Sean Mahoney

HANDLES PT.1

I drive myself.

I drive myself
as far away
from subtext
and husk
as possible.

I still have a choice.

When I care to look I fixate
and see only the details -
the spots on my thighs
where I've injected,
the sunspot on my forehead,
my curvy love-handles,
and the worlds I hide within words.

I am stillness and not by choice.

I'm not in the passenger's seat,
(not exactly myself there
but close enough
to be my intact shadow)
curled up and reliving
my former conditions.
Yes, my shape shifts daily
through diagnosis,
by episode and
shadow.
On the drive
back to Santa Cruz
digesting the new
information
gives me twitch
and non-committal
gait awaiting
my departure from this
ride. And that is the catch:
this beast does not suffer
indifference well. I would
say that this beast
is shrewd but that
implies a thinking mechanism
I sense no evidence of.

I yield to the signs.
I'm slow on the road
as I feel like I'm getting away
from myself (so unaware
of the treatments to come)
when I consider a turn.
I drive myself like an axon spins
out to a dendrite, like I handle well
and am responsive
to medications and connection.
I drive myself far far ahead to see
myself pausing, wondering how
I'll get from the car to the house
if alone. I apply more latex-free
tape to the trunk load of junk
where matters dribble out faster
than I can handle them,
where maybe
my father couldn't hang
with his own homoerotic overtones,
just maybe, til the barrel slid along
his lips. He is not here to tell me
one way or the other
and he knows not of my new
handle nor of my participation
in clinical trials.

* * *

HANDLES PT.3

I drive myself like
gadolinium seeking fissures.
I and myself fold and open.
I handle us well.
My doors are locked
and without handles.
I have family. I have friends
and doctors too, but this
is my ride. It would seem
that I am alone
to speeding motorists or
peace officers
save that blanketed
malady-free husk of me
leaning into the passenger
door and window.
It would seem that I have
a handle on my state, a grip
around the neck
of a causeless ailment.
So it would seem.

Meanwhile, the worlds
I hide behind words
are stuffed in the boot, struggling
with metaphors for nociceptive
and vagal response, trying
to still the vials of potions
almost as clear as my CSF.

And somewhere else -
Minneapolis, maybe -
snow falls around ankles
slogging in the streets
(I imagine that that temperature
is bliss for someone like me).
My grandfather is there, possibly,
father of my father
and genetic marker of my nerves.
He babbles about which side
of the bed his trousers hung from.
Anyone who needs to be tapped
for what they were supposed
to be rather than what they are
can find this man, my grandfather,
and anyone can listen
to his stories about skylines
in NYC and the poetry he wrote.
He is there for those juiced up
on meds, for the lesions
perched and on a roll
of coin calculating
the nerve they have.
For those who curse their past
or the state of their present
and the issues with mobility
yet to come. There will be issues
no matter how still systems
seem. All there is is hope
so I'm slow on the road.
I yield to the signs
when I consider a turn.
That was many yesterdays
ago. I hadn't yet begun
eating myself.

I will light up the film again.
Sometime.
For now I'm handling
as I glide the 280
back to Santa Cruz.

The sky filled with driving light.
The moon creatures fix themselves
and wait for me to fly by.

Sean Mahoney was diagnosed with Primary Progressive Multiple Sclerosis on April 4, 2012. "Handles" was written both as a response to and as the initial document regarding his new state of affairs. "Handles" will be included in Something on Our Minds: A collection of poems, stories, and the realities of Life with Multiple Sclerosis. Volume 1. A Benefit Anthology for the NMSS. Mahoney finds the use of social media sites a great asset.