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.

Everything - written at 13

Let it all out...

Your lost screams
Your broken dreams
And Everything
that ever seemed
to mislead

Let it all out
because this will be the
Last time
You can express emotions

Since Everything you are
will soon be
stuffed inside my
tiny soundless bottle

Where no one can hear your cries
In my tiny soundless bottle
that will be carelessly tossed
Into the ocean

Where the waves will smash your being
Your emotion
Your commotion
and Everything will rest
amidst the Ocean

Until...
Your anger, rage and venom
overflows my
tiny soundless bottle

The cork will pop off,
celebrating your hatred
that will dye
the ocean red.

Red with slit veins
Red with spilt brains
Red with everything
that tops insane

The blood red bubbling contains
Your hardship
Your heartache
Your headache
that never goes away

And your voice will rise
above the cries
inside of my
tiny soundless bottle

Your voice will cry
that Everything we told you was a lie
Everything hearty has passed you by
All that is left of you is an empty sigh
And naturally you want to die

Your voice will ring
with Everything

Tears Form Rivers (at 12 or 13)

Pleasing everybody else
Except yourself
Your desires stored on a dusty shelf
So their trust is nonexistent
Yet your pain is scarily real
And you get stuck with the crap card deal
So who are your friends
Are they really enemies and foes
They don't seem to care
And how things turn out, who knows?
Talk about themself, that's all that matters
Stripped and ripped - my soul in tatters

My Name is Just a Word (written at 12 or 13)

If I had a name
and it was Visigoth
Would you call me Jane
Just to piss me off

If I had a name
Would you call me by it?
Would you still call me girl
I don't doubt it

If I had a name
Tell me what would it be
All titles are the same
Isabella, Priscilla, Harmony

If I had a name
Would you even care
Do I make a difference
I don't make a difference there

If I had a name
It might be Kelly or Joan
But I don't worry of these things
I'll never have a name of my own

Living Under Betrayal's Roof 1996 (at 12-13)

Spoiling me to shut me up
Whose fault is it anyway?
Are you sorry you ever met?
If you could, would you erase that day?

Do you wish we hadn't happened?
Or that we were dead?
Because it seems likely
According to what you've said

Disease inflicts our happy family
Invading any bliss
That lingers here
That now exists

We fade into a picture
That captures futile relations
Is neither black nor white
Ingnoring the posative sensations

Note: Typos have been included to preserve original form.

This was written the summer before I started high school - in 1996. That was the summer my parents separated before they divorced.

The Story of Me (at 12)

Me
a question
an answer
a being
living and
loving
hoping
wishing

Me
a word
a definition
a meaning
wondering and
wandering
questioning
realizing

Me
a life
a death
a span
passing and
asking
leaving
regretting

Me
a book
a movie
a novel
pages and
cages
in my life

Nothingness - written 3/25/99 (at 16)

There is
nothing really i should say
I've never felt so ordinary
in such a lifeless way.

It's not just the way
I've looked or dressed
but the way I feel:
plain, thoughtless, depressed

i'd love to talk
of my nothingness
and write it down for all to see
except I'm ashamed of who I am,

and who I'll never be

My Me - written 4/19/09 (At 16)

And furthermore
I could be perfectly content
in a cabin, in a cave, in a hole,
on an island, in a bathroom stahl

Away from faces
it is the faces
that will thrust themselves
on top of you
strangling the only thought that
you hold dear:

there is no thought
not a thought in her head,
not a thought in this world
but i can't explain it
of course, no not when
you're around

i can't think about the
absence of thought
because i'm swallowed, submerged
in your world
and that thing to rely on -
is gone.

As though the thread that is me
was somehow braided and
tangled with everyone
else's

And there's no clean way to do it.
Not a nice thing about it.
I want mine back.
Snip.
We'll have to cut, rip
everything
and then I'll have my me

This poem speaks to how I feel a lot of the time around people. In my head I am screaming things I want to say, but I hold them back and then I always feel like nobody really knows me. I guess I've always felt this way.