Touch Me

Touch me
to prove that I'm not broken.
The fault lines across my thighs
shiver as the cracks in my soul give way
and crackle like an ancient statue life has forgotten.
It's clear that History has been unkind:
she left me only empty eyes, a gazeless stare
a bust without arms to touch the world.
Chipped paint, used,
and broken--almost.
This remnant is intriguing or perhaps
has the air of something that was beautiful (once)
or has that potential somewhere in its core
if only the light is right and
the kindling beneath your faith is lit.

As for Time, well, she does nothing to speed the healing.
Everything you heard of her
is lies: even she
was not meant to be trusted.
Two years or two thousand
History has a way of breaking into my flesh via nighttime,
the smell of a damp new springtime
when everything but me
is born anew.

Undaunted, though ignored as she has been,
Time marches steadily forward
leaving my Now ever in the past
like an earthquake, on this night,
she shakes me from the ground up
leaves me breathless, again,
and broken,
but not destroyed.
She is fickle, after all, even in devastation, so
she leaves the pieces and I
survey the wreckage around me
search for new ways of picking up the pieces.
I reach for them with limbless arms and soulful,
empty eyes that beg you to
touch me
and prove that I'm not broken.

Why I don't want to give my dog a haircut...

"Are you scared of dogs, or do you want to say hello?" I asked the little boy on the sidewalk.  He was frozen, turning his head to see me and Marshall out of his right eye.  He didn't answer, but continued to struggle in an attempt to see me and the dog.  He looked up at my face, which was clearly not in focus for him, and then down at the dog, his head turning back and forth, making the distance between us look much greater than it was.  I looked to his mother sitting on the porch, still unable to read Little Guy's body language.  "Is he scared of dogs?" I asked.

"Oh no," she said, "he's great with dogs.  We just taught him to stand still and never run around new dogs."

I turned back to Little Guy, still frozen in his tracks and knelt down to his level.  "You did just what mom taught you to do, didn't you?"  He nodded and his thick glasses slid down his nose.  "Good for you, you must be a really good learner."  He nodded again and his glasses slid down further.  He reached up awkwardly and smashed them to his face with a flat hand, leaving dirty streak marks across the already smudged lenses.  I looked from his Thomas the Train shoes, to his Thomas and Friends shirt, to the blue eye patch with train tracks covering his left eye.  "Hey, I love Thomas," I said.  "It looks like you like Thomas, too."

"Mmmhmmm," he said.  "And Percy." 

"Oh definitely Percy.  What about Gordon?"

"Yeah!" he said, excitedly.  "And James!"

"How could we forget about James!" I asked.  Marshall tugged at his leash, desperately wanting to kiss Little Guy all over his smudged glasses.  "Hey, do you want to say hi to Marshall?" I asked.  "He's very friendly."  Little Guy nodded and walked closer.  I made Marshall sit and put my hand on his back so he would remember not to jump up on Little Guy.  Little Guy turned his head and looked at Marshall before extending a flat palm for him to sniff, just as his mother had taught him.  Marshall licked his grimy fingers and Little Guy closed his eye and giggled.  "He gives lots of kisses," I said.

Little Guy took another step closer and patted Marshall's head.  Marshall attempted to lick his knees and Little Guy stepped to the side of him.  He closed his eye again and buried his fingers in Marshall's fur.  "He has long hair, doesn't he?" I asked.  Little Guy nodded and then dropped to his knees, rubbing his hands and arms up and down Marshall's sides and back.  "He REALLY needs a hair cut!"  I stated.

"Why?" asked Little Guy. 

"He is going to be too hot in this warm weather!" I said.  "Plus, his hair is getting too long and tangly."

Little Guy closed his eye again and wrapped his arms around Marshall, putting his cheek against his back.  "Don't cut it," he murmured.  "It makes him soft.  And cuddly.  It feels good and cuddly."  I was quiet for a moment and let Little Guy sit and hug my good and cuddly dog.  I know what the good and cuddly warmth can do, and Little Guy clearly didn't need my words or attention.

I hope Little Guy had a dog inside his house, and, I hope, his dog is soft and in need of a haircut. 

Have you seen her?

Missing: one writer.

I'm pretty sure my internal writer has gone missing.  Died, perhaps.  My muse is still around doing the wanting and infusing me with the desire to write.  She'll inspire me sometimes; throw me a little prompt, a little elbow to the ribs, make me trip over an awesome string of words that ignites the desire in me before swiftly burning out.  Before I can even get to the pen, before I can put fingers to the keyboard, the words are gone and all that's left is a black hole of unfulfilled potential.  It creates a hole in my world that can never be filled as the words that could have created hope, or wholeness, or even pain or uncertainty, vanish into nothingness as a piece of me that Could Have Been Something becomes Nothing At All.  It hurts in a place in my soul that I can't describe.   It's like an aching for something that never happened, like when you wake from a fantastic dream and realize that none of it was true and your world is still the same old world you fell asleep in. 

Perhaps this is what made my writer run off in the first place: she realized that there was so much potential in what could have been that now can never be.  In spite of myself, it feels there is so much that Could Have Been that  will never have the chance to be realized As It Was.  Maybe my writer went off in search of it.  She's been gone a long time.  I guess As It Was is a pretty elusive creature.

March is a bad month for me.  I am hard-pressed to think of anything good that has ever happened in March in the 26 years I have been alive.  And particularly this week, I find myself thinking about the fact that I will never know how things could have been.  I will never know the way I could have been now, if things hadn't happened the way they did.  Yes, there is some anger there.  And resentment.  And hurt.  If I'm honest, it's pretty raw, and I don't know if it's the month or the events of the past several weeks, but it's a pretty rough looking wound that's having a hard time healing.  The fact that my writer has "r-u-n-n-o-f-t" only makes it more difficult: it's not easy doing all this work in my head and my heart without my words. 

To be clear, it's not What If or If Only that are haunting me right now.  I've done rounds with them, too, believe me, and ultimately, I beat What If in the final round.  As of today, If Only and I are tied.  If Only is looking a little weak these days.  I'm pretty sure I can take her next time. 

So no, it's not What If or If Only, but Could Have Been and As It Was.  It's been so long (both so long, and so little time at all), that I know for a fact Could Have Been and As It Was are both hopeless fantasies.  In fact, it's been so long that I don't even know As It Was anymore.  She is just an illusion I hold onto in the hope of making some semblance of a change to become who I think I could have been.  She is also a fantasy, and one I need to let go of at that: who I think I could have been is probably different from who I would have been, and is definitely different from who I have become. 

As for Who I Am...I'm sure she is in there somewhere, underneath the What Ifs and If Onlys and Could Have Beens and Would Have Beens.  Ultimately, I know, that she is the only important one, and that she is the most constant, the most stable, the most secure.  It just doesn't feel safe to let her out yet--she's been hurt before, you know?

Lately, too, I've been running across those quotes about how things happen as they should, and the universe is unfolding in the way it is supposed to, and how the events of our lives lead us to where we ought to be.  I saw another quote about how the most beneficial events in our lives are the ones that were also the most difficult and painful.  In this writerless state in which I am forced to exist, this sort of global perspective and acceptance is lost on me.  If things are happening as they should, it's because I'm making it so, not because any sort of force put the right obstacles in my way.  If I am overcoming and moving forward, it is not because I am seeing the pain as beneficial or as what I needed to become who I am, but because I am overcoming and moving forward and I have the blisters and scrapes and sore muscles and bruises to prove it. 

Regardless, my writer is missing.  Have you seen her?  This disembodied piece of me is longing for a place to land, I'm sure, and the writer-shaped hole in my body is a black hole where wordless emotions and unprocessed stories are going to die.  If you see her, look into her green eyes and tell her As It Was is gone.  Let her cry on your shoulder - she needs that, even though she'll deny it.  She likes dark chocolate and wine.  Fuzzy blankets calm her and make her feel safe.  Let her cover her head with it and pretend that she's not crying as she won't want you to know.  Make her shower and shave her legs and put conditioner in her hair so it doesn't get too unruly.  Let her dress in big cozy sweatpants.  She prefers unlined paper and black, smooth pens.  Sit with her, if you will, until the words come.  Pour her another glass of wine, and sit again until the tears fall and anger shakes her through.  Let her be quiet.  Trust the moments of not-writing, as long as she stays at the page.  And then, when she is writing again, send her home to me.  I need her to help me turn As It Is into As I Will Make it Be.  There is much work to be done, and I can't do it alone.

Consequential Truths

I need to get into writing regularly.  So many times, I have something happen, or I think of something, or I pass something that makes me think, "OH!  Oh, THAT.  THAT is something I could write about.  That is a poem, or a story, or an essay or a blog post or a word waiting for me to write it."

And then I get to the end of the day and I think, "hey, I should write."  So I sit down with my computer, or my journal, or my pad of paper, and I wait.  "There was that one thing I saw that I thought I could write about, but...that's just too self-absorbed.  Nobody wants to read about that.  Nobody cares if that happened.  That's not exciting.  It's one of those 'you had to have been there for it to make sense' things."  This, my friends, is the way nothing gets written.

If I was writing regularly, I think I would be able to bypass those thoughts.  I would be able to skip the self-doubt, the thoughts of it not being worth it, the tendency to forget, the ability to throw away thoughts like they are just somebody else's trash blown into my yard.  It's easier falling into this pattern of not writing.  It's easier to dismiss those thoughts as unworthy of finding their way to the light than it is to actually put them on paper. 

But those thoughts hang around, whether I want them to or not.  Then, I'm stuck with the dilemma of wanting to write about so many things, I can't pick just one, and I can't organize my thoughts because there are so damn many of them and so many things that just aren't worth writing about, I can't pick one.  Writing regularly, or even semi-regularly, would take care of that, I think.  It would unclutter the list of "things to write about" in my mind, perhaps making it shorter, perhaps just organizing it a bit. 

I've read many books on writing, and they all say essentially the same thing: just write.  Pen to paper, fingers to keyboard, however you do it, just do it.  It's that easy, and also that difficult.  The bigger problem, I think, is that writing for me is therapeutic.  I use it to understand my internal and external world, and I use it to explain my internal world to the outside world that seems to so rarely understand.  I don't want to write about the big issues affecting the world; I have nothing to add to these discussions.  I don't want to write fluff.  I want to write about how I noticed the sun setting on the way home from work for the first time in months.  I want to write about the joy I get from loving the kids I work with, and I want to write about the pain of never being good enough.  I want to write my truth, however inconsequential, and I want it to mean something when I put the words to the paper.  I want me, my story, my work, my heart to mean something. 

*****

There's this girl I've been working with intensively for the past several weeks.  She is aggressive.  She is unpredictable.  She has the strangest conglomeration of behaviors you can imagine.  She screams and laughs hysterically for no reason we can name.  She throws herself against walls, chairs, people, doors, and the floor.  She barks at mirrors, at light fixtures, and at door hinges.  She says the same thing over, and over, and over, and over, and over again.  This girl broke my glasses, pulled chunks of hair from my scalp, left me with bruises on my arms and legs, and she exhausted me, day after day.

She called me "babygirl," and as we walked and walked and walked, and worked and worked and worked, she would periodically ask, "are you my babygirl?  Are you my best babygirl?"  I have never seen a child so loving towards others - we would pass children in the hallway and she would exclaim, "look at her!  Isn't she so beautiful?  She has blonde hair and pink shoes, and she's the most beautiful babygirl I've ever seen.  Wasn't she a beautiful babygirl?"

On the last day of her admission, her mother took me aside, crying.  "Thank you," she said.  "We don't want to go.  We want you to keep working with our daughter."

I took the mother's hand.  "I have loved working with your family, " I said, looking into her eyes.

"No," she said, "you don't understand.  For 12 years, people have treated us, have treated her, like she is crazy.  Thank you for not treating my daughter like she is crazy.  Thank you for liking her.  Thank you for getting her, for getting us, for taking the time to see her."  She hugged me, crying on my shoulder, in the middle of the hallway with the nurses and doctors and therapists and administrators walking by. 

"Thank you, " she said again, "thank you for liking my daughter."

*****

Why did this story need to be written here?  Why now?  There is metaphor here, although I am having a hard time connecting the dots in my head.  Rather, the dots are connected, but the words are not coming as easily as I would like. 

In spite of the fact that I have always been a writer, I have also always believed that my words and my work are unimportant.  My thoughts, my words, my heart, are easily cast aside as unimportant.  Lately, I find myself believing there must be something wrong.  There must be something broken internally.  Something fundamental to my existence as a normal, social, living breathing loving human being must be broken.  Crazy.  My truth is that I feel unworthy of being anyone's "babygirl," most of all my own.  It's an unwillingness to take the time to be gentle, to tell myself I'm not crazy in this crazy-making world.  This does not mean anything in the larger scheme of the world, but this inconsequential truth makes it easier and easier to dismiss my words and thoughts, and makes it so much harder to write anything I can deem "worthy" of page space.

What I want from my writing is for me to take the time to see me as unbroken, and that, perhaps, is the hardest thing to do.  I want my writing to tell my truth in a way that touches the hearts of others and makes them feel seen and unbroken.  I want to tell truth in such a way that others can feel as though their truth might also be worth some space on the page, worth the spoken words, the artistic rendering, the place in their heart.  I want my writing to form a place for even just one person to believe that, maybe, their truth is as I see it: whole and consequential. 

My kick-ass goddess

I have never handled drama particularly well.  Being homeschooled, I was largely removed from the drama of high school, and honestly, I'm pretty sure I was born already "over it."  I don't know if that's related to the thing of me being an "old soul," like my grandmother used to tell me, or if it's just not who I am, but drama just never fell on my radar.  There are definite benefits to this, but there are also definite negatives.  The main one, of course, is that there is always drama.  No matter where you are in life, I'm learning, there will be drama.  Up until about two years ago, I strongly disliked drama.  I couldn't stand people talking about one another, petty bullshit made my eyes cross, and I avoided drama-causing people as much as possible. 

Then, drama hit me.  Or rather, maybe, trauma hit and drama dragged along behind, flattening me like a squirrel trying to cross the highway.  Yep, I'm pretty sure my guts were splayed just like that.  If my drama tolerance meter was at about half-way full before, it's empty now.  Believe me.  I shook it, turned it upside down, flipped it, left it sitting on its lid overnight, just to see if anything would fall to the other side, but the damn thing's bone dry.  I officially have no tolerance for drama.

For some people, "no tolerance" means an explosive "DON'T MESS WITH ME I DON'T DO DRAMA," which makes friends and colleagues cower in their presence.  For some people, "no tolerance" means a cold shoulder in the office, somebody who does the work and goes home, doesn't engage or socialize, and isn't well liked.  This is the "you and your drama can just fuck off" type.  I am sure there is also a very healthy and sane way of doing/not doing drama.  However, I have not yet learned or encountered this way.  (Any and all suggestions are definitely welcome).

Unfortunately, I do not fall into any of the three categories above.  While I don't particularly want to fall into the "DON'T MESS WITH ME" or the "fuck off" categories, I am also not a fan of the category I do happen to fall into.  I fall into the silent anxiety "please dear god don't let them direct their hatred towards me" variety.  This is the "drama makes me shut down" subtype and the "my heart feels as though it will explode and my hands are shaking" way of moving through drama .  Extreme?  I know.  I'm working on it.  The trauma of the semi-recent drama is still a little too fresh: that wound just hasn't completely healed over yet.  Damn thing keeps getting infected.  (And yes, I'm working on getting some stronger antibiotics and some band-aids).

 I'm sure there are other types, these are just the three ways of not doing drama I see in my office currently.  There are only 4 of us who don't do drama, the rest are fully entrenched in the drama-creating, drama-making, drama-filled fun.  And, unfortunately, the drama going down is real: it is hurtful, and hateful, and it is wrong.  I've only worked here 4 weeks, and the drama has not been directed towards me, but what I'm seeing/hearing is the real deal.  To even call it "drama" is an understatement, as one action in particular borders on a fire-able offence and has led to official "reprimands" from The Organization.  But I'm not writing to talk about the drama, I just want to underscore, that this is real drama, in addition to office politics drama, and it is hateful. 

When drama hits, my first thought is always "it's my fault."  I know better than this.  If you're walking down the hallway and somebody sticks out their foot to trip you, it's not your fault that you fell.  I'm smart enough after the fact to put it all together, but in the moment, I automatically move to "it's me."  Even when I realize that was, indeed, a foot that I tripped over and that, actually, there wasn't any way I could have seen it and walked around it, I STILL think things like "well you could have at least ANTICIPATED the foot sticking out to trip you," and "you could have at least fallen so you didn't get that banged up elbow and the skinned knee.  I mean seriously, your elbow AND your knee?  Come'on, you can fall better than THAT, right?"  And I think things like, "but you fell LAST TIME somebody stuck their foot out and tripped you out of the blue!  No, you couldn't see their foot either, and no, there was no way you could have walked around it, but really?  You let yourself be tripped again in this completely different circumstance, by a completely different person, in a completely different hallway, with a completely different pair of shoes?  Come on now, Auto.  You can do better than that."  Have I mentioned that I don't do drama?

My relationship with god has been a little funky for the past couple years (talk about drama!  On again, off again, on again, off again...what a fickle thing god can be when you're sorting through understanding life).  In the midst of the messiness, I found that I needed something or someone to hold on to.  In an unrelated phone call with a really beautiful friend, she said, "I think what you might need is a kick-ass goddess."

"A kick-ass goddess?"

"Yep," she said.  "You need a kick-ass goddess."  She then sent me an email with a list of 3 kick-ass goddesses that she said reminded her of me.  Of the three she sent, one of them stuck out.  To be honest, I thought it was a little weird.  I mean, if I was feeling funky about god, what did I think some goddess I had never heard of, no matter how kick-ass she was, was going to do for me?  But the more I told myself it was weird, the more this goddess stuck.  For over a year, this goddess has been the background on my computer.  I have a statue of her in my living room and her picture in my bedroom.  When I ground myself, I use her image to help me.  When I am anxious, I picture her, my kick-ass goddess, as living in me and protecting me.  Other goddesses?  They just don't cut it.  I just don't have an interest.  This goddess, though, was clearly my goddess.

Durga, for those unfamiliar, is a Hindu goddess, and is the warrior aspect of the Divine Mother. According to one story, Durga came into being when all of the gods were threatened.  They put together all of their powers and each created a part of her, such that she could be the force to destroy evil.  She is seen riding a tiger and has many arms (with which she can protect others in all directions).  The story goes that Durga releases her devotees from fear, and she is known for her fearlessness, her compassion, her humor, her patience, and her self-sufficiency and independence.  She carries several items in her many hands: a conch shell, bow and arrow, a thunderbolt, a lotus, a discus, a sword, and a trident.  She fights several kick-ass battles and, of course, wins.  She is supposed to protect us mere mortals by destroying evil forces such as selfishness, jealousy, hatred, anger, ego, and prejudice.

For me, for whatever reason, it all just works better if I have a concrete image of something I can use in times of drama, whether that drama is internal or external.  It has become strangely important for me to have her in both rooms of my house, though I can't distinguish whether it's because I feel safer because she's there or because I feel more kick-ass and thus feel safer as a single woman living alone when I see her.  Perhaps those things are one and the same.

What's my reason for writing this?  I don't know.  Other than the fact that I needed to do something to keep my mind off of other things tonight, I'm really not sure.  Why is this what I wrote?  I have no freaking clue.  Do I really believe in this goddess?  Nope, I don't, and it doesn't resolve my god issue, either.  Do I think Durga will give me guidance with this whole drama-at-work issue?  Nope.  I have a tendency to analyze and beat everything to death think through everything very thoroughly.  In matters relating to myself, I have very little tolerance for ambiguity and like having clear answers.  I do find it interesting that she so completely fits what I so often feel I need in my life, but really, I could name at least two psychological principles stating why I feel this connection.  On this matter, though, I think I am strangely content to let it be.  For some reason, I need the image of this goddess in my life.  For reasons I don't completely understand, she IS my kick-ass goddess, and she makes me feel stronger in a multitude of situations.  Strangely, I think I'm okay with just letting that be what it is.

Do you have a god/goddess/symbol/image that is yours?  Do you know why it is yours?  Have you embraced that it is yours, without question, or do you fight it?  What would it mean for you to let that presence just be in your life?

Winners and Losers

In a school with clouded windows,
lead-ridden water fountains, and
missing bathroom doors,
a wise little boy drags his bookbag behind him.
He is yelled at to walk, to hurry,
to pick up his bag, to listen,
to be a big boy
more like his brother
more like the other boys, he
shuffles his feet to the finish line:
boys on one side, girls on the other.
The boys lose again, his teacher reminds them.
The girls smile, give high-fives, he
is ready to walk to after-school,
can almost taste the Kool-Aid and graham crackers on his tongue
when he realizes he
forgot his hat.

“S-sometime we win, s-sometime we lose,” he reminds me.

While the children scramble
to get to their seats by the teacher's count of
five seconds, four, three, two…
the wise little boy is left standing alone
tripping on chair legs and dropping papers behind him.
He is mocked by his classmates
ridiculed by his teacher
wanting to be a big 2nd grade boy, his
face sinks into despair
tears form but he's
too much of a man to let them fall.
His round brown eyes catch
and hold me
stabbing repeatedly in my chest.
He talks under his breath
twists his pencil in grubby hands
trips on untied shoelaces
and finally spies his chair
on the other side of the room.

“S-sometime we win, s-sometime we lose,” he reminds me.

"Is that the way it is?” I ask
resting my hand on his shoulder.
He doesn’t answer but stares off,
talking under his breath about
pigs and movies,
guns and his father.
He draws pictures during spelling:
guns and blood and dying men.
He daydreams during math
two plus two is:
Fourteen mens who is dyin'?
Between stumbling over words during reading,
he asks me whether I've ever seen a rat
cause there was one, bigger than a cat in his kitchen
but he didn't scream, 'cause he's a man like his daddy and
daddy doesn't like babies
and his daddy
is better than the 'Credible Hulk
and he's saving his milk from lunch
to drink at home during dinner and
during science, just when I think he's about to understand
that plants need dirt, and sun, and water,
he asks me
"why can't you be my mother?"

I take a breath
he looks away
a brave little boy with the same damn refrain:
"s-sometime we win, s-sometime we lose," he reminds me.

Phoenix

It's been a long time since I had a poem just come to me like this one did. It fell onto the paper, almost entirely as you see it now. I don't have a title because...titles are frustrating. But I do have a poem.


When the phoenix has lived for 500 years
the legend states the gold and scarlet bird builds itself a nest.
It collects the twigs and places them, night after night,
making sure the base, the sides, the circumference
are just right. The painstaking perfection
the broken repeating truth of impending change
rests on his feathers like lead snowflakes
increasing his brilliance
and the necessity of destruction.
His urge to self-destruct outweighs
the 500 years,
the brilliance of his feathers
the masterpiece of a home,
being a divine creature in an earthly world.

In Tibet, the monks in gold and crimson robes
place grain after grain of sand
day after painstaking day
creating a masterpiece whose only purpose
is to be destroyed
to serve as a reminder
that what we are is transitory,
this life
is impermanent
but destruction
is in our blood
when it's time, the bird and nest ignite
burn until only ashes remain,
the masterpiece of sand is washed to sea
and then it all starts again
the phoenix is born--ashes become egg
sand is collected and dyed
we give this life another try
with hope reborn from desperation.

But destruction rides along our bloodstream
traced by the map our doctors call veins
I know some days, they're my compass
leading me steadily to yes
and there are days
those roadmaps sit dangerously close to the surface
I trace the history of my life with glass
that used to be grains of sand
those pulsing maps
are waiting to be destroyed into ash
and who's to say, what we call veins
aren't blue sheaths holding our crimson feathers
our heart is the egg that holds our ashes
waiting to resurrect us
when a person in a gold and crimson robe
washes us --the masterpiece--
to sea.