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.

Phone - written at 16

You called today
and it hurt a little less
to hang up the phone
with the wire connecting us

Yeah, I still threw it down
after you hung up,
but I got over it quickly
got a drink of water,
thought of someone else.

I thought of someone else.
But it wasn't the same,
because it wasn't you
And after I've tallied the
count of terrible deeds that
you've committed,
I still hope
hope that you will call.

And after I recover
from all of your abuse,
I still long for the hurt.

And maybe one day I'll be ok
maybe I'll be happy alone
But that day isn't today
and I'm still waiting, staring at the phone

I wrote this poem about my first real boyfriend in high school, after we broke up. I file this under the "repeating the cycle" category. Children and adult children of alcholics will continue to seek out unavailable partners for romantic relationships unless they recover. Until I realized my own habits and tendencies and where they came from, I was unable to stop myself from the allure of unavailable people. I can't say that I've fully changed my wiring, because I'm still very attracted to aloof or unavailable people, but at least I recognize it now and can understand where it comes from and why it's not good for me.

I think this attraction comes from the need to win acceptance that started at home. My alcoholic father and co-dependent mother taught me that love was not unconditional, and that it had to be earned. I grew up trying to win their approval in various ways. I assumed the responsibility for making them love me and figured if they were angry or not giving me what I needed, that I had to try harder or adjust my behavior. In the past, when men have showed me attention and affection, it has been a turn-off for me, because I've felt that it shouldn't be so easy to get people to care for me. This whole thought process is very sick and destructive, but I know that there are many people like me, and that gives me comfort. Now I am able to deconstruct it, look at it honestly, and ultimately re-wire my programming.

Wagons of a Different Sort - written at 12 or 13

What is this
What does it mean
in this bliss
Have you come clean
I can't say
I know of what
Bring will this day
Your openings shut
"No illegal shit"
And I heard your lie
Enemies telling it
You used to cry
Stop or die

I've been thinking a lot about my brother, "John." He started using when he was 13, went to rehab by 16 and finally joined the army at 25 as a way of getting clean. I've thought a lot about how my dad's addiction affected me, but now I'm realizing how much John's addiction affected me as well. He got a letter last week from the army recalling him, and he has orders to report in a month and deploy to Iraq. It was totally unexpected. He is going to school, has a wife and son and another baby on the way, so this news was devastating to all of us.

He asked me to write a letter on his behalf stating that he is the only one in the family that can take care of my dad, so that he can get out of these orders. As I sat there writing this letter, which is basically a lie, because I've done more than anyone to care for my dad, I had a deja vu moment. I had a memory of being in high school and forging a doctor's note for him to take to court. I've been trying to help him get out of things his entire life - lying for him and enabling him. Although this situation is slightly different, it felt oddly familiar. I am okay with writing this particular letter because I disagree with the Army's policy of recalling soldiers who have completed their service, but I am not consumed with pity for my brother. He chose to join the Army in the middle of a war rather than go to rehab, and this is one of the unintended consequences. I'll write this letter and hope for the best for him and his family, but I don't have to let the burden of this drag me down. I have a choice in how I react and respond to crisis. Here's a poem I wrote on the subway last week after getting the news that John had orders for Iraq:

I guess I'm more in tune
when I'm alone
like the waves from my brain
are a product I can own
This world is senseless
It changes all the time
from misery to suffering
from pitiful to blind
I can't keep riding these waves
Hoping they crash on some shore
I can't crawl out of the pit
I dug myself in anymore

I'm tired I'm wasted
As I'm sure you can see
Tearstained eyes, a meek smile
are all that's left of me
I don't feel that I have
More blood left to spare
It's all been spilled
It's overfilled
the test tubes of despair
Like some vengeful leech
Just can't get enough of me
Like he's getting off
on my endless misery
So I'll just drag my carcass home
Lock the doors and cry
Crisis will come knocking
But I'll offer no reply

Untitled - 12/30/96 (at 14)

When the air hurts

too much to taste

or feel or touch

then blood crystalizes

and feelings are such

that no one feels at all

and no one takes the time to call

Everything is in the mind of the beholder

Lies are not born;

they just keep getting older

This poem speaks to the sense of betrayal ACoAs have. The reality of what I felt and observed didn't match the messages I received from my parents. I was told that our family was happy, that there weren't any problems, and furthermore, if I didn't agree, that I had a problem. Because of denial, and the family's need to cover up the problem with a capital P, it felt as though I was living a lie, and quite literally we all were.

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

You Talk - written 9/28/97 (at 15)

Other people's
Dirty laundry
I don't know you
I might like to
They say you're always gone
But then they're always wrong

Awkward eyes
Maybe they're right
You look surprised
That I would lie
I do it all the time
Dangling arms
and a slanted walk
I wish I could see
The way you talk

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

Untitled - (at 12 or 13)

Watching hands on the clock move
Isn't my favorite hobby
Wasting time and my hope
Dilluting the life left inside me

Two months and counting
Don't be like my formers
Seems I keep getting locked
and lost in your corners

The path to you winds too
Drastically to follow
Are the feelings that I gave you
Just too thick to swallow?

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

over the years - written 5-18-99 (at 16)

I had forgotten
the blows you dealt me
the blows you dealt me
over the years
it hurts to remember
it numbs to forget
i had forgotten
over the years

Police Man - writeen 4-19-99 (at 16)

moments
a clock measures the moments
and each one i could hate,
but remember it later and fall
in love with it
each second the clock measures
holds its own colors, smells, textures,
temperature, sounds
that all make up a moment
the clock - the police man
constantly warning, beating
you over the head with its message
I ignore
The moment is passing.
I close my eyes.
This moment never will be again.
I take one last sniff of your
blue sweater
before the second hand kicks me
out the door.
Never will be again.
Moments.

Untitled - Written 2/22/97 (at 14)

the color of rain
is so much like
this life -
a book i never
finished reading
because the wind
kept turning pages,
closing it shut

now i know
your voice will surface
once a day or so
and i'll let sickening
sounds seep into my skin
absorb you
again
while you close
your eyes to me

the color of pain
is the shade of my eyes
(lately)
an undying ache,
eternal agony
keeps me awake
i want to die
for my sake

Truth Kills - written 1/27/97 (at 14)

Exhaustion
stubborn limbs
lying in
without a sin
taking out
what i wanted to win
leaving everywhere
i've been

without a thought
or even a mind
i blocked the wind
i blocked your kind
i took off all the
feelings scarring me
slipped out of a
familiar suit
wanted everything
to be
the way it was
without the truth

Pretended Concern (at 12-13)

Everyone thinks they know
Everyone thinks they see
All that is jaded
All that is shaded
When they can't find
Their own key

All of them want to believe
All of them pretend to care
About my stain
About my pain
Or anything
that lingers there

No one understands
No one really cares to
Set me free
Let me be
What you have done
You cannot undo.

Stardust (at 12-13)

Swimming in the moonlight
of a purple sky
I wish I may I wish I might
Sprout wings to the heavens I'll fly

Star light, star bright
I want to soar
Above my fright
An open door
Closing the night
Don't die now
I need your light
Into the aquamarine
I will take flight
I will be seen
yet out of sight
The blue abyss
Amidst the night
A gentle kiss
From the clouds snuggling tight
Make me a new day
Bring me into the light
I wish I may I wish I might
Have the wish I wish tonight

A line that strikes me from this poem is "I will be seen/Yet out of sight" because I've been thinking about that idea lately as I'm remembering my relationship with attention as a child. Attention wasn't a good thing in my house, so I tried to avoid it. If my parents' focus was on me, I was in trouble. So instead, when I got home, I went straight to my room and closed the door from a very young age. My mom used to say that I could entertain myself for hours even as a young girl. She never had to do anything to keep me busy.

But the funny thing is I would lock myself up in my room, stay out of everyone's way, and daydream about being the center of attention - whether it was being a princess or an actress or an award-winning author. I wanted so desperately to be seen, and to get some positive attention, but since that wasn't available at home, I isolated myself from everyone, yet dreamed of being connected. So the line "I will be seen/Yet out of sight" really resonates with me, now that I understand exactly what I meant by that.

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.

Spowlil (at 12)

Eternal pillows
Floating Freely
The feathers slip out
and fly away
Eac feather a soul
Being lost on its way
I am one of those
I falsely believe
We are none of those
I comprehend sheepishly
The feathers are flying souls
that have reached their destiny
Flying souls
that have been set free

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

Daddy 5-7-98 (at 15)

I pushed my hand inside my mouth
wondering what would come out
you threw me up against a wall
said I'd no respect at all

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