hope Here

   

              You can look in any direction in this town, from interstate off-ramps to downtown street markers, and see clearly it prides itself on being the home of President Williams Jefferson Clinton.  The National Park Service has marked or roped off everything from his birthplace home, his boyhood home and his elementary school.  I can’t tell you how many times in how many local stores I’ve been asked, “So where’s Clinton’s birth home?”  Apparently I look as though I belong, but I will not take offense because most likely I do. The revenue stream must be much stronger now.  What we are not interested in here, among such things as the Mena cocaine deliveries or the odd death of Vince Foster, is that he was the first president to publicly admit to smoking marijuana.  Of all the things to be said about a President, the most this side of the country could come up with was, “I didn’t vote for that dope from Hope.”  But now, two decades later and Hope is glad to call Bill a native. 

                Within those twenty years there is a movement that has been growing and gaining ground, and yes this pun was so much intended.  This is the movement to legalize marijuana.  I feel, like many others, that we as a nation are on the cusp of one of the largest social debates since segregation or at least prohibition.  I’m sure Martin Luther King Jr.’s dream was a lot bigger than mine but we all have our courses.  A record number of states, twenty if I’m not mistaken, have made medical marijuana legal and two states have totally legalized recreational use as well.  Municipalities such as Portland have granted their citizens the right to possess marijuana without the fear of prosecution.  This isn’t the case here in Hope.
                From inside the city you can see that the median populous is around thirty.  This is the Pepsi Generation all grown up.  We were the generation that grew up playing Sega stoned.  Yet here is a town still devoid of alcohol, in a state with some of the harshest marijuana penalties.  Possession of an ounce is a felony charge with up to six years in jail.  A pack of papers without the proper amount of tobacco to fill those papers is a crime within itself.  I know this from personal experience.  I am still paying the state of Arkansas for an “instruments of crime” charge, but in every tobacco shop and convenient store there is always a multitude of ways to help one ingest marijuana.  These stores’ best-sellers and fastest moving inventory are the cigars meant “to split between friends”.  IT is here.  Why not accept it as a commodity?  Why are we still having these old world arguments?
                In a recent conversation with a City of Hope police officer that shall remain nameless, I asked what his thoughts were on the recent legalization of marijuana in other states.  This is not verbatim mind you but his answer was something along the lines of a nervous giggle and saying something like ‘yeah it’s gonna happen’.  I asked him what he thought about marijuana in general and all I received was a sort of half-head-nod, the sign of an unsure person.  After recognizing that this man did not have any beliefs of his own, I decided to shoot for the heart and hit bull’s eye.  I stopped him from leaving for the next one, needing badly to ask just what would he do if he found someone with a small amount of marijuana on them, knowing what he knows and knowing what the feds have said, what would his reaction be, and just as I expected his only answer was to uphold state law.  See he was sworn to this.  No matter how ridiculous the law may be, by his sworn oath, he must carry it out.  This is Stanley Milgram’s experiment on authority figures in real-time.  Everyone involved is just following orders.
                This X-generation or Pepsi generation, whatever people want to call us, we know better now.  Nancy Reagan’s ‘Just Say No’ campaign didn’t work.  D.A.R.E. class might have taught us some things but it did not fool everyone.  Disinformation has been a tool of ‘theirs’ for years, but from my favorite author comes what I believe is the holy truth.  I will end this with a quote from the one and only Hunter S. Thompson during a debate he had while running for Sherriff of Pitkin County Colorado in 1970,
                “Marijuana laws are one of the reasons that there’s in gender this lack of respect that the uh, that cops complain about all over the country.  When you get a whole generation that grows up as felons and they know the law is ridiculous and they’re told all this gibberish about it that uh, it drives you crazy and makes your brain soft and your feet fall off.  Even the police know it’s a silly law.”

Addled Ashtray

                The ashtray his sister had brought him back from a trip to Destin was overflowing with half-smoked cigarettes and a sum of marijuana roaches.  The particular aroma around his work area was a little bit more than offensive.  Alcohol and body odor intensified this.  Personal hygiene had never been a strong suit of his, especially when his work consisted of nothing more than hacking away at useless prose and vegetating in front of the T.V.  But any activity with lengthy intervals between showers can cause any man to emit a strong odor.

                The beginning of the year had not been fair to him.  Not much of last year was fair either but he knew this year would be different.  It hadn’t yet and only he was to blame.  He had promised himself so much more this year.  2013 had literally been a bust and against all his better beliefs he made himself a half-assed promise on that New Year’s Day.  It wasn’t until eleven days later he finally faced down his cowardice and decided to punch a few keys.  To his surprise it came with little effort.  The next day was the same but after a swell of confidence he caved once again to the unlimited distractions that plagued his every day.

                Confusion set in as the Xanax began to take effect.  His fingers moved more slowly across the keyboard.  Many more typing errors now.  A lull came over him as he tried his best to fight it.  Nothing was working although he hadn’t tried anything.  Just a semi-feverish swirl of words that will mean nothing in the long run.  Just a bunch of gibberish.  Can’t go any further than that.  Plagiarism is a big fear of his.  Everything he has learned has been taught.  It must go this way for everyone else.  At least he believed it did.  He often plagued his brain with the thought that there was no more originality left in the world.  This always brought up the question of ‘why try?’  But then again he is fairly sure no one had ever written his story.