Abstract: Annual Symposium of the Metacognitive Talk Therapy Apologists Association

Diseases of Denial and Recognition

Hypochondria is not a disease that tells you that you don't have it; it's a disease that tells you that you do have it, so if you're a hypochondriac and you think you have another disease that does tell you that you don't have it, does that mean you do have it or does it mean you don't have it, and how would you know in the first place whether you were really a hypochondriac because a real hypochondriac would always say yes, of course, I have that too, so you can't take their word for it; but can I take your word for it if you say no, I'm not a hypochondriac, even though to me you might seem like one? How is it possible for a true hypochondriac to even contract a disease of denial much less deny it in a chronic fashion? Would the hypochondriac not nurse a gnawing suspicion that yes, maybe I am a hypochondriac, and experience a not-unpleasant thrill of horror at the thought? Then how is the true deny-or of a disease of denial to truly measure their pathological burden if they are self-diagnosed with a disease of pathological recognition, an obsessive-compulsive hyper-vigilance, an error in the ranking and evaluation of signs and symbols? Are the paradoxes not tied in a knot when the sufferer is convinced that no recovery is possible without self-diagnosis and the power of honesty, reflection, and faith?


Dr. Donna Thong
Surgery Generalist
(Relicensure Imminent)
"Check out my back patio!"

RECAP: Trukk Stoppe Ho

Truck-stop Ho:
Truck-stop Ho:
Truck-stop Ho:

Yor aways mad when I leave you or upset when I didn't need you
Little Rembrandt of a paisley weasel, you are a slime right where a
man seeks some lube, chall. When I rent you, I feel all I get is a m-
-all! o' wheezing crine, Tiny. Anchored in whatch-u-whan! (a meal).
Truck stop ho. Truck stop ho. Truck stop ho.

If we can both just agree that you with me, lady, Mother of Evening,
you can leave aside your pleading, rise up and serve me, Muthuh W
-heel. You roll the dough, but someone rounded off the dice, Lucile;
Muthuh Wheel, give yor nights off such a feel, like the bride o' krais,
Muthuh Wheel, Truck-Stop Ho, Muthuh Wheel.

Here in this rain-po puddle, a man can meet a thousand jet-setting
sangle, from all seven corners o' the building; but then what is he h
-olding but his own butt in a butcher-shop case. When in Boulder, h-
ook up with the look-up king of older trade names: The Roller. He a
-ck laik he on TV bowling when he rilly in the gutter.

Trukk Stoppe Ho:
Trukk Stoppe Ho:
Trukk Stoppe Ho.

Petting zoo

CONNIE: Aren't flying reptiles and volcanoes and/or their unexpected ancestors genre if not hackneyed fiction?

REPTILY: No because this happened. It's retro-journalism, historical reenactment.

CONNIE: So nothing new.

REPTILY: The part that the K's never went extinct at all, that they'd been kept and mutilated and tortured surreptitiously for all these ions by secretive corporations and rich perverted human moral monsters-- that is pretty new or at least since it actually did happen then whoever might have made it up either did just that or based it on uncited reports of what we've got firsthand knowledge. Also the voluntary interbreeding-- through religious sanctions, the hideous scarring rituals-- that's not made it to the big screen, anyway has it? With reptiles? Maybe birds like Lydia + Swan but no. Mythology other category.

CONNIE: What else is new.

REPTILY: I don't know if any of this is new, bitch. Sorry about it. Just saying we've got a right to tell our story no matter if it suits you entertainment wise. This is not a lap dance, no it's all T baby. No shade.

CONNIE: Ok bitch you get to work, sell the product.

REPTILY: K-Bai.

CONNIE: Bai now.

REPTILY: Bai.

Tracking changes

huevos rancheros con cebolla tostada abajo

The difference between sleeping and waking is less distinct.
As my eyes are opening or closing, I can't tell which is which.
The prescription you gave me seems to be always in the background;
I could be standing in the kitchen but like I'm lying on my side, and
A substantial sleep paralysis sets in, which I have to override.


by Peg
"Hello?"

End of brain-factory paradigm

my sociopathic stepfather explains,
by reference to his new genomic fun
kit, how mother and I, from less-hu-
man neanderthal stock, were built to
spot movements and patterns, but
not survive; that our brows are too
thick to reason normally, so he


by Jan

I'm not coming in from the rain

Husband? You ask
What's that? We've
always said, no
such thing for us

We've done our
thing our way and
developed a civil
protocol or two

But now, with a
swell of generosity,
after we've made
a camp outside the

wall, invited in,
reluctantly but not
without acclaim,
we say hell no, no

We haven't spent
our lives pining for
a straight paradigm;
at least I haven't.

So it's cold and wet
out here when a
whole new system
has to express, gag

and choke on life
but it's green of
growth, so we won't
come in from the rain.




by Missy (Mkidza Mlaf)

Somebody else's fight

Spin of planet laid bare

It's 2:25.
In a few hours, it will be dark.
Then it will be time to feed dogs.
I'll get hungry and eat something too.
Fighting against sleepiness will ensue.
I'll wake up tomorrow with the promise of coffee.


Donna
"Recertification imminent."

RECAP: Bermud-a-go-go

Do I... II

Maintain a personal code culture by which I am self-defined as opposed to being
subject and object to the dominant and at times caustic assumptions norms mores
habits agendas vices ignorance around me?

Resist entreaties to destroy the self destroy before any rebuilding can be done and
destroy anew to refresh and revise according to the needs of the market-based e-
conomy?

Fear not to take heart and shop items from the membrane i'm inevitably forced to
squish through each time i venture out even in the car or open a window shade or
respond to an unsecured text?

Proceed mindfully even while engaging in the necessary mindlessness of self-con-
fidence, looking and seeing even when illusion is what's right and appropriate for
survival healing other miracles?


Jan Jr.

Dog Skla

dog skla
severed pepper stem

ricksh awe
motor is my body

ben shpres
work this out for you

Do I exhibit winner behaviors?

We ate the pets a long time ago.
I'm telling you the keyboard it-
self is rocking unstable; your
foot might go crashing through
the ground, a broken dishwash-
er, tripe block, traffic anarchy


by Jan

Funky gender shit

I don't know mom
maybe you think
i'm a tenor

because i speak
to you in a
high girlie voice

to connect with
you in a more
feminine place

funky gender
shit can warp how
you see the world


Love, Hoolie 
"For Peg"

wound farm

it's the city where i came of age
it's shitty now to turn the page

i just burned a lot of gas being
courteous to your speeding ass

stuntman, prankster, answer to
neighbor: i'm not drumming for

therapy-- it's entertainment. i've
got a wound farm in my privates.


by Hoolie

desmadrona

oh my god I
haven't been breathing I'd
like to blow my breath in
and out

does self-sacrifice make
me pagan, or a mission
why

in this last
quadrant before I die,
what?

I want, and I still
want, and not for
nothing


Ilyn
"By Shab's heaving belly."

Shrinking of society

You and all this will be a
waste of all five bedrooms

the dog fence, only for you
to watch and wait for vines

more likely light content-
ment creeps back, deepened

as for me elderly canine
duty instead of last-chance

graduate school, or hiking
in the Pyrenees, gratefully


by Jan
"Remember you get the house, Jan."

Acceptable level of heartbreak

If you want to be around and clean
up my mess I will make and make
make messes

If you go i'm crying in my stomach
and I throw up anything I encounter
is puke

I can't even look at who you will be
without my strengths and cancella-
tions.


by Donna

Bucket Wig

ringlets, but swept up from the back
and brushed impossibly forward
then wrapped at the end like Kon-
Tiki, and the tendrils, lolling dots
of colored glass as from a horn.

Obverse robinhood

I sense the heart
lidderly going out,
pressure from within

You pulling yoyo
string, thus the hate
in each wing flap

from a base of
everything, we've
topped the point

our life was:
trading away
hegemony


Hoolie
"Sorry."

How come you got a hematoma?

outside the vienna beef
downchank from Chukka
Bowl, one of the flakes

they say you took it and
offered another cheek,
but did you really

i took it on both sides
the face and lidderly
saw stars of pacifism



Ilyn
(cousin)