Seeker Magazine

JJ Johnson

THINGS TRANSPARENT | LOOKS LIKE ME, WEARS MY CLOTHES
SALT | GARMENT BOY | NEON LOVE

I am a 56 year old retired MRI Technologist, and I have Multiple Personalities. I began writing about this disorder over a year ago, describing how it feels to house five distinct persons in one body. Since that time, much of my poetry has been published (primarily on-line).
Some pieces were actually written by Victor, an eighteen year old who sounds like Elvis when he talks. Victor is my protector; he is strong willed and loves working outside. Some of his writing is quite deep, and some of it is just plain entertaining.
Fred is my ISH (Internal Self Helper). He is ancient and says that he can remember when light was divided from darkness. Light, he says, was quite a curiosity. Fred's writing is instructional and is based on his long time observation of man.
Blue, another alter, is a seven year old boy who likes to draw or paint trees. He has a great fondness for strawberries and cream. Katelyn is the youngest personality; she is two and lives in an apple crate.
All of these personalities reside in a place in my mind called the bowling alley. They surface at different times to perform specific duties, chores or receive rewards. When one of them surfaces (takes control of this body), I go back to the bowling alley to sleep or watch. We have developed a working cooperative and each personality serves a specific need for this body.
(The above painting is Blue's)

THINGS TRANSPARENT
Things transparent
chew my soul.
Shardened termites,
moles of glaze
crawl among
cobwebby holes,
an empty,
see-through maze.

The tender ones,
they call my name.
lifetime lovers,
folks of class
stare across
the place I claimed,
a fleshless
looking-glass.

How long until
my soul is gone?
And not a shadow,
not of me
will nicely then
be called upon,
to be, to be, to be
   (written by me)

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LOOKS LIKE ME, WEARS MY CLOTHES
Come ye one,
Come ye all!
Sit thee in the mirrored hall.
Behold the magic, in the switch,
Untie me from the weaver's hitch.

Spin the wheel,
Roll the die!
Behold the littles where they hide.
Sleight of hand, magic show!
See me change from yes to no.

Carney tricks,
Smoke and glass,
Draw them from a darker past.
Now you see me, now you don't!
Who's that in the wolfing coat?

Captain Kirk,
Mister Spock,
Beam me to a darker spot.
And in my stead another shows;
Looks like me, wears my clothes.

Come ye one,
Come ye all!
Sit thee in the mirrored hall.
Attend your eyes and you will see
Illusions by an MPD.
  (written by me)

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SALT
She took him, belt in hand,
To the wall of the blue flower.
She placed newspaper religiously on the hard wood floor,
Baptized it with salt from the kitchen pantry.
"Drop your pants," the woman bade,
"Get down there."
He let his trousers, then his shorts, fall to the floor;
(for he knew this ritual well)
And knelt his seven year old frame
Down upon the bed of table salt.

"Don¹t sit on your heels, boy," she bellowed.
Thwack, the belt drew a red highway across his naked back
And pain shifted gears
To climb the hills of fear ahead.
Near crying before,
He was in a full flower of wailing now;
Begging for mercy, admitting his onerous state.

With the full weight of his body
On his knees
On the salt
On the newspaper
On the hardwood floor,
He reached out with both hands,
Palms down, fingers outstretched
To barely touch the pretty blue flower on the wall.

Now the salt migrated
Into the lines of his seven year old knees,
Burning into that cracked skin between his patella and tibia.
He tried to shift his weight.
Thwack, red roads crossed on his bony nakedness.
There was no fight in him;
And as mucous streamed from his nose, tears fell.
Salt tears fell.
Ashes to ashes,
Dust to dust,
Salt to salt.

Switch.

Now another stood his stead;
A braver version,
One who would get him through this carnage;
Through this horror;
Through this bedeviled genuflection.

And while the other one bore the salt,
Bore the belt,
Bore the shame
He went back, back to a safer place,
To a warmer place,
One sunny and noisy with acceptance like an empty bowling alley.
It was the place where others lingered,
Waiting for the end of the salt
And the end to the pain or, perhaps,
The end of everything.

The blue flower knew his pain,
Understood the agony;
But its blue clarity was little help
Against the din of the salty waves of pain
And the growing road map on his back.
So the other one,
The one with courage, stood his post,
Took his medicine like a man,
While the boy waited,
His hands over his ears
Crying for the end,
Any end would do.
  (written by Victor)

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GARMENT BOY
Tied with cords of cotton fiber,
hands constrained and tethered tight,
to the coat rack in the closet
hangs the child in dimming light.

Toes just touching on the hardwood;
arms outstretched toward heaven's gates.
Wracked at night to cure his evil;
body weight excruciates.

Cries for mercy die neglected;
pleas for pity pass, ignored.
Like the other clothes left hanging,
he's a garment neatly stored.

Sweat and tears become his buttons;
numbing pain becomes his sleeve.
Thirst and hunger are his pockets;
fear of dying is his weave.

So the garment-boy left hanging,
(minus mind to comprehend),
`fesses all his sins and errors;
groaning for the horror's end.
   (written by me)

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NEON LOVE

Fluorescence f L i C k E r E d. Nuance flashed: on off on off on. Buzzing caused V O. E G R I T Life blinked. Life . blinked. The glimmer faded. My light, an inert gas, went out at last (written by me)

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(Copyright 2001 - All Rights Reserved by JJ Johnson - No reproduction without express permission from the author)

JJ Johnson has written several affirmations regarding his life, which may be seen at GNBF13 and more of Blue's paintings may be seen at Blue's Gallery.

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Letter to the Author:
JJ Johnson at gnbf@tampabay.rr.com