Waiting

By Robert J. S. T. McCartney

Nothing is perfect in this life,

There’s no one, other than you, that could be my wife.

We’ve been through so much;

The good and the bad, thick and thin;

Just trying to survive the day as such,

I’ll take any chance with you as a win.

I told you way back when,

“I love you,” remember back then?

Before we were even a thought,

I waited, and waited, time never bought.

Here we are many years later,

Getting older and grayer.

Even though times may get trying,

There is no use in hiding;

The life that exists and lives within;

Babe, it’s because of you that from then and herein;

I am for you, by you, and with you every step of the way.

And though we may at times struggle to make it through,

I’ll do anything I humanly can do;

To show you that I love you,

Especially, when we both said, “I do.”

And though the darkness may at times wash over me,

I look to heaven for your light to guide me.

I reach out for your hand,

Together, we’ll traverse the misshapen land.

In my head, it’s a crowded and loud mess,

I tell you this because I’d share with you nothing less.

I hope that when I go;

Before you, so you know;

I’ll be there waiting, smiling,

“I told you, I loved you so.”

For Kay

Que Será, Será Papà

For Dad

By Robert J. S. T. McCartney

 

Whatever will be, will be,

Time is fleeting that I can see.

You were here for a moment,

And gone in an instant.

You’ve left your mark,

Imprinted deep within our hearts.

 

Time is said to heal all wounds,

I keep tearing mine open;

Thought to be entombed;

The only seem to deepen.

 

I missed you then, and I miss you now,

Only I cannot call you and hear you say—

“How are you and the girls?”

I know you told me that we’ll be alright;

That you love us, and you’ll miss us.

 

It’s difficult now, but you’re right,

We’ll be alright;

Because of the love, you showed us.

We know you loved us,

Because we loved you.

We’ll miss you too,

Just as you miss us.

 

In life, we’re here for but a moment,

But in death, we are together forever.

 

Que serà, serà, papà,

 Whatever will be, will be.

I’ll look for you in my dreams,

I’ll see you wherever the sun beams.

 

When the girls ask me, what will they be,

I’ll be sure to tell them.

Que serà, serà, papà,

Whatever will be, will be.

The future’s not ours to see,

But I’ll be here with every step of the way;

To support, love you, and care for you;

And prepare you for come what come may.

 

Life will be what will be,

It’s up to us to seize.

With love for each other;

Even in the darkest of times;

Tis nothing we cannot weather,

Let’s look to our lifetimes.

 

So, let’s hug a little longer, tighter,

Give an extra goodnight kiss.

Our hearts fuller and burdens lighter,

Be sure to say how much we miss;

Each other, even for a moment.

 

For you, from me, and us all,

We love you most of all.

Goodbye For Now

By Robert J. S. T. McCartney

 

You had a way about you,

Words were worn like a shoe.

You just knew what to say and do,

There won’t be another dad like you.

 

You were an example of what the best can be,

Now I only hope you’ll be able to see;

The fruits of your labors and watch them blossom.

 

We loved you in big ways, and we loved you in small ways;

Unexpired and transcendent of time;

You were Dad, and you were mine;

Ours.

 

You never asked for much,

And now we miss your touch.

The cold has come and set in,

And our grief…where to begin?

Our hearts are heavy, and we know not what to do,

Dad, what are we do without you?

 

And so, we lay you to rest today,

But before you go, I just wanted to say;

I love you,

Bye, bye;

Au revoir;

Toodaloo;

Arrivederci;

Auf wiedersehen;

Bye, bye;

Only for now.

 

Read 11/30/2018

For Dad

By Robert J. S. T. McCartney

 

What can I say except that I love you?

What words can I find to say that I’ll miss you?

Words… there are so many that I could choose—

None though can describe the void that now dwells within.

 

You were my dad, and although some of the times seemed bad,

I hope you know I was never mad.

You did what you could,

I know that I should—

Have sought you out sooner.

Because later has come and now…

You’re gone.

 

I’m glad that I got to see you and make amends,

To show you an example of a man;

I had become and noted all the nuances,

I saw that we were more alike,

Even though miles and years apart.

 

I’m happy you got to see your grandchildren,

That twinkle in your eye.

I could tell you were proud of me,

And I of you.

 

So even though you’re gone from the here and now and ascended to the stars above,

I hope grandma, grandpa, uncle Pat, and everyone else welcome you home.

I hope one day you’re there;

Waiting for me,

The rest of us,

A family reunion.

Where we bask in each other’s company,

That we can all catch up.

 

I loved you then, and I love you now,

I know though that when I say goodbye, it’s just for now.

 

With love,

Your Son

A [for Aeris]

A

One of two and going on four,

Full of energy and never bored.

The younger reflection but still your own,

You used to be so small, held in my arms, now grown;

Rambunctious and free,

Oh, the horrors that await when you start climbing trees.

Three and now four?

T’was only yesterday when you were first born.

Now, you’re dashing about and seeing with the sense of wonder,

Where the world is your oyster.

Oh, what you will be,

The adventures, people, and places you’ll see.

I love you, to the moon and beyond,

So, enjoy today and tomorrow, we’ll respond;

Happy birthday to you,

My little goddess of discord.

 

With love,

Dad

A Poem: Goodbye

Goodbye
It’s time to die

It’s what we must face every day
There’s no going around it did to say
Grave as it may seem
It’s the only place where we may redeem
Ourselves from the lives we’ve lived
All that we took in and claimed to have given

Good. Bad. Ugly. Beautiful.
Nothing matters in death
Except for totality and acceptance

No exceptions
No expectations
No IOUs or low down blues

Just a meet and greet with our long lost silent friend
They, who welcome us at the end
A sight for sore eyes
No need to sympathize

Hello
Goodbye
As the light goes out in our eyes

Ten Years: A Poem

Ten Years [For Zelda]

By Robert J. S. T. McCartney

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One

I thought my life was done; when you and your mom almost died.

Two

Darkness took over and nearly ruined my life. I was very blue.

Three

I realized that nothing was going to change by sitting on my hands. I made a change and started to get better. You grew up so much since the last year; I knew the kind of kid you’d grow to be.

Four

I watched you grow and saw how you made people smile. Your laughs were contagious, and soon you’d start school. I still struggled with myself and fought with my mind. The guilt I harbored was massive and cut me to the core.

Five

Your sassiness was profound. You were the perfect blend of your mother and I. Without a doubt, you and your mother brought me joy. I was still wading through the darkness. I’d grit my teeth and fight the pain to stay alive.

Six

Enduring the rollercoaster ride as I stumbled along to keep control. I’d lose my way here and there; fighting myself and getting lost in my abysmal dismal thoughts. Your mom and I struggled to get you the equipment you needed and stood against those who would deny you. It was a taste of something we knew a life this way we would endure, but we knew that together, we could do it. I strayed and started to get lost in alcohol to try to help numb the pain. I had built up a wall with flesh, bone, and despair bricks.

Seven

This was the year when you found out you were going to be a big sister. It would be a new adventure. I wanted to be ready. As hard as I tried, I  know I could have done better. Even as I got help and started to show improvement, I’d take two steps forward and fall two more. I struggled to see the joy of having a perfect family. I often found myself outside looking to heaven.

Eight

Ah, your sassiness was so contagious that your baby sister caught on quick. You slowly opened up to having a sister. I was starting to find my way out of the darkness. My alcoholism would soon be kicked to the curb. I took up arms to further better myself: eating, working out, making an effort to be there for you and your sister. You were growing up too fast for your mom and me. The tears I once shed for the memory of a tragedy, were now tears of joy of having you still. I was beginning to let go all the feelings I had harbored, especially, hate.

Nine

Soon, we would leave our old home and move. It was a new start for us all. I relapsed and retreated into the darkness. I had found some comfort, but the feelings gnawed at me. The realizations and truths uncovered left me scared for us. It would be some time, but I would finally emerge victoriously. I improved my body and mind and would find a balance. I took up the craft that I believed I was destined for. I’ve watched you grow up this far and wonder where has it all gone—time?

Ten

The darkness has subsided and I am myself. I still can’t believe that it’s been ten years. You’ve become such a beautiful girl with a contagious laugh and smile. You’re our world and more, and even though you can be a crabby crab, we love you very much. It’s taken me this long to finally find the strength to cast off my shackles of guilt and blame. I can smile and laugh and be myself. I’ve come to manage my PTSD, depression, and anxiety. I’ll keep fighting and being here for you, mom, and your sister. I know it’s just another year to some, but you’ll always be our little bugaboo and pumpkin. Happy birthday to our Princess Zelda on your tenth.

---

 

For Zelda

Love Dad

My Own Prison [Extended]: Poem and Post (One Year Later)

When I initially wrote My Own Prison (then revised it; followed by the post), it was a real rough spot in my life. Let me quote myself and go from there. . .

Prison. For most, they think it to be a building—a physical entity that exists to house criminals and wrongdoers. In most cases, however, a prison can also be one’s self. For the millions of those who suffer from depression, anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder [PTSD] and many of the other mental illnesses and disorders, their mind is their own prison.

Built from the ground up, bit by bit, piece by piece. It can result from many things. For me: it’s been overcoming guilt. The burning anger that resides within. The negativity of several people and their dirty antics. The “what ifs?” The memories, though some blurry, of when I was on my antidepressants; the actions and things said. . .done. The immense sadness that dwells within. The constant twisting and shaping of how one can manipulate things against their own being. You realize it, you acknowledge it, and you know it to be a lie, but you can’t seem to overcome the grief that has besieged you and left you, seemingly, stranded.

Alone.

A fight for your life.

You have been tossed into shark-infested waters, and you are bleeding out.

My first therapist wasn’t horrible. He was just doing his job and trying to help me. You can’t help those who do not will to be helped or want it. I found it to be my punishment—to suffer—to slowly kill myself. Painfully. With the most potent malice ever conceived.

There were others that tried to help. Then there was the medication. Going to sleep for. . .what I believed was one day, turned into two or more sometimes. It hurt. I felt I was missing out on the most important of times, and it was unfair—to my daughter and my wife. . .and myself.

I was unstable. Anything and everything could set me off. The wind could blow the wrong direction and I would be having an anger attack. Eventually, I would do an unspeakable act that would convince myself; through a sort of out of body experience, that I needed to lose the medication and get proper help. That I needed to accept responsibility and be a man, a father, a husband. There were to be no more “woe is me” moments.

It would take time. . .

As time has gone on and that I went through EMDR therapy, my overall person has improved. I made changed, important and very much needed changes. I stopped being surrounded by negative people. I began exercising and losing weight (because I have always hated my body image). I stopped drinking alcohol in unnecessary consumption rates (I was an alcoholic, plain and simple in the end there. I became dependant on it).I started eating healthier. The food I did consume was not healthy and paired with soda, it bogged me down.

Simply enough, I didn’t care about myself. I didn’t love myself. I needed to change that. Being on the path to recovery doesn’t happen overnight and everyone is different.

“Get over it. That happened X years ago.”

“That still bothers you? Grow up.”

[At the intersection where the accident happened after finally being able to take my daughter home, away from the hospital, with my wife in the car behind me] “Sorry, I thought this would be the faster way. . .”

Being accused of wanting to kill my wife and daughter and using the accident to cover it up.

Those were a few of the many things said that were fuel added to the raging tempest I held within.

Time. Help. Understanding. Therapy. Changes.

That has been what has helped me. Good friends. Family. And making myself really change—for the better.

Every now and then, I get a dark spell, and that’s OK because it’s going to happen. I’ve been trying a new technique personally, and it’s helped. . .to a degree. Writing, however, has been the most helpful.

Normally, I’d never share my emotions or my thoughts. I figure, though, if someone can relate—someone can be helped, and that others out there that struggle can know that they are not alone in the fight. That there are rescue boats in these shark-infested waters with proper help for you. Then that’s fine with me. Because we are all pieces of a far grand puzzle than we can comprehend.

Stay strong and stay vigilant, friends.

You see, it’s only been (almost) a year. One of the most significant and significant years that came to pass. I moved out of state; one that I grew up in, started my family, left my friends and remaining family behind—and started a new life with my wife and kids in Tennessee. It’ll have been ten years since the car accident, and my oldest will turn ten. I try to not look at her birthday as a reminder; it’s hard, but the effect is losing hold. I still have occasional days of where I am fending off the darkness. . .but I know it, I am aware of it, and I valiantly fight back and hold it off. Even for just one more day, one more night. My wife and kids make it, so it’s worth it.

I spoke of a technique I was trying out at the time. What was it? I was killing myself; killing or slaying the negative thoughts and emotions. Stuffing them into boxes or attaching concrete boots to them and dropping them into the abysmal sea. It worked. For awhile. I keep testing myself and pushing my psychology appointments out further; and around, eh, probably in between a week or so until my next session and such I had a big issue come up. I was also having a lot of anxiety with our trip to BlizzCon 2017 and getting ripped off on our tickets (but thankfully, a good friend came through, and we got them and had a great time.).

Needless to say, it wasn’t perfect. Thus,  I ended up creating The Chronicles of Bob: The Chronic Suicidal. So, to put some rumors to rest; not that there really is any, yes, it’s loosely based on me. Congrats. Spoilers. #Spoilers. It’s not just a dark humor approach to suicide because you get the M. Night Shyamalan twist at the end! Really, it’s a fun read.

So, what do I do now? I write. I talk about things more openly. I play WoW. I’ve actually gotten a better sleep schedule down (granted, I am pushing it with this write-up), and yeah, things are pretty good so far in my mind. Lilah’s Guide to Hoylei will be coming back out; due for release June 21, 2018. More stories and shorts will be coming out as well. It should be a pretty good year.

It’s incredible how much and how far you can go from one year to another; or day to day, month to month, let alone for me from so many years of guilt and self-torment. I’ve come a long way, and I am happy to share my experience with you all. I wonder what the coming year will bring?

I hope those of you out there keep your chin up and know (and remember) that you’re not alone. There are others like you. You needn’t face and take on the world alone. Remain vigilant and be strong.

Take care and stay safe.

RJM

P.S. enjoy My Own Prison in its entirety below. Cheers!

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My Own Prison

(The Original Version)

by Robert J. S. T. McCartney

It’s my time, as every year it seems to be, yet come this time it seems to be getting more to me.

An endless cycle that had begun long ago and further widens its cut into my being.

How so much pain can be felt, and how it was made was never an intention but how its function has fucked me up so much.

Each day it tears me apart, and each time I try to reassemble the pieces, it never seems to resemble me entirely.

As for how the light can teach but never gives answers, looking to the dark for its secrets but always coming with a high price.

The cold I know is there, but I cannot feel, as it’s already in too profound, but why is it I stay warm?

Why do I feel like a stray dog in a foreign family, when I’m given love and yet I back into the corner terrified.

What it means to be alive, what it is that pushes me to remain here.

Why it is that I remain? Why I stay humane, and stray from the constant fear that lingers in the depths of what I am?

This misery is a friend, one that does not bend.

Nor does it lend a hand for when I try to stand, as I get kicked back down.

A war with the mind, and a battle with the heart.

To stay here and see it through, when there is a victor.

How it is that I am enshrouded with such a dark mist, and yet still have light to prevent myself from being engulfed?

Why is it that I suffer from so much of my own damnation when I tried just to live.

Why this struggle in my mind takes such a toll on me, and others.

Never did I want to impress, or pose.

Never did I want to tell lies, or be hung for the truth.

I was me, and all it did was kick me in the teeth for trying to survive.

The beginning of all comes full circle to that we don’t remember.

There is no race to be won.
There is nothing that can be said to make things just as quickly as they are said and done.

Life is hypocrisy in itself that is all too well what it’s cracked up to be.

My daughter. . .My happy, unhappy accident.

How she’ll never know how sorry I am for everything.

My wife, how all the problems I cause and make and make things worse at times.

I am being pulled apart at the seams. . .

Life undoes itself from me slowly as dare try to redeem.

This prison

All these walls I’ve built up

Damn them

Damn me

I want to break free

From the binds that continue to keep me

Sometimes I only believe in self-absolving

But I know it just to be

I mustn’t keep fighting for me

For they are why I am here

The things I hold dear

Here

I will suffer through the pain

Because I have so much more to gain

Pain knows love just as well

As life knows death

Intermingled we are

The realization of which I now know

I do not suffer alone

My Fantasy

by Robert J. S. T. McCartney

Lust. Love. Sex. Drugs. Power.
So many fantasies we, as people, do we create by the hour.

We fake.
We break.
We quit, wilt, and die.

Too often are we forced to bend a knee or be pressed down onto the firm mattress and be ravaged by life’s atrocities.

In my time, I’ve been led to a world wonder. Where I’ve experienced an intimate relationship between lovers: life and death.
Caught often in a lie, as we lie entangled in a mess of sheets and heat.

Where do we profess and confer our love and become engorged on each other.
Tasting a sample but taking the package, we wallow in this momentous excitement.

Ten years, it’s been ten years since I’ve become gluttonous on this punch drunk love diet.

Where sometimes there were suppliers of supplements that offered a chance at a change of heart and soul.
Opinions made and traded, save for those whose face was a cancer in our alleged “detestable and fictitious” love affair.

Savage, were they and the threats made, we moved far. Where we ought, and brought not the reprehensible acts, nor stayed the course of that which tarnish our voyage.

Still do, I feel the same; still do I look you in the eye; still, do I feel the fire within.
Still does my heart beat; still does my breath stop; still, does my heart belong to you and only you.

For there are many fantasies that we experience every hour…
But none may compare to the one I live every passing moment I am with you, nor can words be formed into the sentences to describe the euphoria; yet bittersweet life I spend with you.

For I know… that one day it’ll end. Therein lies, though, hope…
That I’ll find you again in the waking mortal world.

For my wife on our 10th anniversary. —Rob

Enough

by Robert J. S. T. McCartney

I’ve had it up to here,
There’s nothing left of me: no note, no tear.

I’m choosing to end it all,
By drawing a line, up and down these walls.

I’ve screamed and shouted, but nothing comes back to me,
This is the evidence that I’m not to meant to be.

I’ve had enough.
I had everything I could have ever wanted in life.

I’ve had enough.
A home, family, friends, and all that I could ever ask.

I’ve had enough.
The talk of the demons within,
They reassure me my life’s sin.

I’ve had enough.
I’m tired of it all.
I wasn’t strong enough.
I couldn’t stand above it all.

I’ve had enough.
I’m through with this life.
I’m done trying to be tough.
I’ll end it all with this knife.

So here I go getting everything ready,
I can’t lie it’s really scary.
But I know it’ll only hurt a little bit,
Before I know it I’ll be out of it.
I’m leaving it all behind,
Everything and everyone this is my suicide!

You said, I was a failure,
That I had no place in this world.
You said, I was a traitor,
That I was nothing and undeserved.

So I’ve had enough,
From you and all those who cast me aside.
I’m done, not to be gruff,
But I’m done trying to please all of you and abide.

Don’t revive me,
This is how it has to be.
I won’t survive,
So this is my final goodbye.

I have had enough.