Category Archives: Personal

The Battle of NOW

NOW is when courage gets strapped on like armor
with the buckle of character and the belt of strength.
With the grieving already completed
nothing left to lose but the chains of slavery
perpetuated by the blind by choice monarchs
of an antiquated sense of royal entitlement
I will heed the trumpets of battle calling me to arms
I will join those who require justice, balance,
My sisters and brothers united.

NOW is when the shadows should be fearful
for the Light is coming, I carry it.
Until the last breath is drawn from my lungs
with a battle cry as fierce as fire
I will hold my torch aloft without discrimination
but with mercy unknown to those ignorant of truth.
Know that the moon is my shield, the sun is my guide
The clouds themselves won’t allow dark to hide.
With my sisters and brothers I will unite.

NOW is when the warrior voices of those who survive,
covered in battle wounds, scars, and bruises,
raise up their outrage against the injustices.
Swinging axes of love and beauty against the darkness
Slashing red ribbons into pretty bows to enhance life
Encouraging the young to speak violently
words of compassion, kindness, and dreams
Reminding everyone of the language of their soul
United with my sisters and brothers, I fight.

NOW is when we band together
under the warrior’s banner that reads
“COME UNITY”
with the sword of truth gleaming glittery
with freedom released into the air from the cage
where it stagnated under the weight of oppression
where it strangled under the lies of darkness
where it remained every hopeful of rebirth
Only we can be the midwives of this bloody mess
Only we can set the cries of the newborn into the world
with a swat on the buttocks of bad behaviors
apathy, disinterest, rejection, bigotry, anger
Only we can swaddle our neighbors and communities
in the dawning of a new age with baby steps of joy.

My brothers and sisters hear my please!

Come, oh come, oh come to me!

NOW is the time to refuse division of our spirits.
NOW is the time for progressing our peace through love.
NOW is the gift we’re given to make a difference,
you and me and the faceless stranger.
NOW is the time to be present in changing our future
one loving gesture at a time.
NOW we can recognize one another openly
know that it is not just your burden, but OURS.
NOW we can pull up our shirtsleeves,
honor our hearts, our minds, our hands together.
NOW we can continue the work of our ancestral souls
that are bound to our blood as we are bound to one another.

My brothers and sisters hear my please!

Come, oh come, oh come to me!

Lumpy Bumpy boob job?

We all look the same on the inside, ladies.

We all look the same on the inside, ladies.

Tonight I went to the gas station to get an energy drink for the morning. On the counter was a large baby bottle with the words, “Help Jenna get a BOOB job” in glittery stickers. It was for the girl behind the counter. This young woman has the most sparkling eyes, kind spirit, and white straight teeth that light up her face when she smiles. I’ve not heard her ever say an unkind word to even the jerks that come into that place regularly.

When the store was clear, I asked her why she wanted a boob job.

“Well I kind of want it, my boobs are too small. And my boyfriend wants bigger boobs.” she said with a shy smile.

“What’s the matter with your beauty now?” I asked.

“I don’t know. I guess I just don’t see it. It’s a carry over from childhood.”

“You can choose not to buy into that any more, you know that right?” I inquired.

“I don’t know. It just followed me into adulthood.” She said as she waited on the next customer.

When she was done with the customers I stepped back up to the counter. “I do speeches on body image,” I stated to her astonishment. “I don’t understand how you can’t see your beauty.” She actually blushed. I described her kindness, her friendliness, her smile, her compassion, her vibrancy to her. She refused my compliments with a gentle hand set up in front of her.

“So I, and everyone else that compliments you, are liars?” I asked.

“I think so.” She answered me plainly.

“Don’t you think it odd that so many people would tell you the same lie, but you still can’t believe that it’s true?”

“I didn’t think of it that way.” She said while helping someone else. After the customer left, I stepped back up to the counter.

“Your body is just a shell,” I tell her with passion in my voice. “Who you are is not what your boob size is, or what size pants you wear. Beauty is found in the love, compassion, joy, and kindness found within your shell. You are beautiful just the way you are. Nobody can change that about you but yourself. A boob job isn’t going to do what you think it will for your self esteem. If you find love for others, then you must love yourself first. You can’t give someone an empty plate and tell them it’s a steak dinner.” When I realized she was shocked, I stepped back and said that I would see her another time.

What is wrong with women? Seriously? Your body, your temple, your shell, whatever you want to call it, is going to die. It’s not real. The labels of mother, daughter, sister, aunt, friend, cousin…professional anything…those are just titles given when you’ve unlocked a new level (geek speak there). The truth is found within, not on the outside.

Think of it this way, I read a quote that asked the question, “Of all the thoughts that race through your head, who is the one that observes those thoughts?” Who are you really? You are perfectly you. That’s who you are. Love yourself. How? By looking past what you’ve been told or how someone spoke to you you can find the truth in yourself. Everything that has happened to you is your history. It doesn’t have power over you unless you give it power.

I was told that my nose was too wide. I was told I had kind hair; the kind that belonged around a dog’s ass. I was told I was a slut. I was told I was pregnant all the time. I was told I wasn’t worth anything but sex. I was told I was worthless. I was told I wouldn’t grow up to be worth anything. Lessons of my imperfections repeated over and over again. For many years, I bought into that pack of lies. I believed myself to be a bad person. I hated everything about who I saw in the mirror. I began a cycle of self destruction trying to quench my own spirit.

Here’s where the cool part comes in: I woke up one morning and thought, “Mare, this isn’t who you are or how you need to be living your life. You will no longer need anything like that.” And I quit everything, just like that. I just didn’t need it. With the help of a kick ass therapist, I waded through the bullshit pond that had accumulated over my true self. I found the plug, let the water of sins wash down the drain. Then I began cleaning up the mess I’d left behind myself.

Those words I was told so many years ago no longer hold any power. I forgave the people who hurt me with them. Until I see another woman where I was, I don’t even think about them any more. The problem is, I keep seeing women who think that having the perfect nails, tan, car, or whatever is going to bring them the happiness they need. There is nothing in this world that will make you happy but yourself. You are responsible for your own happiness. If you’re not happy, change what you’re doing, get rid of the negative talk in your head by hearing your spirit. How? Just be still. Listen. Let the rest of the garbage flow down the drain. Allow your true self to shine through. Find peace. Find love. Find compassion. Find joy. Revel in your perfection and imperfections that are truly unique to you.

Namaste.

Division will Multiply and Add to our Subtraction

It is my hypothesis that we’ve forgotten our communities. We’ve forgotten, as a whole, that we’re in this together because the lines of division have been drawn between liberal and conservative, African American and White, White and Hispanic, old and young, healthy and sick, poor and rich. We’re told we have no common ground and that it’s every wo/man for themselves. With rare community exception this appears to be the “norm.”

We’ve forgotten our addresses as places to be charitable. We depend on the faceless churches to do what we do not want to do which is know our neighbor and lift them up with loving hands as we know in our hearts is right. We deny it because it’s easier to look away than to look poverty in the eye. We see the problem but rarely solve it because surely someone must be doing something about that already, right? You know, those faceless people that occasionally get a shout out by “DoSomething.org” or “Upworthy” or “Because I said So”.

We don’t have to be human, we just have to do what we’re told. We shouldn’t look at those homeless, starving, unhealthy people because they’re the problem. They’re lazy. They’re alcoholics and addicts. They’re people who deserve what they get because if they’d only tried a little harder, got a better education, given up the booze they would make it in this world. They wouldn’t be littering our streets with their hollow eyes, freezing hands and feet, or spitting blood onto the concrete covered in our garbage they took sustenance from for dinner.

But my further hypothesis of why we commonly look away from instead of towards a solution is that many of us know we’re but a paycheck or two away from the very same fate. Seeing our futures reflected back at us from the eyes of a hungry child is not something we wish to see in our own families. Seeing a homeless Veteran sitting on the sidewalk with a cardboard sign is not how we want to believe we treat our soldiers. Seeing a woman angry at her dire circumstance allows us the right to look away so we don’t have to see what we may become should the fates not smile on us anymore.

I have been working in my own community to establish a garden where the people I live next door to and across the street from can work elbow to elbow with me to create sustainable food for our families despite circumstance. It is my belief that if we work together we can make a difference in our lives. But sadly, there is little hope here. Without a torch to light the way, without strong voices calling them out to join the fray, we will remain in the darkness of poverty, starvation, homelessness, and the stigmas that are attached to those solvable issues.

FOSTER: “Y’all just get my compassion thing a throbbin’ but you forgot the one thing that drives EVERYTHING in America, MoNeY! God love you for your innocence but if already rich old white men can’t get richer it ain’t gonna fly.”
•
CHAPIN: “Need way more people like u around”
•
ERRETT: “You should write a book Mare… Excellent writer”
•
BAKER:

Lilo & Stitch – This is My Family.
•
MARTELL: “CHAPIN, the thing is, we’re all these people. We just need to do the right thing. You’d not let your own child starve, why someone else’s offspring. We all bleed red. We’re all one.

FOSTER, you can’t eat money, you can’t house someone in coins.”
•
FOSTER: “Oh I couldn’t agree more, I’m just saying the prevailing feeling amongst the right wing is “I don’t care about a bunch of brown kids” “lazy old vet should get a job” “I got mine, why should I care about you” it is a shame money becomes an issue when the subject is basic human dignity but to so many it is.”
•
MARTELL: “There are 535 members of Congress. There are 317 million Americans. Allowing this to continue is an abomination to humanity. We the People of the United States, not who has the most money. If we stood united and refused to allow people to destroy our unity and humanity, we, ALL of us, could make the changes necessary without violence, without anger, without hatred, but with love. Love won’t feed a child, that’s fact, but the hands that make that food with love can.”
•
FOSTER: “From your mouth to God’s ears my good friend. I am not cynical just resigned to the level of cruelty that about half the people in this country are capable of. You can find them every Sunday morning in pews across the country, right next to the ones who would wish things were different.”
•
MARTELL: “Wishing doesn’t solve anything. Waiting for someone else to do it doesn’t solve anything. Claiming good heart while your neighbor loses everything in foreclosure because of family illness or loss of employment doesn’t solve anything. It’s only when we use our hands with love towards one another that we’ll be following any common sense. If it happens to one of us, it can happen to all of us. We need unity back in our community. Without it, we’re no better than those 535 members of Congress, or the VA that allows our soldiers to go without care, or the family services that allows children to go hungry or the department of immigration who destroys innocence because of an imaginary line drawn on paper. This should outrage us. This should piss us off. This should be addressed by We The People because I don’t want to wear the label of executioner of humans. It’s morally wrong.
P.s. I don’t care which religion you follow or don’t follow. This has nothing to do with that. It has everything to do with love.”
•
LOONEY: “Read this entire conversation, I couldn’t say anything better. I’m proud of the spiritual aspect and the integrity that you’ve grown into, my daughter. A wholeheartedly agree that the loss of community is a symptom that plagues us. Families no longer live in the same house or even in the same town/city. Therefore the so called breakdown of the family -IMHO-has as much to do with geography as much as lack of commitment to many things.”

Girlish Ribbons: TRIGGER WARNING

This may cause some discomfort who have suffered from trauma and further, may cause discomfort in those that have not experienced this. In my personal life, I feel raw and violated due to circumstances of which I have no control. I am regarding another time in my life when I felt this way because currently, I’m unable to deal with recent events without turning to past emotions for reference. I am strong. I will make it through. I will win and succeed because that’s my destiny. In the mean time, I write not so pleasant and work through the not so pretty.

Before cutting was glamorous and utterly common
I showed my wounds without spilling bloody ribbons
I displayed my afflictions with self-violence abloom
Tacked to my flesh in kaleidoscope bedrooms
Begging for love, praying for forgiveness on my knees
With my eyes looking upward into those of my savior
With a little “s” and his little “o” appreciating my prayer
I rejected that which defined my “child”hood
Defined my worth from knee to waist, absorbed my youth
Sponged in sweat, punctuated with a God I knew didn’t exist
Because if he did, he surely wouldn’t have taken my sacred
And violated it upon the altar of evil in the name of my father
A likeness of god himself, would he? I did not believe.

 

Natural, un-enhanced womens breasts in a red satin bra with black lace edging and diamond detailhttp://theanjananetwork.net/2014/02/10/the-boobs-crave-acceptance/

Headlights, bazongas, baby-feeders, titties, jugs, knockers, ta-tas, boobies, whatever slang term is applied, breasts have been my focus since I was a very young girl. My maternal grandmother had enormous boobs for her 5 foot frame. My Aunt Helen was even more blessed than her. My mom and my aunt had average breasts — not too big, not too small. To me, as a child, I looked at breasts with admiration and wondered what my body would look like when I started to “bloom.”

In sixth grade, with special permission slips signed, I was taught through filmstrips and a rather dry lecture, about the changes my body was about to go through. I learned about menstruation and it horrified me that I was going to bleed from “THERE.” Every month? What the hell were they thinking?! That wasn’t going to happen to me. I was also taught that I was going to grow “public” hair which I proudly came home from school and told my mother about. After her initial shock wore off, she explained it was PUBIC, not public. To this day, I’m terribly amused at the irony.

“They said my boobs are going to grow. Is that true?” I asked my mother as she bustled about the kitchen.

“Yes, it happens to all women’s bodies. Sometimes they are big, sometimes they are small, but all women grow breasts,” replied my mother matter-of-factly.

“Will I get as big as Aunt Helen?”

“Probably not,” said my mother. In retrospect, mom still feels like she lied to me that day. Unbeknownst to her at the time, she did.

My friends called me flat tire in the fifth grade because I didn’t have boobs. They made fun of my body and I let them. When my breasts started budding during my sixth grade year mom bought me my first bra, a white trainer. I felt as humiliated wearing it, as if my friends were barraging me with proof of their ideas about my body.

The first day I wore it in public, it was under a short sleeved white sweater that had little knit flowers adorning the front. I was mortified when my friend Kim Tarpley told me she knew I was wearing a bra. Up until that point, I could believe in my mind that I was a boy. When it dawned on me that I wasn’t a boy, I realized I was a girl. It was noticeable after I’d taken off my coat in the hallway outside of Mr. Martinez’s classroom.

EVERYONE COULD SEE THE BRA! I ran to the bathroom and promptly removed it, hiding the ugly white declaration of womanhood in the sleeve of my coat before entering the room where I would sit for the rest of the day in misery, terrified that someone would discover my secret.

I told my mom I was wearing the bra she bought me, but we both knew I was lying. I didn’t want to become a woman. I didn’t want to be a girl. I wanted things to stay the same. I fought against the changes in my body, ignoring what I could, telling the other girls who proudly proclaimed they’d started their periods that I had as well so I wouldn’t feel so alone. My period didn’t show up until just after my 15th birthday so I’d been lying about it for three years before I could reveal the truth.

Why did I want to be a boy at that age? How badly did I want to be a boy? I remember telling my sixth grade student teacher (I’m sure it was after a shameful boob incident) that I didn’t like being a girl.

“Why wouldn’t you want to be a girl?” She asked me gently. She had a Dorothy Hamill haircut that was coffee brown and smelled like Johnson’s Baby Shampoo. When she hugged me to her polyester blouse, I started crying. Love’s Baby Soft coated my cheeks when I’d settled enough to talk.

“I want to be a boy because boys don’t get hurt.” I sniffled. She handed me a tissue.

“What do you mean boys don’t get hurt?” She asked rubbing the comfort circle between my shoulder blades, as her face tilted towards mine in concern.

I wanted to tell her everything. I wanted to explain that girls have men that do things to them. I wanted to tell her that it happened to me. I wanted her to make it all better. I wanted her to wave a magic wand and make the changes in my body stop. I wanted to stop the clock and become the more powerful gender. I wanted to be a boy because of the horrible things I’d experienced at my father’s. I wanted to be a boy because my brothers and dad were strong and nobody could hurt them. I wanted it so badly. I wanted the freedom of running around without my shirt on in the summer sun. I wanted to love my body like I used to do.

Instead, I shook my head, sobbed some more with wadded tissues in my hands, “I don’t know.” I finally replied.

Summer came and to my horror, so did boobs. I don’t mean that I grew into my body gracefully. I went to sleep one night and woke up the next morning with boobs that Dolly Parton would be envious of in seemingly an instant. My mother recalls how horrified she felt as I grew out of bra after bra on a weekly basis. I eventually landed on DDD’s on my 5’4” frame.

Okay, so maybe it was by the beginning of 8th grade, but it really was rapid, sudden, and I felt enormously ashamed. I could no longer hide the fact that I was a girl.

No matter which shirt I wore, bathing suit, blouse, dress, I couldn’t hide them. There they were as proud as anything screaming womanhood at the top of their…well, cleavage. My Aunt Helen tried to offer advice and solace, but I just looked down and wondered where the hell my feet went. She tried to guide me to select bras that would both support my “gift” and not dig into my shoulders so badly. I didn’t want to talk about it. In retrospect, that was a pretty large elephant sitting in the room. It felt like my body had betrayed my wishes to be a boy.

I felt self-conscious because nobody, and I mean nobody, had boobs the size of mine. Or maybe it was just that I couldn’t look at another girl/woman’s body and not wonder if they hated theirs too. When a boy/man looked at me, I felt like my boobs were the only thing they saw and that their thoughts were impure. I felt like a lunch buffet in front of sex-starved men. When girls looked at me, I heard their thoughts: “SLUT! WHORE! BITCH!” My entire identity became my boobs. I hated them.

At twenty I married for the first time. To spice up our sex life, we rented a video camera and taped our intimacy for future review. When I watched what my body looked like while involved in “The Act,” I felt such shame, not because I was having sex with my husband, but because my boobs dangled down in awkward heavy teardrop shaped pendulums. I felt repulsion towards my body so strongly that I decided to have a breast reduction done.

Halloween rolled around in 1991 and while my friends were planning their sexy costumes, I was planning to reduce my boobs to a manageable size. I didn’t feel fear of going under the knife. I wasn’t worried that I could die, in fact, at that time I felt it would have been the preferable choice. I wasn’t alarmed that it took a team of professionals to talk the insurance company into paying for the surgery for my overall health. The only thing I was wanted was for my boobs to match Marilyn Monroe’s size — a C-cup. My mother and my grandmother drove down from Michigan to Indiana to take care of me when the surgery was done. They were there when I was wheeled into surgery and there when I came out.

I woke up groggy from the anesthesia. My breasts were bound to my chest with bandages and I could, no kidding, see my feet. I tried to sit up to see if that changed, but fell back immediately weakened by the residual effects. I had drains under my arms that were uncomfortable. Did I mention I could see my feet? I ached all over. It hurt to breathe, but not like when you have a cold and you’re struggling to get a lungful of air, just achy deep in my chest.

When I got home later the next day, I laid on my couch while my mom brought me lunch. By the third day, the bandages had been removed at the doctor’s office, my mom had returned home, and I got to see what they looked like for the first time.

They weren’t pretty.

I had stapled wounds that wrapped from under my arms around my chest with only a two inch gap of unmarred skin between my breasts. I had stitches around each nipple that itched so badly I thought I would go mad while healing. I had no sensation on the bottoms of my new breasts. They looked like a Frankenstein experiment gone bad. But you know what? The mutilated remains of my former boobs made me feel a sense of power.

I was no longer defined by my boobs.

I had control over my breasts. They were but a symptom of my self-loathing. For the first time since I was called a flat tire when I was in the fifth grade, I felt like I could be okay with my boobs.After that problem had been eliminated, I started tearing down other parts of me.

I realized that my boobs hadn’t been the problem at all. It was me.

I discovered that I wasn’t just my boobs or just my vagina. I wasn’t just my physical person. I was more than that. I became an “I am” kind of gal. I am a woman. I love being a woman. I love the way my body looks, wiggles, giggles, shakes, and moves when I do. I love the way my breasts fluff out my clothing. The cleavage I see when I look down makes me happy. They may not be perfect in someone else’s eyes, but they are mine. They are a part of me. They are beautiful.

My Gerber servers, holy grails, whoopee cushions, humpback whales, flying saucers, traffic stoppers, super big gulps, double whoppers, pillows, billows, Don DeLillos, soft-serve cones and armadillos, chi-chis, balloons, whatever you want to call them, my breasts are wonderful and I’m glad I’m no longer defined by them. Further, I AM glad I am a woman.

(Slang terms for breasts found in the final paragraph are found at: http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=99+words+for+boobs)

Graphic Language: Safe for Work

After an injury left me unable to walk at will for over a year (first I broke the foot then the nerve grew around the artery), I became a vicariously alive person because I lived on Facebook. It became my window to the outside world. I commonly spent 8-10 hours a day more or less monitoring the lives my friends with greater mobility were experiencing. I watched, commented, thought, read, and digested their lives like a good bowl of popcorn with occasional seeds to be discarded. As time passed, I noticed patterns.

I noticed the trending topics by the shared news stories, quizzes, videos, and other miscellaneous clutter. For clarity, I do visit traditional news sites, but honestly world news is hard to witness without me feeling bad about my first world problems and shame that I find them so important when I’m not on day 15 without food or fresh water.

Doctor Who and the T.A.R.D.I.S.

Doctor Who and the T.A.R.D.I.S.

I check about once a day on the world news and I subscribe to a local news site for more immediate happenings. The patterns, because I’ve been watching for over a year are pretty obvious to me. For example: Normally, if there is a death of a beloved public figure, how long they remain in my feed is usually an indication of how widespread their actions are revered. Maya Angelou stayed in my feed consistently for nearly two weeks before the fervor died down. That dude from the Fast and the Furious…Paul Walker, stayed up for about a day, minus one of my friends who is a dedicated fan of the F&F franchise. Trends, although sometimes disturbing, helped me to gauge topics of conversation when I did get to go out in public.

One of my primary complaints against Facebook are quizzes. Quizzes are popular because most people that take them religiously are usually working on who they are, who they want to be, and in order to do that, they need definitions of their starting point. I won’t sit here and shallowly say that I don’t take those ridiculous quizzes that were probably written by junior high school students (Yes, I’m mocking myself here), but they aren’t psychological evaluations. There is no reason on this earth I need to know what type of cheese I’ve been in a past life according to my aura color that I learned by discovering which animal I was murdered by when I was a fish.

Another strike against Facebook are the graphics (that I also shamelessly share). If I feel they apply, I normally don’t even think about why, I just share. It started me thinking how I really see myself. If I strip away my bravado, my superhero cape, my wild clothing, my humor, and my (I hope it is) clever writing, who am I? How would I be described if I dropped off the face of the earth tomorrow? What will be my legacy?

My Mama says I am

My Mama says I am

I remember in a writing class I took where it was drilled into our heads: Show don’t tell. Over and over I’d get papers handed back to me with red marks screaming that insult at me. I hated that teacher with the keen passion that only a young student can despise said instructor. But those words held far more wisdom that the murdered works of my lame attempts at writing in junior high school.

Those words have become more of a life lesson for me. I can tell you all day long who I want you to see me be. I can wave my fancy feathered fan in front of my naked body allowing you glimpses of who I really am. I could rip off my spiritual bindings while groaning with effort and continued fear that I’ll not be seen as I wish but through someone’s eyes that perhaps doesn’t see me in as kind of a light as I shine on myself.
Show me who you are. Don’t just tell me with cutesy graphics and clever slogans because those are the thoughts of someone else. Using them to describe who you are limits a person to mediocrity, labels, and acceptance of someone else’s beliefs. Quotes help us to understand how things work to some extent but that’s accepting that the author thinks like each of us does. One thought may match but that doesn’t mean it’s the very definition of who you are.

I don’t want to be remembered with someone else’s words on my lips (ironic, isn’t it?) but with my own actions a reflection of my spirit. I do not intentionally set out to change the world, it just happens because my intent is to be like a firefighter, fully engaged in whatever I’m doing. I require blazes of activity to spark up via conversations, actions, laughter, outrage towards injustice, or by committing random acts of kindness (again with the irony!) I want to be remembered as someone who mattered to someone else as much as I matter to me.

Wave it and bring it

Wave it and bring it!

I’d like for someone to make a graphic about me that reads, “Man, if only you’d known her. She was a fireball like none other. She’d crack jokes so fast you’d swear she Googled the answers then turn around and poke your conscience into action regarding a noticed injustice. And even though she gave up a lot, she wasn’t a quitter. She’d fight to the bitter end if she believed in it and without even realizing it, you’d be right there with her not questioning because she was trustworthy in action and word.”

P.S. I just posted another graphic I identify with and just completed a quiz about how bitchy I am. My intentions are good, I swear!

The Coffee Hours Symphony

Our personal music composed itself
on the breezy breaths of our being.
Our eyes blinked in metronome
as we witnessed our lives quietly,
the creak of a knee as it’s repositioned for comfort,
the crumpling of the cushion’s fabric
the way the richly creamed coffee we share
is sipped and swallowed with sensational delight
eliciting murmurs of approval.
You spoke truthfully to me with words
that had no letters, no order, no punctuation,
But every meaning I needed was there.
I heard you. I understood.
You are not alone.
I let out a deep sigh.
Your eyebrow quirked upwards
making a question mark of your eyes.
I smiled half way lost in our song
because it has been sung so often
brought up familiarly during times of great loss
And yet this symphony remains blank of content
consolation filled with the tunes we know by heart.
You place your mug on the table with a wobbly balance
reaching out your hand to hold mine.
Your eyes remove the question reassure me the answer,
that you’re with me; I am not alone.

Deepest loss

In my experience there has not been a greater loss felt than that of a child.

In my experience there has not been a greater loss felt than that of a child.

I’ve loved you since before you were born
When I saw your face pressed
Like a violet captured
In an ultrasound I no longer have
But cherish as a vivid revered memory
As in fairy tales of old
Many lies were told
And you were stolen and kept far from your home,
from my active loving heart.
And I wept.

I’ve loved you since the papers crumpled
Unused, only to be recycled,
When the death of hope is heard
In the confetti shaped heart
That is irreparable, devoid of cohesion
Bleeding the tears of mourning
That burn with the lies told
The familial curse stood as firmly as a parapet.
And still I wept.

I’ve loved you since I witnessed your slavery
Removed with greed, falsehoods,
Shifting legends of half-truths expressed
Under the guise of protection
Under the threat of theft called the improper noun
Rebuked with abandonment
Suffered the neglect of compassion
A soul reviled, refused encouragement
Violated in every way possible.
I still wept.

I’ve loved you since before I strapped on my armor
To storm the cotton fields wrought with personal terror
With machete drawn high in the air,
Shackles of truth for the liars to wear
Jangling on my hip with keys nowhere to be found.
The hovel proclaimed as his kingdom rotted
From the inside out with starving zombies
Clawing at the doors and windows trying to escape
I saw your fetal position and spirited you away
And we wept.

I’ve loved you since I became your Harriet Tubman,
Your underground railroad to freedom
I sheltered you in loving arms with my heart repaired
Embracing the Old to reject the new wave
At the same time embracing the New and rejecting the old
Hearing your pain mocked, examining trauma
After trauma after trauma after trauma after trauma
And feeling the rebuke of your fears whipped at me
The refusal of your champion for lack of worth
The loss of faith in hope and healing
And I weep.

I loved who I became because of your life
My superhero cape dancing in the wind
As I advocated for the better world that you deserve
As I championed a life with choices once denied you
As I believed in your potential, indulgent of possibilities
Lifting your chin so your eyes could see success
Found with the wings of encouragement
With every required tool available
At the beckoning of your unwilling fingers,
Your imprisoned mind,
Your blinded foresight,
Your despised, abused, and hated body.
You have removed my necessity, discarded my gifts
Refused your glory for the sake of self-loathing
And I weep, but always I will love you.

I’m getting a divorce

http://fav-store.info/blog.wp/tear-the-nicotine-shackles/ http://fav-store.info/blog.wp/tear-the-nicotine-shackles/

I met ‘em when I was 18 years old. I was in the backseat of Paul’s car laughing and drinking Jack Daniels chased by Southern Comfort. When you were offered to me, it just felt like the right thing to do. I mean, my friends and I were all sharing while singing out loud to songs promised at the concert we were heading down to Kalamazoo to witness up close and personal. I thought, “What the heck?”

I didn’t like you much, to be honest, but you kept pushing towards me with a tenacity that only lover’s know. I embraced you and for a while, we loved each other passionately, fully, and without remorse or thought of consequence.

We’ve been together for over half of my life. Twenty-eight years collectively where you have stood beside me as my pal, my buddy, my emotional rock, my shame and guilt. For twenty-eight years I’ve allowed myself to return to you time and again despite your abuse. Despite the way you take my breath away, and I don’t mean in a good way. I cling to you as a drowning man to a life raft. I run to you, no matter the occasion.

I know exactly how you’ll touch my body, move my emotions, and comfort me when I’m upset. I am hyper-aware of your indifference to my wandering eye because you know you’re my Master. You know I’m your slave. You know that I will give up everything I have if it meant being in your presence for just a little bit longer.

When we are in the honeymoon phase of our relationship, I can enjoy your company like an old friend being reunited with me. We laugh and joke. We carry on stories of “Do you remember when…?” And I love you for those. My emotional attachment to you soothes my body and my brain. You tell me everything is going to be all right as long as you’re with me. I let you stay far too long because I depend on your gratuitous being to cope with daily life.

But we have a problem. I’m no longer in love with you. I’m embarrassed that you show up at social events. I’m embarrassed that you dominate me into humiliating positions where I have to hide my shameful love/hate for you in public. I find myself apologizing for you before we’re even together.

We’ve been married longer than all four of my recognized wedded times. I realize, however, that perhaps, it’s time for us to go our separate ways for good. You see, I’m stealing love from my life with our relationship. My loving husband said, “I wish there was something I could say that would make you give up this relationship like there was when I asked you to wear your seat belt. I’m getting robbed of time with you because of that.” He’s right and I feel ashamed.

My husband sees me cheat on him every day and because of my long-term relationship with you, I’ve not had an interest in changing anything. Which isn’t entirely true, I’m a slave to a master that calls me when I’m uncomfortable, bored, upset, or need a break. But my love for my legally wedded husband is stronger than my relationship with you.

I want a divorce. I want you to leave and never return. You are not valued, you devalue. You are not comfort, you are shame. You are not a stress reliever, you’re an abuser, like me. You are not special, you’re the butt of every joke. You’re not welcome any more to go with me to restaurants, clubs, cars, homes, or anywhere else. You’re just not okay and I am not going to give in to the lies you tell me about how much you love me. You hurt me and I let you. You control me and I don’t like that. I don’t want you ruining any more of my life than I’ve allowed you to already.

I’m not 18 or immortal anymore and you need to understand that. I can’t even begin to imagine the amount of damage I’ve allowed you to do to me. I, truthfully, hope the only thing you leave with me is the memory of my own allowed self-inflicted version of a slow suicide that I’m aware of in my life.

I am sending you packing, cigarettes. Butt out of my life. You can’t blow your smoke screen around me anymore. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust get ye out of my life you must! You must!

P.S. June 7th is the birthday of the friend that introduced me to my own self destruction. I was no coerced, but it seems poetic to choose that day as the day I officially divorce myself from that habit.

The Mute Woman

How to make a daisy crown

How to make a daisy crown

I made daisy crowns and dandelion necklaces.

I climbed trees with my knees scraping bark

to see what was on the other side of my neighbor’s fence

or down the hill, or off in the distance on a sea of treetops.

I drank water from the dog bowl to see if it tasted different.

I tried cat food to see if they liked things the same as me.

I wove elaborate stories, like plays,

that I repeated until I had them memorized

then performed them to blank-faced audiences of dolls.

I became a mosquito scratching relative legs until they sprayed me away.

I watched from my window, every day through winter to see the first robin of Spring.

I dashed wildly, madly through the scented Autumn leaves.

I splashed loudly in puddles

when I didn’t have on rain boots and when I did.

I drove a pedal car up and down the sidewalk in front of my home;

Mine was green, my brother’s blue.

I rode my bike as fast as the wind

skinning the ends from my toes for riding barefoot.

My baby doll became a real child needing care

right down to being walked in a baby buggy, pampered and cuddled.

I sang songs when there were people around

and when there wasn’t.

I wore the brightest clothes I owned with pride

but refused to wiggle my fanny at school for embarrassment’s sake

foregoing the envied bunny tail.

I dreamed of long hair like my favorite Aunts

but my hair was wild, unruly, and never behaved appropriately.

I played race car with the electric socket and a key

learning just how many people I could scare at one time.

I saw my world as beautiful, wondrous, and awe-inspiring.

My memories have not been muted, although faded a bit,

Dog-eared around the edges, notated and rewritten with crayons

reversed into a parking spot reserved for each one.

I take them out and drive them around adult conversations

but they get dismissed as comical fancies

disapproved of as childish rubbish.

But they’re wrong.

My childhood held many terrifying horrors.

I don’t think these wonders I hold in my memories are comical or rubbish.

They represented my soul unfurled like a battle-worn banner

proclaiming my liberty from my aggressive oppressors.

They were a time of exploration, learning, and comprehension.

They were and are my life boiled down to the simple things

that so many struggle toward, but I hold dear to my heart.