Poem from a little girl

The way I dealt with the isolation of living in an alcoholic family was through writing. It has always been a subconcsious exercise for me. Sometimes I thought I was just writing nonsensical words, but when I would go back to read what I had written, I'd realize I was referring to a specific event or person that I wasn't aware of as I wrote the piece.

After reading Adult Children of Alcoholics, I went back through my books of poems from when I was a living at home. I feel enormous gratitude for the gift of these poetry books. If photographs are a snapshot of images, writing is a snapshot of feelings. One night when I first started realizing how much my ACoA issues were affecting me, I poured a glass of wine, got a box of tissue, and sat on the couch reading through my childhood journals. I sobbed spastically, desperately wanting to reach out to the little girl that wrote these poems, give her a hug, hold her, and tell her she wasn't alone and that I love her. I carry that little girl around with me, so I keep trying to reach her to give her my message. I wrote this poem "Pull Me Down" sometime in junior high:

Pull Me Down

Blurred vision
distracts my thoughts
The page in front of me
Blurred with ink blots
Tears slip
And then they smear
All that's left in me is fear
Drunk with hate
You swallow more
Viciously pointing out
What you used to ignore
Calling me
What you know you are
With that in my soul
I can't fly far

I'm surprised at how clearly I seemed to see things when I was younger, and then after I moved out of the house, I didn't want to look at all this stuff anymore. I went to school in San Diego because my parents said I had to go to school in state if I wanted their help. So I went as far away as I could get from Sacramento and still stay in California and in the country. I pretended up until this year that none of my past experiences living in a dysfunctional home had a lasting effect on me. When I go back and read what I wrote at the time, I admire how in tune I was with my feelings and about what was going on around me and I wonder when I lost it...