A memory - written today

That's just the smell
of rotting wood
and a memory
from childhood
we used to run
out to the creek
catching tadpoles
in a mystery world
it was magical and beautiful
it was the only place
that wanted me

I wanted to live there
in the boughs of a tree
that held me firmly
in its embrace
never pushing me away
I nailed 3 boards
to a branch
before abandoning my plan
my 8-year-old hands
didn't yet have the skill
to construct a home from scratch
and when I went out
to the creek to play
those crooked boards
stared down at me
mocking me
in my inability
to construct my own
reality

Back to the Blog

I've been away from the blog and away from the country. I got back from being away but haven't wrapped my head around getting back to my life and the blog. I'll be posting some new things in coming days and weeks. I've been doing a lot of thinking and self reflecting and sometimes it's best not to share that internal work. Anyway, back now and will be sharing some new writings soon, but here's an old one for now.

The Crowd 7/22/99 (at 17)

Here is what
they need...
sharp smiles, angular at best,
in the crowd a subtle jeer,
a bad joke,
another hot towel to drape over
their eyes
a clique to base an identity upon
i want
them
want them to see
how much they will not mean to me.

Not belong - written 12/4/09

Do you ever feel
like you must just not belong
like the day that you were born
was a moment that went wrong?

Like every step you take
isn't yours to claim
like any move you make
could never justify your name?

The people who surround you
somehow earned this time and place
but you float up above them
consuming air
and wasting space

I've been thinking about this "terminal uniqueness" that we discussed in an Al-Anon meeting a few months ago. All of us felt that we were unique, isolated, different from everyone else. And sometimes from that perspective, it seems like everyone else is different because they are happy or lucky.

I'm trying to break out of that mold of thinking and come to understand that others have their problems too, and that when I feel different, I isolate myself from others and it becomes a self-perpetuating state. Others may think that I'm snobby or too good for them because I keep people away sometimes, but the reality is that I don't think I'm good enough in some way and that's why I do it. I've been better at reaching out to friends and saying yes to them since starting recovery. Last night I even said yes to someone who invited me to do a solo dance in the middle of a circle in African Dance class! When you say yes to people who have invited you into something, you build connections, trust, and break out of isolation.

The Trip Home 11/26/09

Is that all I am to you?
Something to react against?
Someone to stand up to
And exercise your self defense?

I'm looking forward
to the time it takes to get somewhere
I'll be there tomorrow
to give you the time it takes to prepare

I'm a long way from home
Living alone
Way out on the other side
of the country
the moon
the day
and you
It's the best place I've found to hide

I'm not excited but I'm not scared
of the trip I'm about to take
I'm not running but I'm not hiding
And I can't say I've made a mistake

Cold Out 10/26/09

This must be a second coming
you must be the one
won't you take my number?
i'll sing you a song
we can go on our way

i've been braiding a
crown of thorns
just waiting for someone like you
now it's time you tried on
the apparel i've constructed you

i can't even keep up
with the things that need
to be done in a day
i'm afraid i'm exhausted
by just waking up
nevermind
finding
a role to play

i'm sure there's a way
i don't have the will
to try to find something real
if it wasn't so cold out
maybe i'd join you
and maybe you'd see how i feel

Nature and I (at 12)

I speak to the stars
And laugh with the sky
I dine with the planets
People wonder why
I express my feelings to the moon
And turn my back on the sun
People wonder why
I explain that it's fun
I listen to the soil
And embrace the trees
People wonder why
I am friends with the seas
I lunch with the flowers
And brunch with the clouds
I have special powers
People wonder why
I console the dust
and reminisce with the sky
I cry with myself
No one wonders why

3010 - 7/26/09

We were standing in a meadow
You handed me some fruit
you must have heard me wrong
what i asked for was the truth
there's a creek that trickles by
it reminds me of my youth
imaginings and trapped tadpoles
but what's that got to do with you?
it feels the same somehow
the way it felt being at home
the silence the sadness
the shame surrounds what i don't know
i guess this means it's time to go
cause it's too soon to remember
go through all that again
a good time for me is never
but let's re-convene in 3010

Current - 8/3/09

Sleeping with a wet rag
I want to feel a dream
I've been overly exhausted
and towed downstream
currents push and then they pull
my body's an open sore
my past just keeps on surfacing
I can't ignore it anymore
the deeper it gets
the uglier the wounds
the more I forget
the more I get confused
didn't anyone love me?
did anyone even try?
I was a lonesome girl
with a propensity to cry
and now I'm struggling
just to stay afloat
my dream to swim upstream
feels impossibly remote

Untitled - 3/16/97 (At 14)

Bitterness
an infected confection
deriving
from lack of affection
anger and pity
self-reflected
lonesome desire
long neglected
I took some time
to resurrect
the plants that
died of pure neglect
You just watched,
standing erect
recalling words
you now regret
But thoughts and words
won't soon connect
We'll forfeit all
that we protect
You never gave me much
respect
And now it's my turn
to collect

I think the line "plants that died of pure neglect" is interesting because it made me think how you don't have to do something horrible to a living thing to kill it. You can kill something by not tending to it. I wonder if that's how I felt about my feelings and self-worth, etc. Sometimes the harm my parents did to me wasn't physical or antagonistic, but the pure isolation and sense of abandonment alone were killers.

At the end of the poem, the tone turns vengeful. I carried a deep sense of victimhood with me and I fantasized about getting revenge and proving everyone wrong. I even sometimes fantasized about getting kidnapped or hit by a car so that my family would regret the way they had treated me and show me some love and attention. I came to see by example that the way to get people to show their love for you was through having a crisis. I wanted to have one of my own so that everyone would revolve around me for once. When I really did have a crisis with my father last spring, I felt uncomfortable with all the love and attention, because it didn't feel right being at the receiving end of it all. I didn't want people to worry about me. I felt like I was putting people out and monopolizing conversations when my friends called to check on me. Hopefully, this is something I'll be able to accept from people as I recover.

In a Time

I wrote this poem sometime in junior high. I'm always kind of amazed at how wise I seemed as a tween, and how naive I grew with time as denial sunk in deeper and deeper. This poem seems to track my more careless childhood and then identifies its abrupt ending and the onset of isolation, and ends on a note of numbness, which is where I ended up and am just now working to undo. I noticed from going through my junior high and high school poems including this one that I directed a lot of animosity and anger at my friends, blaming them for not identifying with my pain. Looking back, I feel more understanding towards them. They were just tweens and teenagers worried about boys, makeup, and what have you. It wasn't reasonable to expect that they could have supported me in what I was going through living in an alcoholic household. My parents or other adults in my life should have been the ones to recognize the pain I was in and provide support.

Note: I am preserving the formatting and typos of my old poems. I feel as though they were written by another person and it isn't my place to alter them in any way.

In a Time

In a time
the sun always shone
upon my happiness
I ran from nothing
and never cared

In a time
I listened to you
I never wanted to die
Until my life was through

Now I wish for an early ending
To come to me
Take me away from this
And somehow make them see

In a time
All that mattered
was pleasing you
With that hope shattered
Leaving everything blue

In a time
The days were short
My friends were real
Not lying chameleons
But now I can feel

The pain, no gain

When all that hurt was physical
And falling down
had a different meaning
All my thoughts are circling round
And where they stop is void
of feeling

The shallowness of not caring anymore
The waves are crashing a nonexistant shore

Poem from an old girl

I've been writing a lot ever since my dad got really sick and was hospitalized in spring. I had all these feelings I didn't know what to do with (again) and started writing poems and a novel. I wrote this poem "Rocking Chair" on 6/1/09 shortly after the life-changing revelation: I have issues?!

Rocking Chair

haven't you heard it?
the what?
the girl
she talks she whispers
what does she say?
no one knows
she's too afraid

that girl
she sits
peering from behind her eyes
curled up in a rocking chair
holding herself
hugging herself
willing her lips to smile

it's a sad story, really
she's been sitting there for years
trying to rock herself to sleep
trying to rock away the tears

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...