Poetry: Buzz-bee by Anna Bivens

Buzz-bee

I admit, at times I’m crazy.

I shuffle therapeutically along the snaking border

between Devil and what-the-fuck,

subtle differences blurred by cataracted sight.

Often tempted, I reach across the tenuous divide to dabble in

the sticky muck of paranoid thoughts and manic actions.

Without all those hypo-gentric filters between mind and mouth,

it’s a joy to act sans inhibition, to inspire the raised eyebrows,

the “O” shaped-shocked lips, covered by hands vibrating indignantly,

as if a reason is owed, or a smug quasi-apology.

Crazy and Creative both begin with “C”

like Cunt, Cum and Calliope.

There’s not much distance between the words,

if you are honest and open-minded.

 

Have you ever

sped down the highway,

when you were not in the car, but rather, buzzing above it,

out of reach of brakes and gas pedal and steering wheel?

I have.

What if I never come down?

How can I stop this momentum?

Have you ever

insisted on saying obsessively hurtful things

to the few that still cared?  

I have.

Me the monster who emptied the room

by snarking profanities at retreating shadows.

 

The body is all chemical, physical, lyrical and spherical shit,

that morphs into what the easily led call miracles,

but I call science, cold and hard to bear.

One day, it catches you in the lies you told your mind,

shreds them into pieces of undeniable data.

Watch invincibility weep, a mirrored memory,

shattered into sharp-edged consequences,

you don’t really want to know, no, no.

Forgive my bumbling brain.

It's network snakes like blood in calcified veins,

sparkly connections hidden under neural dust,

or weird-wired out.

Dust bunnies—

Frazzled neurons—

Fear—

 

My liver values are off the charts,

no more merlot for me,

kudos to the stellar, high-functioning,

booze-o-matic.

And they mammo’d each breast today,

three times, instead of two.

More tests ahead.

Why, oh, why?

You have to die from something.

It’s my conciliatory prize to know for sure.

You must understand, I’m not crazy now,

just crazed by thoughts of nothingness, emptiness, finality.

I want to BEE!

I want to buzz!

Please let me hover here a little while longer...

Anna Bivens is a university administrator, artist and writer of short stories, flash, and poetry.  She loves animals, nature, gardening, art, literature, and the complexity of the human spirit. Her work has appeared in Spillwords.