A Man so Broken as I

6^th January 2017

Dear Cassi,

A nimbus appears around every light when I look through my left eye. This is my body’s way of saying that I haven’t had enough water to keep the toxins out of my blood. I haven’t strained myself enough to justify this problem, but it came up anyway.

Over the last few days I’ve been pushing the consumption of vegetables. Pickle has been picky about that and I spent the last half of the day cleaning out the crap in my work room. There was cat spore that had been left from the time of my last litter of kittens more than a year ago.

I used the broom to sweep up the old cat litter and the smell of urine filled the air. This is depression. This is the look of a man so broken as I, and a man looking to change things. I have my better days like this one when I clean things up, and my bad days where I can’t get out of bed.

I’m told the Japanese have a tradition of filling in cracks in broken things with gold because the history makes them more valuable. I’m not sure you can do that with my home or my life for that matter. Then again if history makes a thing more valuable than I am worth more than gold and so are you.

Stay golden, little sister,

Richard Leland Neal

Paper and Poop

14^th December 2012

Dear Cassi,

       

Today I donned gloves and took to tossing out the cat’s mess. The little things had pooped on some things I can never replace, but then if those things meant anything to me why were they on the floor?

       

Nothing helps a fellow to let go of the past more than cat poop. The first yearbook I ever owned from grade school was pooped on and in the trash it went. Paper and poop do poorly to gather, I’ll grant that even poop had a hard time standing up to pee. More than one thing has been trashed as it has been peed on.

       

I love my little kittles and would spend all the day with them if I could but cleaning up after them is work for healthy folk and my depression has simply got to go. The dark looming issues that stand over me are so strong in nature that they are like chains.

Here’s do being a good pet daddy,

Richard Leland Neal