Listen to Marquis' poem, FallOut Shelter, in his own words (.mp3 format)

Read Marquis' poem FallOut Shelter

In June of 1995, I walked across the stage of Chrysler hall in downtown Norfolk, VA with the graduating class of Maury High School weighing 235lbs sporting a head of disheveled hair, and an “I could care this less about this moment” look on my face. My family sat in the audience screaming as I shuffled through the motions of our ceremonial entrance into the “real world”. Little did anyone know how “real” my world had been, and how the depression surrounding my reality made this graduation nothing more than trivial. I just wanted the pomp and circumstance to be over so I could resume the drowning of my pain in beers and blunt smoke, which is exactly what I had been doing every weekend since December of 1994.

The Beginning of My Journey with Epilepsy

One month and five days into my senior year of high school, to which I had just transferred in hopes of a new beginning; I arose as usual to the resounding alarm of my aunt’s voice ringing up the stairwell into my bedroom. “Marquis…wake up…did you hear me, Marquis…it’s time to wake up?” She called several times before the frog in my voice croaked loudly enough for her to hear me, “I’m awake…I heard you…I’m awake!” I finally bellowed. Forcing my half asleep face out of the soft pit in my pillow, I sat up in the dark as I watched dawn creeping into my east facing bedroom window. My feet hit the carpet in unison with my hand wiping the crust from my eyes, even the voice in my head was barely awake mumbling at the bright red numbers on the alarm clock that I never set, “It’s five-thirty.” I yawned pressing my palms against the tangled sheet to support myself in standing when suddenly like a bolt of lightening a blinding pain struck the inside my head accompanied by a white flash. I heeded my bodies warning and quickly returned to a sitting position under the assumption that I stood up too fast and not enough oxygen had reached my brain. As quick as the pain came was as quick as it left. I took a deep breath, pressed my palms against the tangled sheets and was preparing to face my day upright when…

Beep…beep…beep…beep…

“Where am I?” “What is that beeping?” I open my eyes to near blinding light. “Am I dead? No,can’t be dead. I can feel my eyelids and they’re heavy. What is this in my nose…on my face? My head hurts; I’m cold. A familiar hand I have held many times slips into my own. Her soft, thick fingers, short nails and puffy palm, offer a gentle and loving squeeze of reassurance. Before the image attached to this familial hand blurs into focus I already know it’s my Aunt Darlene.

“Aunt Da’…” I murmur from behind a green plastic mask

“Yes baby?” she quietly responds.

“…what happened?” finishing my thought.

Wiping tears from her eye with the hand not holding my own, she begins saying something…but my racing thoughts make me mute Aunt Da’s voice. My immediate family in the now silenced background stares into me as though they almost lost my life; they are happy that I am alive.

“What time is it?” I ask, needing to know just how long I have been here in the fragrance I despise, the scent of hospitals reminds me of the day my mother died. I have never quite been able to shake that feeling; that I am in a position similar to the one in which I last saw her which does not help the situation.

“Its eight-thirty.” someone responds interrupting my thoughts.

Water fills up in the sinks of my eyes… “Eight-thirty!” …overflows from the outside corners… “It can’t be eight-thirty!”…two drops race down past my temples as I lay on my back barely able to move. Reality sets in, “I have no memory of the last three hours”, the liquid intravenously pumped into both arms singes colder beneath my already cold skin and the glandular waters of my fear and frustration runs warm beyond my temples into my ears. I heard myself crying for help…for explanation…for time back.

An unfamiliar voice slips on the puddles of fluid into my ear. “Marquis …Marquis?”

The frog in my throat manages to squeeze out a weak, “yeah…from behind the oxygen mask.

The voice introduces itself as doctor something I don’t remember then asked,

“Do you know where you are, Marquis?”

“…the hospital.” I moan.

“Yes, you are in the hospital, do you know how you got here?”

“No, not really”

“Do you remember your full name?”

“Of course I remember my name, why wouldn’t I remember my name”, but I’m too weak to be sarcastic so I only say, “Yeah…”

“Could you tell me your full name?”

“Marquis…Lee…Mix”

“Do you know what day it is?”

“October…ugghhh…tenth, I think”

“Who is the president of the United States?”

“George…I mean Bill Clinton.”

I smirk at my often made mistake I would think Clinton and immediately connect it to George. Everyone within earshot of my low voice chuckles at my foible. Atomic Dog plays faintly in the cerebral distance.

“Marquis, you were brought to the hospital because you were having a seizure and…”

And the mental anguish again rushes my shores as the doctor goes on explaining what happened to me and my family. I don’t really care what happened now. I just want him to finish. I just want to go home. By now he’s speaking more to my aunt than to me about arranging an appointment with a neurologist to learn whether or not this was a one time experience or if I have epilepsy. The doctor goes on about how it is unusual for someone my age to be having a seizure for the first time. When he asks about any possible head injuries my mind floods with images of me hitting my head throughout life; quickly I am able to conjure five maybe six images of head trauma that could’ve participated in the construction of this moment. The car accident six months ago flashes the loudest. Hair snatched out in the windshield, lacerations to the forehead, fractured hip, and 12 stitches in my chin and 13 inside my mouth.

The moment slows to perfect stillness and then I am fast forwarded through neurological testing, diagnosis, and prescriptions. Within two weeks I had electrodes stuck to my scalp, been slid inside a three dimensional X ray machine, been labeled epileptic and sentenced to take Depakote for life, if I even live that long. I hate medication, even more than I hate hospitals.

The medication helped with the seizures, but I felt dependent upon it and it made me hungry all the time; it the midst of the outer and inner turmoil I had no strength to resist so I ate…large ham and cheese sandwiches at 1AM on a regular basis. My nature loving life dwindled to the journey to and from school and gazing out of my window feeling no reason to go outside because of my fear that I may collapse somewhere and someone might see me. I virtually folded in on myself hoping to push this nightmare away when I probably should have been talking only formed a shadow around my heart that refused penetration.

I kept thinking, “This is my senior year; I am supposed to be having fun before I go out into the world alone.” Yet, I felt alone already. Seizures were not only a new experience for me but for my family as well. No known history of seizures or epilepsy exist in our family; therefore no one who could confidently say, “Marquis you’re gonna be okay.” And although I desperately needed my family and friends to encourage me I believe they were in as much shock as I. I guess no one was sure that I was going to be okay.

My Darker Hours

By December 1994, I had been overtaken by internal darkness and depression. I was not even trying to fight it anymore. In fact, the person I thought I was just laid down to die. A stranger assumed my life. He started smoking weed on the weekends, maintaining functionality throughout the school week. He slaughtered my appearance, allowed my hair to grow wildly; he would sneak to eat at all hours of the night unable to resist the side effects of Depakote. Before I knew, it was graduation day June 1995 I was 60lbs heavier, slouching across the stage to receive my diploma. The idea of dying felt so much easier than being this stranger. I prayed for death daily but never had the courage to throw my body in front of a car or to throw my face against the barrel of a gun. So the stranger I had become wandered the darkest places within my mind and within my hometown hoping death would find him. He was in and out of the hospital with me along for the ride. He stopped taking my medication. He figured I did not have long so why waste it listening to what everyone said was good for me. He did almost everything that I never would in hopes that it would destroy me. I did not understand what I was facing so I gave him the reins to my existence. While I was going through this period in my life I felt that many of the people I looked up to counted me out and labeled me worthless. It seemed as if my loved ones were counting the days to my downfall without ever saying anything directly to me.

On Christmas day 1996, I had what everyone thought was a seizure, but turned out to be withdrawal from my attempts to quit smoking marijuana. Once the paramedics left Aunt Darlene came and sat on the edge of my bed wiping tears from her eye with the hand not holding my own, and began saying "I love you, Marquis." My thoughts raced back 24 months over every time she’d spoken those words and I could recall clearly even though I did not recall what I was doing or where I was going when she said them I remembered…LOVE; and I remembered she is happy that I am alive. And for the first time in two years I thought, “So am I.”

Coming Out of the Dark

I had begun to take my life back. I started to attend church on a regular basis which brought me peace of mind and a wholeness I had never felt. I continued writing rhymes, poetry, prayers, thoughts, pretty much whatever came to mind. I had the realization that my depression stemmed not from epilepsy or seizures but from an inability to communicate my fears. By June 1997 I was me again, only better. I had lost all the weight. I was standing tall; chest out, chin up. People who had not seen me since Christmas did not recognize me. The darkness gave me greater appreciation for the light, but in truth I still had no direction in which I wanted to travel with my new found self. So as I often had in life I listened to others and went to school for Computer Aided Drawing. It was the logical step. I could draw, I did not have a degree or job, so I went for a year and a half then had to drop out because I could not afford the tuition. All the while I was writing daily; expressing the ups, the downs, my observations, reflections pretty much…whatever came to mind. I recall a conversation I had with my Aunt Darlene while in between jobs. She stormed out of her bedroom and asked, “What are you going to do with your life?”

The words echoed through me; and without an effort toward thinking about how I should respond to get her off my case, I silently held up my ink pen and notepad.

She looked at me and said, “You have a one in a million chance at that, Marquis! What about your future?”

I sat in an assured silence that I had spoken my peace for the first time in 20 years I knew exactly what I wanted to do.

In February of 1999 I walked into a small café, signed the open mic list and faced a fear greater than being in the dark. Communicating out loud the thoughts that I had been harboring, scribbling in notebooks, on loose leaf sheets was my greatest fear. I failed English my senior year because I could not get through an oral report; but there I was standing in front of strangers, trembling, stuttering, afraid and determined to do something for me just once. And I did, and I did it again and again and again and again until it became my job. It’s June 2005 and I am a nationally known spoken word artist/poet/performer. I communicate for a living. I am not a millionaire yet, but I love what I do. My work is my dreams come true. I have won some national competitions. I have traveled to places I never imagined I’d see. I know it can be difficult living with seizures. I still get frustrated and cry about having epilepsy sometimes but I live. In spite of…no…insight of it all, I live.

Listen to Marquis' poem, FallOut Shelter, in his own words (.mp3 format)

Read Marquis' poem FallOut Shelter