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

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

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

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.

Too Far - written in junior high (at 11-13)

Water clouding my clear eyes
The weather to match my mood
And now I guess I realize
That this whole world is screwed

When you can't tell
The difference between your tears
And the cold raindrops streaming down your face
You know it's gone too far

When you can't tell
The difference between
Your friends and enemies
They must be make-believe

And you, a dim shadow
Beneath a dim, dying light
Might want to know
That I cried for you tonight

Capacity - sometime in junior high (at 11-13)

The tears will easily wash away
But the pain always remains
Filling me up with emptiness
Everywhere it goes, it stains

Bleeding from the inside out
Hollow and incomplete
Conspicuous and abstract
If only it were discreet

They say the sun will always shine
The moon will always glow
But perhaps for a Time
In search of nothing they will go

I was obsessed with the sun and moon around this age. I wallpapered my room in sun and moon patterns, bought journals with the sun and moon on the covers, and wrote about it a lot. I'm trying to figure out what that was all about. I'm thinking something about a mother and father to me or some consistency in my life that they provided... I don't know. I'm still sitting on that one.