Diesel Powered Rag Doll

> > > DOC LUBEN is a writer and person in Portland, Oregon

[doclubenpoetry]

[doclubenpoetry]

Day 3-- April 2021 3/30 The verge of giving up is my comfort zone. I have a luxury apartment on the shore of nearly done. The verge of giving up is my comfort. I have a luxury apartment on the shore of nearly done. The verge of giving is my comfort. I have a luxury apartment on the shore of nearly done. The verge of giving is my comfort. I have a luxury on the shore of nearly done. The verge of giving is my comfort. I have a luxury on the shore nearly done. The verge of giving is my comfort. I have a luxury on the shore nearly. The verge of giving my comfort. I have a luxury on the shore nearly. The verge of giving my comfort. I have a luxury on the shore. The verge giving my comfort, I have a luxury on the shore. The verge my comfort, I have a luxury on the shore. The verge my comfort, I have a luxury on shore. The verge my comfort, I have a luxury shore. The verge comfort, I have a luxury shore. The verge comfort, I have a shore. The comfort, I have a shore. Comfort, I have a shore. Comfort, I a shore.

April 3 2021 Doc Luben

[doclubenpoetry]

DAY 2 -- April 2 2021 I AM THE SHAPE OF A PERSON SHAPED LIKE ME CUT OUT FROM STURDY CONSTRUCTION PAPER. I AM FLAT IN THE TECHNICAL SENSE OF THE WORD, THOUGH ACHINGLY THREE DIMENSIONAL IN SPITE OF MY EFFORTS TO THE CONTRARY. I AM ALSO THE SCISSORS IN ALL OF THEIR DEFIANT PERPENDICULARITY, THEIR INSISTENCE ON ALL FOUR AXES, ALL VISIBLE ALL TOUCHABLE, HARD SHARP CURVY SHINY GLEAMING USEFUL. USABLE. PRACTICAL. SENSIBLE. BLADED. I AM ALSO A SANDWICH. AND A PIE, A BIG ONE WITH TOO MUCH FRUIT, I AM SERVED ON A PLATE AND I AM ALSO A PLATE, A THING MADE FOR SERVICE, AND I AM A PEN AND ALSO THE CONSTRUCTION PAPER AGAIN. I AM A LIGHT CREAM SAUCE. I AM ALL OF THE INGREDIENTS, I AM A BOX THAT ARRIVES EVERY MONTH WITH PRE-PORTIONED INGREDIENTS AND THOROUGH INSTRUCTIONS, I AM DIRECTIONS WITH DIAGRAMS, I AM EXPLAINED IN MULTIPLE LANGUAGES. I AM FURNITURE READY TO ASSEMBLE. I AM A MYSTERY GLEEFUL TO BE SOLVED.

Doc Luben April 2 2021

[doclubenpoetry]

[the-perks-of-being-black]

[blackwoolncrown]

:( sucks to be here fam :(

[of-spaceandstars]

“There are whole years I have dropped to the bottom of an uneasy ocean.”

— Brenna Twohy, from Swallowtail (via weltenwellen)

[doclubenpoetry]

Buy this book from this brilliant mind.

[doclubenpoetry]

I am humbled and so, so grateful that this little-poem-that-could just reached TWO MILLION views. Thank you thank you thank you, to all of you who share this poem and keep it alive, and so many of you who have reached out to share your stories with me.  Thanks to @button-poetry and @portlandpoetryslam for all the support and for doing this work with care and passion and love. 

[scripttraumasurvivors]

“There are few things more heavy to carry than knowing what you are capable of.

So the next time some gratitude enforcer reminds you that the universe never gives you more than you can handle-

You let them know Doc Luben was sent back from the gates of death to tell them to go fuck themselves.

Do not tell me that I am still here today because a beautiful spirit led me by the loving hand toward healing while letting my friends die alone on their bedroom floors.

Too many people still breathing today will never ask for help because you keep telling them that they’re already supposed to be okay.”

It’s been a hot minute since I did one of these but let’s chat about what you can learn from this poem.

Doc Luben is, as you can see here, a suicide survivor. It’s something he’s spoken on several times, some of you might know of his poem ‘14 lines from love letters or suicide notes.’

Characters who have lived when they did not want to often come in two flavors. 

1) The ones who say they are so lucky to be alive and tell everyone how green the grass is now.

2) The sad girl who will try again.

Just like every other form of trauma, it is never that simple. People who survived have a variety of stances but I have never… felt one so personally as Luben’s. Who growls and hates when people tell him he was chosen to stay alive. Who snaps out that he is not special for having stayed alive. That his friends, his loved ones- they were not somehow weaker than he was for not making it.

Who still says he is lucky to be alive. Despite the faulty wiring in his brain- despite the broken code. 

Who recognizes that he might still try again. Who makes no lies about where he is at.

He is someone who wants to get better but has not allowed that to paint him into a specific personality of softness and gratitude. Who recognizes the complexity of it all.

If you’re looking to write someone who survived an attempt on their own life, he is someone to look up and listen to.

[doclubenpoetry]

💟💟💟💟💟

[autistichalfblood]

Travel hopefully.

[givemearmstopraywith]

margaret atwood for the times, september 2019 (x)

[doclubenpoetry]

Holy holy yes.

[doclubenpoetry]

Upon Finding Without Irony That I Resent A Blooming Tree

which I walked by on the first day of april,

seeing it had bloomed, all at once, the sudden

flashbulb white laced with tender soft pink

and my two thoughts

one, it is so pretty.

two, god damn it, why not me?

why does this thing which is also alive

get to leap newborn and vibrant

from the sky,

while I fingernail through the mud

re-learning over and over

how to stand

one fat ugly joint at a time.

why it and its effortless drinking of sun,

while I strain to remember

a ribbon of nourishment

and swallow my own bitter teeth.

-

-

[doclubenpoetry]

It has been a while since I posted this. Things are a little better today, but everything I talk about here is still relevant. I would love to hear how you are doing, too.

[sharingtoast-deactivated2021011]

[doclubenpoetry]

You want some real real talk? As a genderqueer person with a beard, I often make the decision not to wear traditionally "women's" clothes or make-up because I know it makes other people uncomfortable. Not because I am scared of what they will say or do to me. I regularly misgender myself just because it feels more polite.

[brennatwohy]

A few hundred feet off Highway 18, about halfway between Portland and my mom’s house, there’s this pickup truck stuck up in the limbs of an oak tree. 

My friend Zak pointed it out: I wonder how that got there. 

I had made the drive less than a month before without noticing it. 

My mom was out of town for the weekend. I took my boyfriend to finally see the Oregon coast. We drank red wine from the bottle and fell asleep together on one couch. In the morning, I couldn’t figure out the coffee machine, so he drove to the next town over and brought back paper cups with a picture of a pirate on the side. We went to the Ripley’s Believe It or Not museum and bought trashy souvenirs from the gift shop and I said to him everything in this moment is exactly perfect and six days later my brother was dead.



My first semester of law school, I had a mental health crisis. 

 I would sit in class and list things: this desk is real. the highlighter is real. my left thigh has a freckle above the knee so that’s real. 

I have hundreds of photos from those first few months, all from my own apartment. Pictures of the sinks turned off. The stove knobs. The freezer, closed. My key in the door lock. 



Oregon oaks are marcescent – the leaves change color at the same time as the trees around them, but don’t fall. The dead leaves hang on all winter. When the wind picks up, you would swear it’s raining by the noise of it. 



Before he died, my brother drove up to Sacramento for an apprenticeship with a guy who made knives. I don’t know everything that happened there, but I know most of the ending.

All the outlet covers pried off all the walls. 

I know that’s where you keep the cameras, he said. I’m not a moron. 

They’re going to keep him 72 hours, my mom said. At least 72 hours.



We never talked about mental illness. Just sat next to each other in silence for decades. Fiddling with the car radio. Up in the tree.



Even at the worst of it, I was surrounded by resources. This is a privilege, undoubtedly. It was also profoundly unhelpful. 

Career counselors and professors talked about income potential and market desirability and I pressed my thumbs as deep as they would go in the spaces between my ribs. 

What does it matter how fast I can move, I thought, if I can’t get the hell out of this tree?

I didn’t need affirmations about the ways it gets better. I didn’t need vague promises of support; of “just let me know what I can do.” I needed someone to bring me a fucking ladder.

Someone did. “I will make you a doctor’s appointment right now,” she said. “I will drive you there myself.” 



We don’t need to be louder or more persistent or more earnest about helping – we need to be more specific. We need to make it as easy as saying yes, because saying yes is hard enough.

My go-to question for a struggling friend used to be, “What can I do for you?” I don’t ask that anymore. 

I ask, “Can I order dinner delivered to your apartment?” I ask, “Is there an email you need to send that I can draft?” “Can I take your dog for a walk?” “Can I find a therapist nearby that takes your insurance?” 

Can I get you a ladder? 



I was back on Highway 18 right before New Year’s. It was an unusually cold winter for Oregon, the schools had already run out of snow days. We drove at about fifteen miles per hour, leaning forward to see through the fog. 

But there was that tree. Even in the frost, the leaves held fast. Withered. Brittle. 

Hanging on. 

[doclubenpoetry]

THIS is infinitely important. Please read it.

[doclubenpoetry]

Knowing that 99+% of people (including almost all queer and trans peers) will never see and recognize my gender, all of it, is a nauseating, exhausting burden to bear. Doctor Who has always been a wish fulfillment fantasy of enlightenment triumphing over ignorance. But even still landing within the old gender binary, it moves me to tears of joy to get to watch my life's most treasured, beloved, important fictional character wake up and go "whoa, I get to be this now? That's chill, that's cool, now let's get back to exploring."

It is impossible to convey how important it is to me that The Doctor once identified as (vaguely) male and now identifies as (pretty much) female, and did so without any shock or shame and most important without her or anyone else suggesting her entire previous life is now invalid cuz that wasn't the "real her."

I will never get to wake up and have people see and accept me, not as a distortion or fabrication or incorrect variation or never-answered question, but as the whole glorious being I am, kinda different from before and yet still the same soul. I never get to travel in time, and I never get to come out of the closet. And only a tiny few people will ever be willing or able to step into my closet with me and see that it was huge and bright and magical in here all along.

[doclubenpoetry]

That year the ghost attended Thanksgiving in an old Victorian house in the south part of town. A gathering of some of those adult orphans who don’t go home to their birth families: three young actors with eyes weary from waiting tables, two writers with brows wrinkled from worrying about the arrangements of books on shelves, a carpenter and a nurse with hair showing the first threads of grey, a photographer with pale white hands and a sly grin, and the two men who work in the violin repair shop who were just married this year. The ghost had always been to Thanksgiving with a proper mother and father and grandmother and children at the age where they are just learning to cook, but this year the smell of hard apple cider boiling had brought him up the stairs of the fading victorian house where the rent is so cheap because it may not be quite up to legal code, but it is on the national register of historic places so the town’s building inspector turns a soft eye.

the ghost didn’t have his own house to haunt, and wasn’t really there all the time, just found himself every now and again standing on the corner of Cedar street. Sometimes on the fourth of July, sometimes on the day of the annual barbecue cook-off, but every year on Thanksgiving. He had managed to catch a few movies about ghosts once movies got invented, but they didn’t help him understand much. If he had some kind of unfinished business he couldn’t remember what it was. He didn't know where he was on all the days that he wasn’t in town. Just one afternoon he would be there, standing on the corner of Cedar Street, and he could feel how much time had passed but there were no details of anything between. Didn’t feel an urge to act out some past sins. Didn’t have the itch to solve any kind of eerie mystery. If he’d been the victim of some old turkey day murder, it wasn’t a good enough story for him to recall it.

So this year there he was among these folks who were so young but didn’t seem to know it. He stood next to the stove as the photographer stirred the gravy and felt the heat from the oven and liked the way her hand looked wrapped around the wooden spoon. They didn’t have a big table so they did what kids can do, nooking plates into their folded legs on the couch, sitting on the floor leaning over the coffee table. eating turned sideways on the steps and laughing the whole time. Their hair looked so alive in the dusty window light.

He couldn’t make much sense of words anymore. He could hear the voices but it was like baby babble to him, just as empty and just as funny. He mostly payed attention to               reflections and smells and warm and cold. Over the years he’d lost the press of table manners: he’d reach over the back of the couch and sink his invisible hand into the mashed potatoes, the steam and garlic circling up his arm. He dragged his fingers back and forth along the top of the cold key lime pie. He sat on the floor right behind the youngest actress and smelled the lilac shampoo tinging off her long hair. One time he tried on a urge to grab a tumbler of whiskey off the table but it just slid and knocked over on the floor, and they all froze, stared startled at the glass babbling confused nervous noises, and then laughed a big laugh all together, because what else could a living person do?

He stayed all the way to the end, as the sun went down and the young living lit candles and lit sweet joints that he inhaled as deep as his not-there lungs could do him, and they held hands and rested their heads on each other’s laps, and their nonsense stories sounded more and more like songs with a strong beat and a chorus in three part laughing, and he clapped his silent vanished hands and bobbed his empty weightless head and it seemed like it made sense, he thought that maybe he had been a decent dull man who met a peaceful end, and this was not a punishment or a reward, it’s just what you turn out to be if you die with no ties to anyone, you get to be an orphan ghost keeping an eye on the in-between people,

and then one by one and two by two the feasted living hugged and gathered covered bowls and left the house, and the last two kissed quick and kissed deep and went upstairs kissing, and then some time passed, a long time passed, and there he was on the corner of Cedar Street the smell of barbecue drifting from down in the park.

--