CURRENT RAMBLINGS by Lloyd Gordon

State of Mind, State of Being

His voice startled me-
As I was pumping gas while being a white man in a nice car
At the Crenshaw and Adams’s Chevron.

I coolly played off the usual hit for “spare money”.
My street smarts were not put on, I’ve earned them.
And unexpectedly I turned friendly, much to my delight.
I had been feeling heavy the moments before,
Contemplating the news of my incurable cancer and shortened life-
That I heard no more then a week ago.

He turned to others who put him off, as I had.
Some were not as nice.
He sat forlorn hiding behind the pump that I was just freeing up,
and suddenly appeared beside me. Contrite.

Sorry he says. I am schizophrenic at times. I can’t help it.
And I could see clearly that he had once been labeled this by some expert that
Everyone acknowledged and he had no choice,
But to believe it and adopt it,
As the identity he showed and excused to me now. And he-
Had come to believe it.

I hadn’t seen until,
As I write this now-
I realize,
That is just like me being: in-

Deathly in fear of time passing. My clock running out.
Wondering things like whether my tube of toothpaste would run out before or after,
I do. You know, small things like that-
That now loom large.

And I had felt so smug in my assessment of what I thought-
I saw so clearly about that man
Trapped in a prison of his own belief,
Become schizophrenic before my eyes.

No more so then my knowing when I will die. Yes I have a truncated future.
Even though my father died in 2 years, others are still surviving after 15 years says-
My oncologist and urologist. Nothing has really changed unless I permit to be so-
And so become…