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 040415: Sipsy

NaPoWriMo

NaPoWriMo

Fried Green Tomatoes At the Whistle Stop Cafe, Fannie Flagg

I knew the love that woman had was something deep woods

It was something that was taken for granted, but everyone understood.

You do not cross that line between what is wrong and what is good

Not without the skillet in hand bouncing off that head of blood.

I knew the love that woman had was something a thief would rue

It was something everyone claimed to not know, but we already knew.

When she looked into my eyes before that blow bid Frank his adieu

I grinned and nodded approval at her, because a mother’s love is true.

NaPoWriMo: Feeling So Deeply

NaPoWriMo

NaPoWriMo

IT HURTS!

I heard my Gram scream in the desolate silence

It was early January, out in the country, snow to navel

five blanket kind of freezing and she was screaming.

I jolted awake, scrambling beneath the cocoon of blankets

She screamed as if the hounds of hell were chasing her

When I reached her side, she was five years old.

I rocked her back to sleep.

IT HURTS!

I walked into my home with hope shining brightly

on legal sized paper declaring my parental rights

The phone rang, it was handed to me.

I listened as the perfection I imagined

threw me to the floor unable to support my vision

ripping a universe apart with six words

unable to support the weight of my sorrow as I screamed

IT HURTS!

I rode the elevator upwards without hope, holding knowledge.

I waited patiently for the doctors to return to the room

waited but already knew what they’d discovered.

He was dead. I was alone. There was a void of pain.

An echo of maybe and an absolute removal from now.

When I leaned down to kiss the cold skin of his once warm forehead

I was pulled away for my contamination of the saint with my sinner’s taint.

IT HURTS!

He packed the last of his things into the suitcase.

My eyes barely opened from the days of begging on my knees

My lip bloodied from our last confrontation

when he tried to burn the music out of my soul

when he tried to show me who ruled the roost.

I sat on the cold slab floor with brown tile hiding my shame

I deserted his God. I left him with the pile of discarded cardboard.

NaPoWriMo: indulgences

Drip your bloodline to mingle with mine

Heat my body, our hands in each other’s hair entwined

Let us drink the wine that spills from our cups

Onto the tables of flesh, let us sup

Tickle my fancy with the brush of your lips

Fancy my giggle along that curve in your hip

Turn your face sideways look over your shoulder

Give me that look that’s for only me; the one that smolders

Remind me again and again how religious we are

As we cry out to the God’s, sing out to the stars.

The Witnesses

To honor Good Friday, I was asked to write a poem. I do not proclaim a faith, just a belief in love and the goodness of the human beings that walk this plane. The three part poem below is written from three perspectives witnessing the crucifixion. When it is read, it is from three different voices they come. I hope it speaks to your spirit if you’re so inclined.

The Witnesses

Verse One: The Observer

I’m not a Christian, but Lord, if I was,

I’d not stand by and watch them offer up applause

For that man they called a criminal for preaching about love

For the one some call Messiah, while others cry Peaceful dove.

I stand here in the crowd as they cheer this brother’s pain

My heart is filled with sorrow, as his beaten body strains

The laughter that I hear from the festive vicious hearts

Breaks something inside of me, tears my faith apart

I want to scream above the crowd, “HEAR!”

In a voice shrill and loud, “ME!”

With my head no longer bowed, “LORD!”

Releasing my own funeral shroud, “I AM NEAR!”

But I am weak, just human. I am nothing compared to them.

But maybe, my kindred spirits, that’s what moves me to condemn

For I love my God with all my heart, and in God’s house I walk

I serve in supplication, I don’t just talk the talk.

I am not a Christian, but Lord, if I ever loved,

I’d heed the wisdom of the dying man, and thank my God above.

Verse Two: The Participant

How dare that man pass his judgement down on me!

Who does he think he is, telling ME how to believe?!

I’ve learned and taught the toe-RAH

I’ve worshipped at the sacred altar

I’ve cantered every prayer

I can recite them without flaw or falter.

Then this mortal man comes along and claims to be

Far more holy than even me?

The Son of God? Oh, reeeeaaaaaaallly!?

I’ve fixed that preachy “Love Thy Neighbor” fellow

I paid my thirty silver to hear him scream in falsetto.

Sometimes the laws I enforce prevent me from doing what’s right

I pass the coins to Roman hands, let them bloody their own hands tonight

This should make my people think twice before leaving our faith

To follow a crazy instigator, that rejects my loving God’s face.

Verse Three: The Intimate

I am hidden in the darkness, afraid to show my face

“Oh Lord, why’d they tell us that Yeshua fell from grace?

You showed me my friend Judas with thirty silver in his fist

Forsake my dear beloved with cold betrayal’s kiss

You let my holy brother be taken

from the garden where we prayed.

You allowed him to be arrested

when you could have let him stay.”

I am hidden in the darkness, afraid they’ll point at me and say

That I was clearly one of his. That they’ll kill me the same way.

“Oh Lord, why have they called for my redeemer to be killed?

When ne’er a drop of anguish from his gentle lips have spilled?

I do not feel you near, Oh God, I’ve lost your loving light

When they took my sweet friend, Yeshua, away in darkest night.

If I weren’t hidden in the darkness, barely safe from Roman harm

I’d scream out my torment, beating my chest to sound alarm.

“Hosanna! Hosanna! I sing to your precious name

Hosanna! Hosanna! My finger points my brother’s shame.

My faith is ever yours, even when I don’t understand.

I mean, you took us through the desert, 40 years we wandered sand

And yet, my Father, I hide here, within this darkened room

I wonder, holy patriarch if his death will also be my doom.”

I am hidden in the darkness, despair my wretched dominion

Oh God! My Loving God! Remove my deserter’s vision.”

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

NaPoWriMo: The Birth of Your Art

NaPoWriMo

NaPoWriMo

Lady Cathy Gritter took me into her church

near her garden door that led only outward.

It had nine panes of stained glass

that guarded the treasures within the hall.

On the pristine white shelves

is where she stored centuries of art,

a sacramental archive of holiness.

I’d enter her church through the side door

withering looks from her husband William

glared resentment at my childish intrusion

I scooted sinfully through to gaze with adoration

at the hallowed scriptures

blessed gospels of

van Gogh, Picasso, de Vinci, Kahlo

offering sermons of:

Sunflowers, Girl Before a Mirror, Mona Lisa, and Weeping Coconuts.

I was allowed to peer into the eyes of holy angels

upon my confessional return of each holy grail.

NaPoWriMo

NaPoWriMo

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