Ramble, ramble...

Working now under the filtered gaze of dying sun-light, I wonder if anybody is yearning as I yearn -at this exact moment. I ponder if my suffering-in this brief moment- moves a hair or rattles the bones of anyone. Does the churning of my insatiability affect even the movement of shadows that bathe me? Am I so secluded in this plaintive soul-searching that I cannot whisper any prose that will make my meaning known? Am I so cryptic, that my heart will beat forever beneath walls of plaster? Can you hear me now, my erratic song? Can you touch the gaudy hem of my visceral sorrow?  I am afraid not. I am sorry to say that I'll always love you from a distance, always scribble ill-conceived bromides in the guest book of your indifference, always plant the flowers that another hand will harvest. How do I speak to you, shadow, whisp, restless oasis, when ever I perish in ill-timed storms and sleep-statuesque- buried in sand? Restless bones cannot stroll with victors in Valhalla, cannot manage to swim soul-choked rivers, cannot light incense to Marlboro gods, soaked in the sweat of their kill.

I wish my words would choke in my throat so that I could speak louder through your lips. Honey, I wish that your gaze fluttered against the contours of my gaunt eyes, razor chin. I wish that you would read these words and understand; understand that I'll never really know you.

2 year anniversary of having MS

Friends,

On the 2 year anniversary of me being diagnosed with MS-I want to encourage you to donate to find a cure. You can do so by donating to my Walk MS Team-all proceeds go to the national multiple sclerosis society. http://main.nationalmssociety.org/site/TR?pg=team&fr_id=19513&team_id=333432

Also, check out a story I wrote about how I was initially diagnosed. I am lucky to still be feeling healthy and happy 2 years later. Thanks!

Friends/Family,

I suppose I just need an outlet tonight, a rambling forum, the active listening ear of the endless void that is facebook.

I have Mutliple Sclerosis and this is a story (not very interesting mind you, but a story nonetheless).

The prologue is simply a trip to the dentist and a deep cleaning. And then a trembling in my face. Nothing but a reaction to the numbing, I was sure, so typical of any such cleaning. The story starts out with a normal workday, albeit one that's starting a hour earlier than usual. I was feeling a little strange after a long night spent with friends. I attributed this to simple fatigue and lethargy  nothing a diet coke or pepsi couldn't cure. So, pulling into the unglamerous north parking lot of my work did not portend anything, but another work day. When I stopped the car I lost control of the muscles in my face. The right side of my face simply tightened up in a stroke-esque pose that lasted 1-2 minutes at maximum. I panicked as nothing like that had ever happened to me. I went home and rested thinking my body was simply out of wack. That night I went to an instacare clinic. I described the odd twitching  I told the Doctor that I called the dentist several times and the Dentist said nothing like that had ever happened before. The doctor was confounded. No flu symptoms, no pneumonia or drug use. He advised that I see a specialist. I thought this superfluous, but went anyway.

I had an EEG. The neurologist said it could be one of many things. Some worse than others. MS was casually referenced. I also had a glucose test at the Davis Hospital to see if it was some blood abnormality. I had 5 large vials of blood taken from me in 4 hours after fasting for 24 hours (a very difficult thing to do). Sometime during that time I broke down physically and emotionally and ended up in the ER for the day. My body was simply overtaxed. Nothing major came out of it. I learned that I have hypoglycemia-nothing I didn't know. Half my body went numb about every other day at varying times.

I did an MRI soon thereafter. Actually enjoyed it-a sci fy coffin of sorts. The news came while I was at work. I answered the call cheerfully and was not met by small talk or pleasantries  but by: 'You have Multiple Sclerosis'. No explanation, no post-pleasantries, just that and a 'we will talk soon'. I was in my office with another co-worker at the time. I felt like breaking down and did a bit. He noticed, but said nothing-the kindest thing he could do. I walked over to my then immediate supervisor to say that I am going home. I broke down in his office. He played it down. I cried through my half-smile as I walked away. 

My mom was in denial. Couldn't be that. probably a parasite or something else. something less. I agreed to do a 'Spinal Tap' procedure, i.e. a good-sized needle stuck repeatedly in my spine to collect spinal fluid. I have never been a fan of needles, so this was not a light choice. The procedure was agonizing. The Neurologist missed several times and the painkillers did not work. I thought I screamed, but they said I was their most quiet patient. I was in bed for 3 days. My friends rallied around me. My family was never closer. In an odd way, I was happy. Scared, but so happy that so many people loved and cared about me.  After 3 days, I started moving around again and went back to work. Smiling like nothing happened.

The diagnosis was confirmed and reconfirmed by another Doctor. Relapsing-Remitting Multiple Sclerosis (http://www.nationalmssociety.org/about-multiple-sclerosis/relapsing-ms/relapsing-remitting-ms-rrms/index.aspx)

This was a good prognosis-better than the progressive sub-set, worse than nothing at all. I have white spots on my brain, legions if you will, where my own immune system has attacked the fatty covering of my neurons (mylein sheath). This slows down and otherwise screws up neuronal signals more or less [there is much more to this]. The white spots are a result of the lack of myelin in those areas. Basically, there are many treatments and precautions (keeping active, avoiding too much caffine and drinks, no smoking, low fats, etc) and I won't always feel it. My hands get numb at times, sometimes they sting and my feet hurt. I'll get weird pains and fatigue most often. But the treatments have helped.

I use Copaxone, which I inject daily into different spots of my body. I am mostly use to this, but am so sick of feeling like a science experiment. It typically hurts to inject and leaves bruises and welts. Some days I don't notice it, but I think my body is not happy with daily shots. I call it 'shooting up' and that usually makes me laugh. I never thought I'd be a veritable drug addict haha

This is simply a snapshot of it all, but yeah it is both scary and increasingly familiar. Most likely, nothing much will ever happen to me. I might lose feeling in a hand or a foot at some point, akin to a 'sleeping foot' but more permanent. Perhaps, nothing will happen, perhaps more. It depends on the treatment. It works nearly 100% of the time for 78% of people that take it. If it fails, there are other options. 

The issue of who to tell and how to tell is tricky. That is why i'd rather just announce it. At first, I felt like I had a secret to keep. That my friends would turn against me, that I'd never date again. I was always optimistic about it, but not so much about how people would react. I quickly realized that for my friends and family it didn't really matter. I will never forget the love and concern shown to me during the trying days of the late april/may months when i was diagnosed. I am heartened by the love around me.

Today, I am optimistic about the course of the disorder and sick of the injections. Life is about the same, besides the price ($100 a month, $3,000 without insurance-thanks insurance) and the injections. Nothing, least of all MS, will stand in the way of my goals or of my life in general. Life is what I make it, and it is beautiful.

I am not afraid, but I am aware.

Thanks for reading. 

Best,

Cameron

ps: forgive my spelling and word salad style.

Haunted

Original draft written on 4-14-2013 by Cameron Morgan

Haunted by the active moments
Which flee my understanding-
Dwelling languidly in the sick flicker of florescent light
Longing to feel the warmth of her neutral gaze-
Mid-day sun shrouded in a vapor burqa-
 Always blind to the braille touch of her leather caress,
Can I even stay in present tense
When words wither-archaic-sputtered by slow lips?
Trembling now under the yolk of movement,
Clasping hands to empty leather tomes-
Will the words appear-near a brighter light?
Will my footsteps track one and two
With no one to carry me?
I hope now that the bled-ivory gates will creak open,
And welcome me to the storied fields of a promising life.
Hope that the ocean-fed zephyr will chill my bones and
Awaken my slumbering heart.
Will they forget me after a long winter's night-
Mortar and kudzu-strangled brick?
Will their memories be of a waking moment
Drenched in the fear of fever dreams?
Will they remember me when my eyes blister with welled tears-
Dry, westerly, luke-warm?
I fear that I am lost to the phantom pains of a past
Phantasmagoric and a future, more dream than terra firma.
Tonight, I'll sleep with one weary eye strained with inevitable defeat
And awake, pious, aware-alive.

Blackbird, blind and dumb (New Poem)

Hello friends,

This is a new poem and an original that will be featured in my upcoming book. Thank you for reading this and for supporting me.-Cameron

Blackbird, blind and dumbOriginally written on 11-19-2012; edited on 2-23-2013Written by: Cameron Morgan

Brilliant little Blackbird,
Blind and dumb,
Why singest thou of
Mournful woe,
In face of bright-lit day,
What havest thee against
Yon brilliant sun ray-
What so startles your dramatic display?
Boundless little Blackbird,
Blind and dumb,
Why tether thyself to rotting fern-
Haven’t thee hope in bosom to burn?
On what craig unfurleth thy wings-
Sere, molted, yet siren-serene?
What resin rattles thy blood-
Oh tortured divine, oh lost in the flood?

Oh Blackbird,
Sweet bird,
Angel of hope,
Find thee a far forgotten isle-
Rest and pleasures elope.
Sing  the songs of guileless waves,
White-caps and Whitonian love.
Wonderful phoenix, feckless friend,
Fly afar and Forget me.

Copyright of Richard Cameron Morgan. 2013. All Rights Reserved.

An open letter:180 days of her

To her, whom it concerns,

The winter feels close to me here; sensually, dangerously close. I know that particular screaming within the confines of my skull will do nothing to grieve her passing. A better place, a quieter place. I must, simply have to, blood-let these words to paper. Only then, can I sleep with curtains gaping open-and embrace the glaring moon.

We started off whimsically, like the story-line of an 80's Rom-Com, directed by a functioning alcoholic. She lived oceans away in a land I couldn't visualize and couldn't understand. Life is busier on those insomniac streets-or at least, they pretend it to be. The existential pains of living almost eek from their pores, a paradoxical perfume. She spoke in rhymes, as if pentameter meant anything in a terse time. She enveloped my heart by way of bromides that she borrowed from  Bartlett's. If anything, I was just too drunk to venture beyond the shallow wade.

2 years after a more benign moon-lit walk-she was a vision before me. Even then, she punctured her prose with virulent reality-unacceptable to my opiate mind.I knew well, in the unexplored depths of 'run away', that she would amount to another fever dream-more phantom than companion. Oh, but the mountain-tipped trees were fragrant with a believing and lusting breeze. I walked inexplicably into quarantine, incapacitated by own decree. And this reverie remained-septic fissures notwithstanding-as her ship sailed and I was left wondering. She once told me to look to the East, understanding eyes sealed, to feel the sea-swell of her arrival. That a week, a month, was but the undulation of one wave collapsing upon another. At least, that is what I made of those ululations as the waves swept her away.

And so, across the molten waves, we were bound by telephone cord and Gordian dreams. I never trusted her as I couldn't ready my unsteady hands or trace her wavering glare. Gossamer, was the touch of her hand at the advent of day. I wished to sew and strengthen those weaves, but trembled violently. We loved with a love that no one envied her and me. Such was idle conversation at battlefield's edge-renting the clothes of everything else-so that we were no more naked. I suppose it was something and these words would've been dressed and adorned differently not long ago. It is painful to think that interned dreams could walk the Earth for one night and then choosing to stay-simply remain.  But the dead stay dead and this eulogy will soon pass.

I wonder how long to linger by her grave-how long to sing cryptic goodbyes to her hollow crypt. Vagrant strength bids adieu to me, but with these plaster words, I'll seal her sepulcher and say my last farewells.

I would say I'd see her again, but I believe in no such afterlife...Except that of one wave collapsing upon another and bringing a new love back to me.

Goodbye.

-Cameron

An article I published on my thoughts in Kenya

I just dug up this article that I wrote for the WSU Signpost about one of my trips to Kenya some time ago!

Let me know what you think:

Cameron Morgan – Volunteering in Kenya and beyond   Feb 9, 2010

My published article on Kenya

Hey,

This is the column I published in the Signpost: Please read it!

A tale of two cities
By Cameron Morgan

Published: Wednesday, January 13, 2010
Updated: Wednesday, January 13, 2010

**Signpost columnist, Gina Barker, worked with Cameron Morgan in Kenya.

Nairobi, Kenya, is a tale of two cities. Walk its crowded streets and you might be surprised to hear the tormented teen vampire Edward courting clumsy Bella at a high-tech movie theater, the nostalgic smell of popcorn and chocolate more reminiscent of Ogden than the third world. Take a left or two and everything changes — you are in the Kibera slums. The smell of popcorn fades to the stink of sewage and garbage and you realize you are not in Kansas, or Utah, anymore.
Kenya is a hot spot for tourism. Its Great Rift Valley — specifically its lions, flamingos and zebras, attract westerners: Muzungus, from Europe and the United States. Tourists typically congregate in up-scale shopping malls and dance halls, but increasingly, so do middle-class Kenyans. Expensive shopping malls accommodate comparatively wealthy tourists, but are supported primarily by middle class Kenyans — a group gaining increased sway as its numbers grow. The Kenyan middle class and upper class defy the somewhat stereotypical notion of a universally starving and poor Kenya.The country’s elite, the top 10 percent who are most likely the friends and family of Kenya’s rulers, controls 34.9 percent of Kenya’s wealth. This wealthy group, when not investing their money in Swiss bank accounts, are helping to finance new banks, cafes and concert halls.

Wealthy Kenyans live well, sheltered behind gates, security guards and suites — these are not the emaciated women and children with bulging bellies, sad realities are amply covered by the major western news outlets. According to The Daily Nation, a Nairobi-based periodical, rich Kenyans are spending $534 million a year on lavish weddings alone. A sharp contrast to the millions of Kenyans who live on less than a dollar a day.

It is hard to dispute that Kenya’s elite is largely tainted by cronyism, nepotism and corruption — Kenya is consistently listed as one of the most corrupt countries in the world by the western governments and NGO’s. However, this shouldn’t discount the fact that distinct, albeit narrow segments of Kenyan society are living the capitalist dream.

Where does Kenya go from here? The country is the most stable and prosperous of its east African neighbors; its people are friendly and love Americans, especially Obama. It borders a failed state to its east, a country devastated by the messianic cult the Lord’s Resistance Army to the west, and a genocide and civil-war-ravaged Sudan to its north. Too many still starve in Kenya today; too many can’t afford to attend its supposedly free primary schools; too many face violence, a 40 percent unemployment rate and an uncertain future.

It is hard to say if Kenya will follow the economic path of the Asian nations like South Korea and Singapore or if perennial election violence and tribal hatreds will drag the country to the depths of a Somalia or Sudan. The next time water-bottle-wielding tourists stroll down the pock-marked streets of Nairobi, they may well hear the wail of Tchaikovsky’s violin in place of the sickening sounds of gunfire. This time I’m pulling for Edward and his obsessive audience, Kenya’s blooming middle class.

[from http://www.wsusignpost.com/editorial/a-tale-of-two-cities-1.1010680] -structure changed with copy and paste-read original there]

Thanks!
Cameron

Eldritch

Strange how twilight leaves linger out-side my window pane,

Strange how each trembling moon dons its eldritch guise,

Strange how feral time-lurches violently forward,

Strange how mellifluous words ring hollow to empty tombs,

Strange how I awake, only to dream.

-Cameron

7-1-2012