Noah Cicero - Bipolar Cowboy

on Facebook. She hardly ever

left her room, she had stopped cleaning,

stopped cooking meals, she barely ever

stood up, since 1987.

They took her two foster kids then,

then her mother died in 1993, then her father in 2002,

then her husband in 2013.

She moved so little, her body

had atrophied. She only ate enriched white bread

and canned food.

Noah would check on her several times a day,

“Are you okay?”

She would start talking about something from

1985. The memory was vivid, and when he told

her daughter of the memory, her daughter

said that memory wasn’t even remotely accurate.

Even though she just looked

like a dying old woman,

there was a world in her mind she had constructed

to tolerate existence.

The old woman didn’t know

she demanded everyone treat her

like a princess. Others had to do her shopping,

others had to clean up after her, others

had to drive her around.

As soon as we left her alone,

she went back

to a world where everyone was alive,

where her foster children were small.

In a movie starring Julia Roberts

or Jennifer Lawrence, the sad character

would decide in a perfect epiphany

that she needed to ‘carry it out’

and get on with life.

But sometimes, it doesn’t happen.

Sometimes

there is no redemption.

1.

The Buddha

holds up a flower

the audience stares

Mahākāśyapa learns

the ineffable wisdom.

2.

Monkey fights The Buddha.

The Buddha holds out his palm.

Says, “Jump over my palm.”

Monkey jumps miles into heaven’s sky,

makes a mark on the ground.

Monkey looks up and sees Buddha.

Buddha says, “Look down.”

The mark Monkey made is

only on Buddha’s thumb.

Then Buddha says,

“You could not even

jump over my thumb.”

He told her as they walked

down the strip,

in the lights of the Bellagio,

“I drank myself to sleep

for four months straight,

it was just

part of everything.”

She responded,

“I drank every day

from age 22 to 28.”

Then she smiled.

Noah Cicero woke up in Las Vegas to the worst feeling he had ever had, the suicide feeling. He had never seen this feeling before, it had complete control. He couldn’t move. He just wanted his mind to stop thinking about her, running the same stupid infomation over and over again in his head. Then a blast went off in his mind, Noah Cicero was his six-year-old self, a little version of Noah Cicero.

The room was nothing but whitespace. Even the chair six-year-old Noah Cicero was sitting on was white.

The little boy was crying, head down.

There was nothing left to grasp, the wind had taken it all away.

Noah Cicero had nothing left, he fought and fought, greedy to make reality work the way he wanted. And none of it worked.

No one left to blame.

No one to be angry at.

His six-year-old self sat there crying.

Then he heard someone yell, “Brother!”

Little Noah Cicero looked up and saw a young 1980s Hulk Hogan, wearing his red Hulkamaniac head band, his yellow shirt to soon be ripped off, and his red underwear thing. Noah Cicero’s mind searched and searched, looking for anything, for one true belief that remotely seemed true and beautiful. And this is what his mind found.

Hulk Hogan yelled at the crying boy, “Are you a Hulkamaniac?”

“Yes,” he said, whimpering.

“Hulkamaniacs don’t kill themselves, brother. Remember when I bodyslammed Andre the Giant!!! Everyone said I couldn’t do it, everyone said it was impossible!!! But I charged up, I took the energy from all the Hulkamaniacs. Through the power of all the Hulkamaniacs I was able to bodyslam the 500-pound Andre the Giant!!!”

The little boy looked up at the Hulk, the Hulk danced around, flexing his muscles, screaming, giving it everything he had to keep Noah Cicero alive.

“Hulkamaniacs don’t kill themselves because I need the energy of every little Hulkster to keep me strong, to give me the energy to bodyslam my opponents into the ground!!!”

Then the Hulk began shaking and sucking in the energy of all the Hulkamaniacs. The energy swirled around in him like a wind, the power of a million Hulkamaniacs.

Then Hogan screamed, “24-inch pythons!!!”

Then the Hulk put his giant hands on the shoulders of the boy, made him stand up, and said, “Brother, I’ll show you how to gather energy.” Hulk Hogan began shaking violently, flexing his muscles, whipping his head back and forth. The boy felt scared but he started shaking, flexing his muscles and whipping his head. He felt the power of Hulkamania surge through him. It was there, the power, the power that surged through the strong unstoppable body that was Hulk Hogan.

Then the Hulk got down real low and yelled, “Get on the biggest back in the world and I’ll carry you.” The little boy had stopped crying. His face changed to a smile. He jumped on the Hulk’s back, the biggest back in the world. 33-year-old Noah Cicero stood up, took a shower, brushed his teeth, washed his hair and when he saw his sister later in the day, he told his sister a funny cliche, because sometimes all we have is cliches. “Today is the first day of the rest of my life,” and his sister responded, “Thank god.”

I sat close

to a woman,

an educated woman,

like me she had traveled Asia—

Japan China Cambodia India Korea.

We had both seen Angkor Wat

An impressive person,

on the Las Vegas strip

we talked of seeing Buddhist monks,

and riding metro subways

but my heart

would not work—

I knew I was over her,

but not it.

The impressive woman

confessed she had been to

Asia, with another.

The man she had traveled with

was gone, she did not speak his name.

For her also

only the it remained.

Is this how you become a cowboy?

We both went home alone that night.

I saw on your twitter

that you want revenge

that you have a vendetta against me—

For the eight horrible texts

I sent

But can’t you see—

you don’t need to do anything

to get revenge

Every time you say anything funny

or laugh

And I’m not there to hear it

you get revenge

you win

and now

that you give your jokes and giggles to another

(Noah Cicero couldn’t finish the poem,

there was a blue sky, not one cloud,

and it was a little chilly in Las Vegas

that day. He lay back in his chair

on the patio of the Lake Mead Starbucks.

He put on George Jones.

He folded his arms and stared

at the peaks of the Spring Mountains.)

Then he wrote

“I am powerless”

He reached down in his REI satchel

and took his second anti-anxiety pill

of the morning.

1.

The student is drinking water

from a plastic bottle.

Student says, “What is zen?”

to the master.

Master says, “Can you drink

the word water?”

Student looks

at his bottle of water.

Student says, “Whoa.”

2.

Student said, “I really

considered suicide.”

Master said,