Category Archives: Prose

If I die before I wake

I woke up covered in sweat with the blade of a knife I didn’t own mere inches from the face of my sleeping husband. I’d just stabbed a brown and tan hairless creature, that was trying to eat my arm, with a vicious punch. A child of about two clung to my chest as I adjusted enough to skillfully (Where did I get that skill from?) hide the blade again. I was panting with exertion, as the large brown eyes of the little child (Why do I have a child?) stared back at me with complete trust. I sat up in my bed. The child touched my cheek with a tiny fist and slid from the waking world back into the mist.

My muscles twitched from unusual exertion. My legs, gimp foot, and arms felt like I’d been running for my life. I searched my naked body for the blade I’d held in my hands, I pushed and pulled blankets searching for something that wasn’t there. I looked at the clock on my husband’s bedside stand. In accusing red glare, 4:47, alarm still set, gentle snore and roll over from my husband.

I settled my breathing as my mind tried to sort through what had awakened my physical being. My little dog snuggled closer to my left hip. My cat paraded with pride up my body to curl at my right shoulder. But I just couldn’t shake the feeling that I was in the middle of a war I knew nothing about in the waking life.

The night before this happened, in the sleeping world there were three men, one a sheriff who had given me false hope that he would rescue me, chasing me through swamps. I’d hidden low tide in a bunker. There were so many dead bodies in this bunker. Across the rising water against the opposite wall was a girl who was long dead but her blonde curls, like mine, were still mostly in tact. She wore a pretty dress like an Easter one I used to get. It was blue and had a white lace “bib” on it. She was wearing Mary Jane shoes with most of the patent leather shine gone.

If I’d been wearing shoes, they would have found me, but I drowned in the water. I was mercifully gone before they discovered my body. I woke up vomiting swamp water, barely making it to the toilet before it launched.

Why am I suddenly entrenched in a battle? What mysteries are laying behind my dreams? I need to figure out a way to keep control of the violence before it wanders into this world.

TRIGGER WARNING! How long will you stay? DV/SA

The story I’m about to share with you is intense in emotion, digs into some really dark corners that many keep locked and heavily guarded. I am not opening the door with the spotlight shining in to require pity, request comfort, nor to have anyone claim, “Bless her heart.” I am shining the light into my darkness so that, hopefully, my flashlight can reach someone who feels betrayed, solitary in their suffering, shameful, or guilt-ridden. I end this first paragraph with this:

IT WAS NOT YOUR FAULT. I BELIEVE YOU.

The month of April is Sexual Assault/Domestic Violence awareness month. For those of us who have survived through these violent crimes, it’s an important month to help educate others about the necessary resources to protect ones physical, mental, and emotional self, commonly without financial ability to pay due to the clandestine fleeing that can be crucial to becoming a survivor and not a victim.

I’m not going to spout statistics, or at least not a lot of them, because those are just numbers. I want to share with you my face.

meage6This is a picture of me at around age six. By the time this picture was taken, I was already quite skilled in how to be the twisted version of the good daughter. I had secrets I couldn’t tell to anyone or my mom and my brother would be killed. I already understood that I was good for one thing. I was so carefully bred to be a victim, I never associated (even up until about six weeks ago) myself with that word or with the fact that things that happened were violent crimes against my person. I just felt like I’d survived, my mom and brother were still alive, life was good.

When I’d reached age 21, I was in full blown PTSD (non-combat trauma). When I read off the symptoms back then I sincerely believed that someone had been following me around writing my every move. It was terrifying to realize that other people had gone through the same thing. It was even more petrifying to realize that it happened to me. Denial is a vicious place to live.

After intensive in-patient treatment, several years of intensive outpatient, and then several MORE years of follow up (as needed) therapy, I feel comfortable and confident in saying that I’m on the other side of PTSD with minimal triggers. It took me 40 years of hard work (30 years actively) to get through the shame, the guilt, the depression, the feelings of being unworthy that were planted from the time I was very young.

The way that I identified myself changing from a total sexual being into a loving human being took devotion, courage, strength, guidance, and determination. It was a life or death battle that left me weary, broken, bloody, and sometimes hanging on by a thread of the Fates. But, as my matriarchs taught me, whether by grace or design, to thrive is the best testament to victory over that which demanded submission.

I ask you this question:

How long does it take before you say enough of a bad relationship? How far will you allow the violence against you to continue before you fight back? How much will have to be stripped of your personal dignity before you look around and say, “I can do better. WE can do better.”

I say, the time is now. Tomorrow may be too late to save one more girl from rape. Tomorrow may be too late to rescue one more child from starvation. Today. This is what we have. Join me, humans, in rescuing ourselves from one of the greatest tragedies and the source of our joint suffering, the lack of equality between genders in the name of LOVE, for the purpose of LOVE, with the intent of LOVE brought into action.

If we do not stand together as the majority population and demand equality, then we fail our sisters, our mothers, our grandmothers, our daughters, our children, our humanity. Men that wish equality are those we should cherish, nurture, encourage to defend, but never to rescue us. You can’t expect those who wish to keep us under their heel in the name of religious or political beliefs to release us from slavery (as the article this was inspired by) stated. That’s like allowing a wolf to watch ones sheep or a (JOKE ALERT) police officer to guard a doughnut.

Maya Angelou kept rising despite the anchors that attempted to drown her. So shall I rise whether anyone follows or everyone shies away from the truths. We must move for unity and equality, but for the right reasons, because it’s the right thing to do.

NaPoWriMo: Thirteen Weeks

Give, Receive, Love

With open heart and willing hands I give to you my gifts

I lay them on the blooming altar to do with as you wish

For when I walk in faith and trust I take such grand adventures

But they never seem to work quite right unless I allow surrender

With open mind and willing heart I will receive your blessings

I wrap them up with loving arms the joys of not repressing

For when I walk in grace and trust, I gain such grand adventures

They always flow as smooth as water, these my greatest treasures

With sacred heart and open mind I’m willing to offer love

As I give so shall I receive from all Watchtowers, below and above.

For when I shine in spirit love, I find a peaceful center

With conscious thought and mindfulness the Otherwhere I enter.

NaPoWriMo: Creativity and Pain

I spent the night in the hospital last night while they ran all kinds of tests and suspected I was having a heart attack. I kept mulling the topic of the day, wondering what I should or could write about. My pain level when I arrived was at a high end 8, low 9. In other words, I couldn’t breathe to keep it in control, so my blood pressure went over the top. It occurred to me as I sat in the waiting room sure doom would arrive, I could just write about what I was dealing with at that moment. Pen in hand, I wrote the following poem.

NaPoWriMo

NaPoWriMo

Blood Brothers

The pain can only ease

if I am writing poetry

ink to paper thin

dripping words from within

using black and blue bruises

of Bic Crystal pens (my favorites)

The words tick-tock my memories

so I can live again

bloom within

shed my skin

lose to win–

–dows to the sleepless soul

with shades drawn against

the surprise war of the worlds

(Maybe we should toss confetti).

I fill the pages slowly with dragging foot

while my guts glow

radioactive

so attractive

I catch the eyes of ritzy doctors

worshiped nurses

wheelchair parking

and abandoned purses.

I use these words

to forgiv(e)ncourage me

for everything I couldn’t/wouldn’t be

Every day I was too blind to see

That pain can only ease

only ease

if I am writing poetry

It’s goodbye again

Purvi Patil; Woman sacrificed.

Purvi Patel; Woman sacrificed.

Put away the American Flag.

Set it down as it waves goodbye.

Do not worry about Democracy, Justice, or Equality,

we let those die a long time ago.

We buried them next to common sense and reason

under the false gods of profit/prophet;

the golden calf of a jesus

(not to be confused with the son of God)

that they gave up believing in because we asked with $$$.

We put God on money so we’d worship worthless paper

the most beautiful angel aka the devil

without realizing

we have already surrendered

to the greatest liar that ever lived.

We keep giving him CPR while claiming compassion.

We keep denying love,

embracing our things

our material things

that don’t keep us warm at night

that don’t ease our loneliness

things that destroy our hope in humanity

one sound byte at a time.

We’ve stripped the women down to bare bones

Shaming their bloody thighs,

Forcing guilt and hate on their skinny/fat/average/stunning

Holy vessels that bear immortality

While denying the necessity

Claiming their bodies as our own

without their consent or with.

It didn’t and doesn’t matter.

If you have little melanin and a dangling bit of flesh

between your legs,

“Welcome, my brother!

Here’s the buffet of aborted dreams,

chastised subservient minimum wage workers,

incarcerated doctors, lawyers, and physicists caught up

on a planted charge of illegal drugs

that wouldn’t be illegal if we could find a way to tax them.

While we watch from 250k houses at their 25 million dollar complexes

The destruction of the burning world

The loss of brown skinned people stacked like firewood

Into tiny cells of persecution

With our personal shame and guilt their oppression.

We’ll pat each others backs while drinking fine whiskeys

Made by child labor in some off-shore company of who gives a shit

Smoke cigars lit with extinct herbs from some country called never-mind.

We’ll prop up our feet on elephant skin sofas

Kick our pristine boots free of hard labor

Grin and congratulate ourselves on a job well done.

Put away the American Flag.

Set it down as it waves goodbye.

http://www.wncn.com/story/28664509/first-woman-in-us-sentenced-for-killing-a-fetus

Filly Ranch with Fleas

I'm a Seahorse

I’m a Seahorse

There are multitudes of angry words corralled behind her tongue

Waiting anxiously to stampede into the unwary ears of the unforgiven wrangler.

He doesn’t suspect that his lasso of rage would harness responsibility for his neglect.

She is unbridled in her disgust.

She halts without warning, veering suddenly towards the truth.

Although she relishes her saddle for its beautifully intricate design,

she bucks in furious battles against the reason it was placed on her back.

The cowboy remains oblivious to the pain of the branding iron

with which he sears her flesh with his signature as proof of his mortality.

The wrangler arrogantly believes he is bigger, better, stronger than she.

But her spirit hasn’t been broken. Her body is faster, smarter;

more adept at navigating the directional and environmental changes he affords.

She is her own shelter, her own stability, while he is self-oppressed at his hearth.

He is completely entranced and entrenched by his campfire of hatred.

It makes him unaware of her riding away at a full gallop into the sunrise of freedom.

Letter to a Woman

I wrote the original of this in January 2014. I’m pretty sure it was because I was encouraging someone to think differently. Here is a repeat performance as we enter into bikini season, as the fashion bullshit-o-meter calls it.

Ruby the Bodyworks beauty

Ruby the Bodyworks beauty

Dear Human,

I am reading your posts about someone(s)calling you fat. In our society where a size zero is revered and anything over that is overweight, it’s so easy…so, so easy to think that you’re nothing unless you meet that standard. People, as a whole, don’t care if it leaves you crying when they call you fat. They don’t care if you’ve lost 100 pounds and are still working towards the goal. If you’re not the societal warped version of a body, then you’re a nothing, not a zero because that would be skinny, but a nothing.

When I was young, I was not thin, but I was womanly in my curves. I had a relatively flat stomach until I was 22 when my body flipped me the bird and gained 100 pounds in six months. I felt horrible all the time. Just seeing myself in the mirror would bring me to tears and eventually, I just quit looking. It was too painful and awkward.

At 26, I realized I was dramatically unhealthy. Not just fat, but unhealthy. I went vegetarian and worked out every day for 3 months and went from 256lbs to 159. I kept that weight off for two years, minimal effort, and although I fluctuated a few pounds here and there, I kept my exercise and diet plan clean and clear.

In 1999, I was raped. Unfortunately, that happened to coincide with my thyroid going bat shit crazy and I gained all but 20 pounds of the weight I’d worked so hard to lose. I was back up in the 230’s…high end. With stress eating and hormones flying around like the Wizard of Oz monkey’s, I got suicidally depressed.

2005 rolled around and I moved to TN with my best friend and her boyfriend to live at my father’s house. I had to eat at restaurants for the next two years, and although my weight stayed in the 230’s, I wasn’t really happy. I could look at myself in the mirror, but I constantly tore myself apart. If my boobs didn’t sag. If my butt had a shape other than pancake. If my arms didn’t have bat wings. If my belly didn’t make me look like the Michelin man. So many things I couldn’t like about my body. I further admit that I read celebrity gossip rags religiously and loved the way their bodies looked and dreamed of being like them.

And just like my use of drugs when I was in my late teens, I just woke up one day and said, no more. At first that little voice, that constantly criticized me and told me I was fat, ugly, unworthy, un-loveable, etc. was so loud it made it hard to hear anything else. But, every time I’d hear that voice (whether internal or external) I’d reassure myself that I am okay.

After a while, it became second nature. I replaced all of the bad things I used to tell myself and have told to me, with positive things. I can walk. I can touch my toes. I can breathe. I can do a push-up. I can work harder than most people. I am rather attractive. I am kind.I am compassionate. I’m a helper. I’m a giver. I’m appreciated. I am worthy. I am loved. And the body issues, for me, fell away like the weight so evident on my thighs.

I want you to know that I share this with you because you ARE beautiful. Even with me saying kind things, NEVER believe anyone but yourself. Trust your instincts, ignore everyone else’s opinions because in the end, you’re the only person responsible for your own happiness and the only one you’ll have in your life 24/7/365 until your last day on this plane. You’re wonderful. I guarantee that. You’re compassionate.I’ve seen it. You’re a kind woman to everyone. You’re a great mother and a good wife. I’ve watched you. You’re a devoted friend with a kind heart. Love yourself enough that anyone who objects to your value, clearly doesn’t know your worth.

Sincerely,

Mare, the first wonder twin, Martell

Absence of Gram

On March 13th, 1996 at 1:13AM, Beverly Jordan passed from this world through the veil. This is to share and honor her because I have no children of my own to pass these stories down to and someone like her should never be forgotten.

Most people would start a story from the beginning, but I think her ending is by far one of the most incredible stories I’ve ever had the right to witness.

I had been up for a very long time sitting with the Martell’s at the hospital in Grand Haven (could have been Muskegon), Michigan. Gram’s beautiful brown eyes had been glazed with a sheath of white that took her vision from this world and shifted it to the next. Her mouth gaped open as if in astonishment but there were no surprises left. A machine honked and whispered breath to her reminding us all that time was an outlet away.

The newspaper my Grandpa Pat had brought in rested on the arm of the single chair that sat in the corner. I kept watch while the others went to make phone calls, rested, or grabbed some food. I picked up the paper which I read aloud. I listened to the whirs clicking moments away. I said softly after I finished a front page story that seems, even now, to be irrelevant, “Gram, you know I love you so very much. You told me the story of your heart surgery. Do you remember that?” I adjusted my seat. “You told me how you hovered above your body and you talked to God.”

“Gram, you told me that you said to him, “God, if it’s my time to go, that’s fine. I’m ready. But if you have things for me to do, let me get back to it already. I can’t do anything for my family if I’m not here any more. I’ll obey.” Do you remember telling me that story?” I stood up and laid the paper down. I walked over to her bedside and pulled her cold paper hand into my own.

“When I needed you a few months after that, you were there for me. You took me in and sheltered me. You treated me not as if I’d made a mistake but that I’d recover. You wouldn’t allow me to wallow. You gave me my life back. I got to see you in a way I never thought I would be able to because you gave yourself to me as my friend and mentor. I love you so much. But, Gram, if it is your time, it’s okay. We’ll take care of each other as we always do in our own way. Please don’t think that you have to stay if it’s time. It’s okay to let go and rest now.”

My Uncle Jake, never one for sentiment but always down for a cold beer and some good times, slipped into the room as if he’d been eavesdropping. “Ma. She’s right. You’ve done everything you could do. It’s okay. You can go if it’s your time.”

My cousin Neil, Jake’s second son, walked in just then. “Grandma, it’s okay. I won’t forget what you told me. Nobody will. You can go if you need to. You’ll be missed, but we all understand.”

We stood there silently together listening to the voice of the machines holding her spirit in her physical being. The nurse walked in to make adjustments. Jake grabbed her arm lightly and told her that he’d sign the papers to let her go. The nurse finished what she’d came in to do. Jake left with her. Neil started to cry but made no effort to hide nor wipe his tears. We joined together in our private grief not sharing what we both felt.

Everyone gathered together as the doctor came in and with very little ceremony, pulled the plug. The waiting began.

At about 9PM that night, the family dispersed with me drawing the straw to stay the night. With list of phone numbers tucked in my pocket, instructions to call if anything happened, a huge cup of coffee and a book, I sat in the chair while reading aloud. Her heart rate seemed to increase when I read as did her breathing so I continued. After several hours of another lost name, I needed to use the restroom and get a drink. I told her, kissed her cheek and left the room.

As I was returning, the nurse who had been so kind to my family told me that it wouldn’t be long, I should hurry.

As I entered the room alone, I witnessed a gray misty form fill the other side of the room. Being around my Gram, ghost stories were like talking about the weather, they were just accepted as fact. I saw this one. It was a shapeless mass about the size of a very large, although not tall, human. I could make out a head and arms, but nothing distinguishing. It knelt down and came up through my Gram’s body bearing a light that glowed like a shooting star. A sense of profound peace of mind coupled with a deep unending love filled my heart. I knew, at that moment, God existed. I also knew that she’d gone to the next realm. I kissed her forehead, holding my lips there, grasping her lifeless hand while tears fell warm against her cooling skin.

I whispered that I love her then after one more kiss on her forehead, I released my hold on her physical being to make the necessary calls. It was one of the most profound experiences of my life.

Below is a poem I wrote to honor this woman that brought me to a place of safety when I ran from deadly danger. She granted me safe haven from a toxic destructive marriage. She showed me how to rebuild into a bionic mess and how to start all over again no matter what. Although I don’t cry over her every day any more and I rarely go a day without thinking of her, she is always with me because if she weren’t, I couldn’t share this with you.

I'm not sure when this picture was taken of Gram Bev, but it's one of my very favorites.

I’m not sure when this picture was taken of Gram Bev, but it’s one of my very favorites.

My Grandmother, Beverly Jordan, is the one on the far left. She bred, trained and showed dogs for many years.

My Grandmother, Beverly Jordan, is the one on the far left. She bred, trained and showed dogs for many years.

Absence

There are no ballads written of the life she led.

There are no written records of the many things she said.

There are no monuments standing in Michigan’s icy cold.

There are no places left of hers but the marble growing old.

There are no public holidays where the banks close to honor her.

There are no dates filled with activities in her empty calendar; just blurs.

Still in my heart she sings to me of the lifetime that she led

Of the family lore she told to me at the night time tucked in bed

Her picture remains cherished on my dresser in the honorary place

While I dress into the nightgown she left to me while gazing on her face.

Each March 13th I cherish her, each moment with which I was blessed

All these years seems like eternity since I laid her ashes to rest.

I have failed to keep my promise, to take care of my kin and blood

Rejection by their fallacies have damned the emotional flood

With the strength of her character rising deep from my roots

She knows that our family tree bore much rotten fruit

The witness I bear to you is me giving to remember

So that ancestral love will never die, as she has, to an ember.