The Art of Being on Fire

      I was called by a friend yesterday. He wanted to ask about chronic illness. I wasn't apprehensive. I've told the story of getting diabetes type 1 so many times. Still, no matter how many times I tell it, something hurts. The thing that hurts the most is that this is an easily manageable condition. Or disease. Call it whatever you will. It is easily managed with the proper support. And how many conditions are like that? If we only had the proper resources, what could we easily deal with?

      In 2017, I wrote a poem about the healthcare debates that were going on in this country. The healthcare debates that, every few months, rise again like the horror movie villain you thought you were finished with. The thing about living in the United States with a chronic illness is that there is no real safety. Every day is a alleyway with poor lighting; it is a blind corner; a strange noise, although in a familiar place, is still scary. Even without having an illness, chronic or not, the specter of possibly getting diagnosed is enough to make most middle and lower class people afraid. Especially as healthcare regulations get more and more relaxed to favor those who run the system and profit off its heartlessness.

      Before the ACA, or Obamacare, was passed, I remember seeing so many stories of people being denied coverage for suddenly being diagnosed with a "pre-existing" condition. Imagine being kicked off your healthcare because you were diagnosed with something that wasn't in your family history. The only thing pre-existing in that is greed. I remember when I turned 24 looking for health insurance plans. Even the expensive ones did not accept me. My life was prohibitively expensive for them. Put another way, my life was not of sufficient value for them to invest back into me.

     I'm not here to mince words. There is no free market when the choices are to pay or die. Without the support of healthcare, too many people have met death too early. Before the ACA was passed, 45,000 tombstones a year should have been inscribed with the lament that loose regulations, greed, and lack of investment caused a body to be planted long before it should have been. Said another way: by prioritizing profits and greed over care, we are allowing capitalistic eugenics to take place. By this I mean that if one does not have the right amount of money to survive, one will die. This happens due to our country's laws prioritizing profits over care.

      Let me be a bit more detailed about what diabetes type 1 is. It is a condition in which the pancreas no longer produces insulin. Insulin is a hormone which acts like a key to allow sugar to be absorbed from the blood stream and into cells so that those cells can use the sugar for energy. Without insulin, sugar can build up in the blood stream and cause some really nasty long term problems such as nerve damage, kidney damage, heart disease, loss of eyesight, and in particularly nasty situations, the loss of limbs. This happens because the blood may become blocked and be unable to give oxygen to parts of the body. If this happens, that part of the body dies and must be amputated or risk the death of the rest of the body.

      However, the good news is that the condition can be managed and is successfully managed by millions of people with relative ease. All one has to do is check their blood sugar to ensure it is in balance and, should it not be, take the appropriate action to re-balance it: if the sugar is too high, take more insulin or possibly get some exercise to cause the body to absorb more sugar. If the sugar is too low, eat more food. It is simple in its execution, but it is complicated by the availability of proper resources.

      One of the most important resources for a diabetic is money. Money buys testing supplies; money buys insulin; money pays for insurance plans. Money is prerequisite for life in America. Especially for those who have a chronic health condition. As with anything in the United states, some things cost more than others. Even if they shouldn't. For example, there are several testing supply companies which make it so that a diabetic can poke their finger and get a small amount of blood onto a strip in order to know what their sugar is and respond accordingly. Without insurance, some test strips cost upwards of $1 per strip. As a diabetic, I should be testing about 5 to 10 times a day. That is $150 to $300 extra every month. The good news is there are sets of 100 test strips available for just under $18. That's about $27 to $54 a month. Far more manageable.

      Unfortunately, testing is only part of the equation. If I test my sugar, and my sugar is too high, then I must take action. Although earlier I said that one could exercise in order to drop their sugar, this is assuming that they have some insulin present in their body. Without insulin, the sugar will not drop no matter what a person does. Cells will not open. They will not get rid of the sugar in the blood stream. This, along with some history, is what makes the upcoming information about the price of insulin so grotesque.

      When insulin was originally invented, the inventor sold the patent for $1. They wanted to make sure that no one died needlessly. When I originally began taking an insulin called Humalog, I was 12 years old. At that time, each 10 mL vial of insulin cost about $21. I still take Humalog today. The price is now around $270 per 10 mL vial. It is the exact same thing. I need about 2 vials of insulin a month to survive. Insulin is non-negotiable. If I do not have it, I will die. It will be a painful death. My body will begin to break down its own fat and muscle in order to try to feed itself. It will be swimming in sugar but won't be able to use any of it. I will likely slip into a coma. I will die. Regardless of who reads this, it should be unconscionable.

      The poem below is the piece I referenced so long ago. I felt that I needed to explain a lot before I got into it because otherwise, you might be wondering why is this fit white man yelling about healthcare? Because it is a system that has turned people into profit and our politicians do nothing about it except to defend the system which keeps winding up on so many people's epitaphs.

      If you feel the same way I do: that healthcare is prohibitively expensive; that no one should live in fear of something easily manageable; that our politicians have a duty to protect their citizens and hold people and systems which do harm accountable for the harm they cause; that the best apology is changed behavior, then I implore you to vote only for candidates who have explicitly stated they are fully committed to medicare for all. The people we invest in grow; this is why the wealth of the rich has increased by trillions while the wealth of the middle class has fallen. This is why nearly 530,000 people cite medical expenses as a reason for bankruptcy.

      I cannot do it alone. For my and several others who cannot or do not have the ability to speak for themselves, please make sure that your vote reflects your values.

Thank you for your time

Drew

American Narrative: Controlling the people through story

I’ve been thinking a lot about some things that I think are wrong in this country. I know, I know; it’s a long list. 

The thing is I think there are several “myths” we take as truths in this country. Whether they are designed and put in place by people in power or merely a byproduct of a sort of social ecosystem (where certain ideas sustain and feed other ideas and thereby maintain order by keeping people complacent) I do not know.

For example, corporations have a ton (at least a few billion if not more) riding on the idea that unions are the enemy of workers. That paying union dues is the thing that keeps laborers’ paychecks low. This is not consistent with truth.

There is the idea that taxes are similar to union dues. Or that they are theft. This is absolutely a stunning mischaracterization. Granted, many taxes could be argued as theft in their current form, but this is due to where those dollars end up going rather than the fact they are taken: When most of our tax dollars go to support endless wars, corporate subsidies, and tax breaks for the wealthy, there really isn’t any revenue left for education, food stamps, or collective social programs. In a way, America is laundering money to war profiteers, and they’re making a killing.

The last myth before I post this poem is the idea of a zero sum game. This basically states that if one person is winning, then another must necessarily be losing. This is not true, but it feels like it is. This is not true, but it forces people to see society as enemies rather than contributors, as competitors rather than facilitators. It’s damaging and unhealthy. The following poem talks about presenting the idea of people winning just enough to not stake what they have on any sort of revolution. The more we fight each other, though, the less energy we have to tackle the real problems.

Keep It Consistent

Change isn’t necessary

As long as comfort remains consistent

And comfort comes too easily

When complacency replaces care.

In order to keep rebellion to a minimum,

Make people

Just happy enough

That they will be afraid to lose

What they could have had

If only they had kept quiet.

Convince them

That everyone else

Is born with hooked teeth

And sticky hands

That the other people around them will be unable

To do anything

Except attempt to take what’s yours —

Convince them

That their greed

Is just a reflection

From everyone else’s eyes —

That this greed wasn’t theirs to begin with,

That keeping the consistency is less trouble

Than the heartbreak of change

Besides

The responsibility resides

With the ones

Who broke the system

The ones who were there before they were born.

They are bystanders

In a world where cops

Are nothing but trigger fingers

Looking for an excuse to get itchy

They are sheep in a world full of wolves

And always on the lookout for zippers peaking from underneath wool

Remind them

It’s a dog eat dog world

But leave out the part

That dogs don’t each other

Until people place bets on them —

Don’t let them notice

That there’s a billion dollar bet riding

On our ability to see

Consistency

As a form of soft control —

Create unhealthy habits

Then call it “trying to survive”

Say that being alone and depressed

Is better than being

With other people and awkward

Tell them that perfection is the perquisite for love

So that being loved

Becomes an impossible pursuit

Don’t let them see that faults

Are something that can make the earth quake

Don’t let them hear  

how water laughs

Even as it carves its path through granite

Don’t let them find out

That the glass-crack crash of thunder

Has nothing on the brilliant flash that blast it into being

Make sure they don’t learn their history

So that they’ll be doomed to repeat it

Cackle when they finally realize

They are all wearing wool

Celebrate

That they only see each other’s teeth

Instead of the size of their pack

Make them scared of everything

Except the comforts you placed in their cages

Tell them

That the outside is so scary

And that’s why you let them live here

But be sure to let them know

They are making

The logical choice to stay

The easy choice to not speak out

The sensible choice to turn the other cheek

Never let them uncover

The graves that silence is always so busy digging

Change isn’t necessary

Until it is

So

Keep things consistent

Personal Abuse and Recognizing it in Society

Recently, I dealt with a person in my community organization who, willfully or not, engaged in very abusive behaviors which included taking complete control of a project and not asking for help when needed. This might not sound like an abusive tactic until I realized that this person was doing this in order to then have justification for treating other people poorly including yelling at them, making them feel unwanted/undeserving, and squarely placing the blame on other people. It took me a long while to be able to come to terms with the idea that this person was using abusive tactics on the people around them. It also got me thinking: Why don't we teach about these kinds of things to people more broadly? One conclusion I came to got me thinking about society as a whole.

Along with blaming others, the person in question often said that anything the organization was doing would absolutely fall apart without that person helping to lead it. I realized, after some reflection, this is the same argument that people will fall back on when we think about asking the wealthy to pay for things like taxes. The argument goes: If we do that, then the wealthy will just leave. This person said much the similar thing: If I don't get things done the way I want them, I will leave and this will all fall apart. The trouble is, for the longest time, I believed them. And in so doing, I stopped justice short; I helped to put other people in the path of emotional and mental abuses. The point I'm making here is that people will use fear and superiority in order to justify the abuses they are committing and, rather than being held accountable for their actions, they will insist that the entire thing will fall apart without their being present. This has been proven completely false on the micro level of my organization. I started wondering, next, why did it take me so long to see these actions as that of abuse and to stand up to them?

I think the answer to that is partly to do with the narrative we have received here in America as citizens. While there is certainly a trend of anti-intellectualism in America, there is also an idea that we must be more than we are in order to truly deal with a problem. The underlying idea behind many of our problems and why they still persist is that of: I don't know enough to deal with this properly. I don't have the experience. I don't have the time. I don't have the skills. I'm convinced that fire was either an accident or needed so desperately that we found a way to do it. I bring this up to highlight the idea that humans are incredibly resourceful. We always have been. The difference between making a change and staying the way we are often times falls to the choice of either doing something or doing nothing. It may not be the smoothest transition in the world, but if I were to liken societal change to art, then I would say that it is a matter of experimentation and observation in terms of trying to get something just how we want it. Recently, even, I learned that the myth of Icarus was changed to exclude the following line: Don't fly too low, for then you will surely perish. Instead, Icarus becomes a reminder not to challenge the sun; not to fly too high; but the real peril lies in assuming we must fly low in order to survive. There is too much sky to be swallowed by the waves. Beyond our narratives (super hero movies, I think, have a small part to play here too as "normal" people are often relegated to watching in awe as the hero saves the day), we also have a lack of education with regard to abusive behaviors.

Our society is built on them. The only way to survive is to stay quiet, to not speak up when we know something is wrong because that change will wake the sleeping dragon; it will cause all of our demise (or the wealthy will leave). We cannot educate people on abusive techniques used like the slippery slope (if you ask people to do X, they will eventually leave which will crash the whole system and then everyone will die), gaslighting (the deaths in Puerto Rico didn't happen; that's all fake news), and several other ones because, to do that, is to make people aware of how the system maintains control or would at least expose one of the levers of control that is used so often by abusers and authoritarians alike. If we don't have words for something, can we really see it? If we aren't educated about something, how do we learn about it? In order for this to be amended, I think we need a lot of change to happen.

Similar to what was done about the person being abusive in my organization, action needs to be taken. We need to demand justice and equality. If you're thinking, with that last line, it sounds as if this is an arm of the civil rights movement, I would absolutely agree with you. I would also say that America's racist past along with its insistence towards individualism makes it difficult to see the fight toward racial equality as one which also is about economic equality.

Many of the fights we are scared or at least apprehensive to engage in are absolutely necessary for a thriving middle class and for economic justice to be procured, but they are also mired in abusive tactics along with our general inability to call or see something for what it is. The good news is that we've had many, many people rise to organize people to vote and to take on the system for what it is: one that peddles false narratives and blames everyone else for the problems that it has caused. If we get enough people to vote, we can hold our powerful accountable and force changes to happen without having to rely on weapons or war. With elections coming soon, this is my greatest hope and, on the other side, one of my biggest fears.

I'm getting really tired of the healthcare poems I write staying relevant...

According to former Republican congressman Mike Huckabee in 2010,

People with preexisting conditions are burned down houses

He said this

In response

As a talking point

As casually as a cough in polite conversation

As serious as a diagnosis

But all I could hear was that crackling sound wood makes as fire consumes it

All I could smell was smoke

And bullshit

Bullshit because he worked his words into a spell

Or a curse

And let millions of people be recast as objects

I smelled smoke

Because

In 1996, I became a burned down house

With a diabetes diagnosis

In my memories of that night,

I am crying

My family is crying.

According to Mr. Huckabee,

My mom must have been crying

Because it was too painful to watch her son

Turn from person

Into property

Mr. Huckabee,

I don’t know how to tell you that your words have consequences.

I don’t know how to tell you that you should care about your constituents

So I am attempting to tell you that I am human

I am not object

I am not house;

I am not floorboard

I should not be used as one of the planks to create your platform

I am telling you that your words

Would have left me with nothing but ash

I am saying that if I had thought of myself as nothing but a burned down house,

I would have remained a cremation

And never would have been able to return as a Phoenix

This poem wouldn’t be necessary

And I wouldn’t be so angry

If Republican representative Pat Toomey hadn’t said the exact same thing as Mr. Huckabee

But in 2017

Dear Republicans

I don’t know how to tell you that your policies have consequences

I don’t know how to tell you that your words keep having this habit of becoming epitaphs

According to Raul Labrador,

A republican representative from Idaho,

“No one has ever died because they don’t have access to health care”

In 2009, there were 45,000 reasons a year that this statement is a lie

In 2017, there are still 18,000 reasons a year that this is a lie

Before any healthcare reform was passed.

I remember being terrified of day to day living

Diabetes is a disease that turns food into poison and insulin into antidote

So there was no such thing as comfort food

When I wasn’t sure if I’d have enough insulin to cover my meals

I can feel that same terror creep into the back of my head

Whenever I hear, read, or see about the current health care debates

And it is exhausting to always be terrified

Dear congress,

I don’t know how to tell you that your policies make you terrorists for the chronically ill and disabled

I don’t know how to tell you that you cannot be both pro life and anti universal healthcare

If people die due to your writing the laws of the land,

Then their blood is on your hands

I don’t know how to tell you

That I am sick of needing to prove myself human

I don’t know how to stop you

From seeing me as a house

But I know that being on fire for the past 21 years has made me an expert at rebuilding

So I am telling you to help us rebuild this system

Or get left behind

In the ash.

Based on a Prompt: Object and Location

You know, it's ironic
that you brought me up here.
This is the Great Wall of China
I am your phone.
You brought me up to something
that was designed to create a disconnect
between people
and
here I am
building a great wall between your face
and books --
Life is a funny thing
especially when you're just phoning it in.

You have hundreds of contacts
but barely remember the context
for acquiring their names.

You know,
just having someone's name attached to their photo and number
doesn't mean you know them.
I know your touch better than your last lover --
I know your likes better than your mother.

There might be an app for just about everything,
but I bet if we looked at your history,
we'd find more than the sites you've visited.
the comments you've posted --
I'm not saying you're more than you think;
I'm saying you're than a medium
for social media --
and you need more than face time or
Facebook.
The number of people who like you
doesn't make you more likable.

Saving the world
does not involve
posting selfies from famous places
or inspirational quotes on instagram.

Money is more a flushing toilet
than it is the settling of a sick stomach.

I'm sorry
that you're looking for moments to preserve
so that your followers will know you did something
over
finding stories worth preserving
or
dreams
worth following.

4/30 Based on a 10 minute free write

This is why gargoyles hate the cooing of pigeons

Shit
is so often preceded by cooing.
Birds
have no excuse to perch
because they
have wings.

But even
Pheidippides
is said to have died
after running 26.2 miles.
Sometimes
it's not the fact that we can fly
but that we're too tired to try
that seems so depressing.

Taking a break
is not an act of treason
against the light you've been given.

Asking for help
is not punishable by hemlock,
so stop acting like
you're going to die
if someone notices how tired you are.

Sometimes
the best way to get back on your feet
is to admit that you've fallen.

Sometimes, birds
get scared too.

A Surprise Treat Awaits You

I have been a little behind on the blog/poem posts... So today is a catch up day!
This piece is based off of a wonderful workshop where we wrote based on a Snapple Cap fact, a fortune cookie's fortune, and a tea packet's wisdom. This one came from a fortune cookie.
Note: This does deal with issues I have faced, and sometimes, yes, I do still feel sad/angry/depressed about it, but I believe it's better to write out your frustrations in order to help get rid of them. Catharsis is a wonderful thing.

A surprise treat awaits you --

I am a comfort zone zombie.
I am a specter of everything I currently understand.
I am a tombstone afraid to know its own inscription.

When your clinically depressed students tell you
that you need to stop looking so ghost
that your scarecrow stance is
making them weary of becoming an adult,
then you know
it might be time to listen
and stop telling yourself
that you're not worth your own wrist watch anymore.

I want to believe the fortune cookie's message;
I want to listen, but I've been scared to break bread
ever since diabetes claimed a piece of my identity at 10 --
dinner is a death row final meal;
breakfast is Socrates' punishment;
lunch is a poison,
and a savior.

Maybe I haven't been comfortable with Christianity
ever since I understood
that every diabetic blood test
is less sacrament
and more sacrilege to Jesus' promise --
my fingertips are lamb sacrifice --
I bleed to know how healthy I am;
my disease is a daily flirt with suicide
because knives that cut steak
are far too similar
to the knives that cut wrists;

weight that no one can see you carry
is the heaviest.

I'm trying --
I'm trying --
I'm trying to feel normal
to trying to touch tomorrow;
to let go of yesterday;
to move past
but moments can feel lead
and sometimes I don't feel strong enough
to lift this tombstone inscription
of everything I haven't become.