heat flow

as i sat watching the silt laden mississippi river flooding it’s banks

i imagined taking a sample of my blood river

would the meter say for the millionth time “silt levels are normal”

or would the meter say for the millionth time “too much sweet silt”

so my fire hose syringe injects clear insulin water

but maybe i injected too much

so two hours later my earth was in convulsions

or would the meter say for the millionth time “too much fresh water”

so shaking, sweating, ravenously hungry, i drove dump truck spoons of sweet silt into my blood river

but maybe i ate too much

so later that night my earth was puking over a toilet trying to get rid of the silt

this crazy 6 way balance my life swings upon

food to rest to stress to exertion to insulin to time

i was taught to achieve the perfect balance of sugar in blood

but, my life flows like a river in flood across the land

picking up debris and flowing different directions down dry creek beds

my life burns energy in ways the 6 factor calculus of Type 1 diabetes never accounts for

picking up love and flowing different directions down my lover’s curving side streets

i do my best to withdraw the correct amount of insulin into my syringe

for the stress i did not see coming

i do my best to account for the hours ahead

so that every gram of sugar i didn’t know i would eat is predicted

but when the stress storms hit and my blood river floods it banks

the convulsions, the lying sick on a bed, people calling ambulances for me

i feel so ashamed that i could not know could not prevent could not plan

so that never happens

as i sat watching the silt laden water of the mississippi river

i imagined being a civil engineer tasked with bringing the level of silt in water back to normal

managing a line of pump trucks pumping clear water through fire hoses into the river

commanding a line of dump trucks dumping soil one after the other into the river

sitting there in the job site command trailer by the river bank 

every single second of every single day

issuing commands over neural nextel 2-ways so that normal levels are always maintained 

while my life, my blood river goes ahead and floods it’s banks anyways

and for the millionth time i see the futility and the frustration and the lie that is this control

flash red across the face of this highly trained engineer in me

all that can pull me away from his desk to the river bank

tearing off my clothes pushing me in

is that i can forgive myself saying let it go, go for a swim