when i was a toddler i learned the word
deadbeat
because my father had a disease that he
could not overcome
he would fall asleep in the heat of
the moment when my mother was
angry and they needed to
talk
when i was a teenager
not close enough to adulthood
for what chronology would say
i should be
i was told that i had that same disease
a deadbeat history repeating itself
but my father raised me
even though his narcolepsy would cause
sleep without control and
visions of horror and
sometimes he couldn’t stand without staggering;
grocery stores were always the hardest.
so when i tell someone that i have narcolepsy
and you try to understand
and you say that it means i fall asleep a lot
you do not mean harm but i am hearing
that you believe in the existence of a
deadbeat disease
and that i am weak
i used to think that my brain shutting me off
was laziness instead of having broken parts –
pieces destroyed by forces medicine cannot
uncover or decipher.
that belief was fed by the people who told me
to get over it
that i just slept a lot and
don’t i know everyone gets tired?
but this is so much more;
this is nights where sleep comes in five
minute portions
and the in-between wakefulness
shows me roses that are monsters about to
rip out my throat
and it is knowing that i am slowly losing every
iq point I ever had as a child
even though my brain was the only
reason for me to have value –
it is losing the reason for me to be
me and proud
to know that it will be okay
and narcolepsy is better than the depression
it was causing but please,
i am begging you
do not let yourself give in to this
idea of a
deadbeat disease.
it lied.
my father raised me