The Dark Place

If I told you the truth, would you turn away? Would you stare at me in wonder, in horror, take me to the hospitol? Do they have a hospitol for things like this?
If I told you the truth, would you think it was me? That I must have had something to do with it, for it to hurt so bad? That I might have participated somehow? Must have brought something to the table? The world is full of victims who do just that, like it’s a lifestyle choice. There’s something in it for some of them, something to gain, though I can’t tell you what it is. I never wanted to be one of them, or drag that cross around. I wanted to be someone who made choices. Always choices.
Yes, I did do something; I did bring something to the table, did make a choice. I’ll try to tell you what it was, even if I can’t tell you everything. I’ll be honest in the ways I can be, while I may be guarding myself now. What I did is easy enough to tell, easy enough to admit, though I’d rather not. To you, I’ll tell it.

I was honest. I bared my soul. I did not keep secrets. I exposed my soft underbelly. I left the windows to my soul open wide and did not apply make up to my scars.
I didn’t call my fears another name, but said “Here. Here are the soft spots, please never put pressure here for they hurt.” I was fearless, in my fears. I was brutal in their exposure, for no one can say they did not know, did not see them. I showed them, took a picture to be sure.
I was there for the viewing, patient, lest it frightened or was something never before seen, like seeing the melted skin of a burn survivor for the very first time. I took the time to explain.
It’s not everyone who needs that much information. Most people have no need. You didn’t. But now things have changed, and everything’s inflamed, infected, and scraped raw, and I know you don’t understand why.

I never really concealed these marks on me, on my soul. I never wore them like a crown either, or like a badge of honor. I don’t deny they are a part of me, but there is more to me than just what I have survived. You see the more in me, you see who I hope to become, who I am today, not just the wounds and the pictures of who I once was. You, maybe more than most, know I do not want that, for myself, for anyone I love. You know I do not want to BE that. I am not what someone else has done to me; not even as a survivor of that. I am the me you know, a whole person apart from another’s actions.

But here I am, and it’s a dark place where I have no voice. I can’t find the me you know, even while I know you still see me. I can’t hear my own truth, can’t see my own face, without a scream choking mute in my throat, a ghost from a life gone to me.
I know you’ll let me take my time. I know you don’t have to know everything; the fight I’m in will take time and isn’t the kind of thing that needs pushing. I haven’t lost myself, I’m only misplaced. I’m just a little too far into the weeds, but it’s not the first time. I’ll start walking again, soon. Won’t I?

I know I made myself a target. I didn’t mean to, only meant to be honest. I framed it up so nicely, neatly, said “hurt me HERE.” I didn’t need to point out the ways to my breakdown in such a handy way. The shame of that will take me a while to mend, because I know the truth of it. The truth of it is I did it for fear that my scars would hurt another I thought to protect, and for the need to feel safe, finally.
I know I am not her, the girl that was hurt, the one with the scream in her throat and the ghost in the mirror; she’s a part of me but she’s ok now. I don’t have to protect her anymore. She’s been safe for a long time and I will always have her safe in my arms. I can let go of her hurt and rage and shame. She doesn’t have to suffer anymore and either do I.
I will never let HER go, to be alone and lost; she is mine. But I will let go fighting for her to not be hurt one more time; she cannot be hurt again. She is safe now.

Still, here I am, in the dark place where I have no voice. I can’t find the me you know, even while I know you still see me.
I know you’ll let me take my time. I haven’t lost myself, I’m only a little misplaced. I’ll start walking again, soon.
Won’t I?

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The Faint of Heart

“Well. You are not for the faint of heart.”
-quote from a friend about yours truly and love

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Somebody’s Child-The Attic

I got the phone call, and she said, “Have you seen the paper? The front page.”
I heard myself, surprised myself even, because it was like it wasn’t my own voice. “No. Aw, God…no…Fuck. No. Please.”

I felt myself sinking down; a part of me hit my knees. But in truth, you could have watched me and seen. I kept working, only missed a beat. If you knew me well, you’d see I was pale, breathing hard. But I stayed upright, and busy with my hands and feet and eyes. The weirdness of carrying on, knowing the world might stop turning, didn’t escape me.

And then the rest she told me, what she knew. And again I wondered how I can care at all, when I know I have stopped caring. When I know that in the end, the terrible news will come. Just not this time, not yet.

They called you a wanted man. They spelled your name right this time; the same as mine.

Of course they got a tip. I told you long ago, “Your friends are not your friends.” You know that’s what happened. They will make sure you take a fall, because you’ve just got too much dirt, all of you. You’re not really safe, in or out. But out, we know there’s just no good end. If you don’t bring it to yourself, someone else will bring it.

They found you in the attic, underneath the insulation. Damn, that must have been itchy as hell. Especially since I’m pretty sure they dragged you from under it and all over the hell in it. Cops have a tendency to shove your face down in shit when you hide from, fight with, or run from them. I’d say from the look on your face in your latest [picture in the gallery], that didn’t feel so good. You don’t look really happy; like you just rubbed your face in fiberglass or something. I’ll bet you’re still itching.

You’re not dead. We’d heard you were, more than once. When the crazy bitch who says she’s your mother told us you were in the morgue, waiting for fingerprint analysis…a sickening wait…
You know she lies, you know not to trust her…but there it is. You hear things like that, and you go on about your business, knowing this time there could be a truth. And you just try not to listen.
Or I do. Try. You, you don’t give it much thought. She’ll still send you money, and that’s what you think about.

It isn’t over. Only the sickening wait of finding you is over-for right now. The wondering if you’ll be found just like you were, or in some unspeakable other way. And I try not to think about what else…what will be learned, found, tied to you. The only thing sure is that it isn’t over.

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Voices

The words begin while I sleep. Sometimes the volume climbs until I cannot turn away, until I wake, scared and breathless. If I can’t trick the voices into silence first. If I can’t hear them coming before they get too loud. If I don’t have time to turn up the music and color I might be dreaming just then. This is why they catch me in my sleep. They have time to slither in, to make me look, to hear, to get my attention, before I know to tell them, “Be gone.”
Once I awake, they win, and they climb in speed and in their insistence to be heard, their sheer numbers, all saying something different, all demanding attention, and yet all saying some version of the same thing. Yammering, a cacophony of warnings, reprimands, condemnations. Be afraid, they tell me. It’s all up to you, they say; only you can fix all this.
But I cannot.
I sit with shaking hands then, and I pray. I call to the God I know, in all his glory, to put his covering on me and every single thing I see, touch, know, hold. I ask to see what is real, for my eyes to be healed from the pictures the voices conjure, pictures that are not true, but made to convince me I am lost, alone, crippled forever.
I ask for forgiveness for doubting, for hiding, for hating my truths, for buckling in the face of those voices and the world itself that tells me I am wrong. Wrong to believe, wrong to love, wrong to follow my dreams and my heart and my soul. Forgiveness for believing the torment, the words of the voices and the world.
It is only a torment when I stop believing the real truth, when I doubt.
I am not crazy. I don’t really think there are voices that tell me what to do, that tell me I am doomed, defective, unworthy; that tell me there’s no point in going on because the same things will always happen and I know I cannot bear a lifetime of that. They tell me that too; that I could never stand up to a lifetime of what I’ve already seen.
Everything they say, has a piece of truth in it. That’s the hard part, the reason I hear it at all. The voices; I know they are a part of me, the doorways to my brain and heart and soul that anything and anyone can use to crush me.
Everybody knows that the best lies, insults, threats, always have a little bit of the truth to them, even if they’re mostly lies. That would still make them lies. We, I, don’t have to listen. But it’s awful hard sometimes.
So, I thank him, for the power to say, “No.” I will not listen, I will not be defeated, I will not give in, give up, give out, and I will not be denied. And I swear, he hears me, he restores me, when I think I cannot go on again. He lifts me, when I think I will just lay down, and stop getting up. He heals my eyes, and I see the red tailed hawk that crosses my path each time I am here again; the night hunting owl, that shows herself, the recognition in the stranger’s eyes, the coincidence of the same song being played, almost uninterrupted, all the places I go. A seemingly meaningless thing, just for me. I see, I hear. I say, “Yes.” and I thank him. My heart soars, and I am grateful to feel, to know.
The things I see, hear, they are a blessing. Or are they a burden, a curse? They seem invisible, silent; only I know. They are undeniable, deafening, only I can decide. Blessing, or curse? But I can never say they don’t exist.

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Living the Dream

I wake with a jolt, full tilt panic before daylight. Mouth bone dry and my heart hammering, I feel the familiar squeeze in my chest-FUCK! I can’t do this again! I am not ready. I am not ready at all. Oh my GOD, what have I done?

I try again. Just go back to sleep, I tell myself; you’ll be meat by noon. Today’s another twelve hour day. Maybe more. But the squeeze is there and I can’t. Can’t sleep. And if I don’t at least rest, I’ll lose my mind. So I lay there until I can’t anymore and I get up.

I’ve always known what hard work is. I’ve worked much harder, in shorter bursts. I’ve worked long hours at times. I’ve had responsibility, and worn many hats. I’ve worked in a hard hat, a cowboy hat, ball cap, a bandana, and a helmet. I’ve worn the employee hat, the manager hat and the free agent hat. But I have never worn all the hats at once.

I am so tired.

I am on a runaway horse, flying by the seat of my pants.

No, really, I am on two horses at once. One is a runaway, and the other I have resorted to kicking the shit out of to keep it moving, and I am trying not to do the splits, which I never learned to do. I feel torn in two, every day, or torn in four or eight or however many different directions I am flying in at once at any given time and I swear I am riding as fast as I can.

I am barely hanging on.

My day ends and I feel like I’ve been to war. Warmth, food, kindness, all like seeing rainbows after being underground; miracles. I have maybe an hour, two. There is not much time for those little miracles, because there is only time for things that are barely getting done, and just have to be. And then I sleep, and wake with the squeeze in my chest, the hammering heart, the bone dry mouth, the fear I will just not make it no matter how hard I try.

There is no time now to ponder, muse, reflect. There are no days I just follow my words to my heart.

Words flow from me all day and every day. Words that get me where I need to be to survive. I think on my feet and I use my words and people listen to me so I try to choose them well. I am sincere and creative in my approach.

But I can barely write an email now. I am so tired of the talking and all the words, I cannot even write. I cannot join two thoughts together for that. Maybe not even two sentences. All I can write is this.

It would seem to me easier to stop having a struggle and just say I can’t. I can’t write. Maybe simpler to quit, to stop torturing myself with my imagined need to write. I chose my life as it is right now, and for a good reason. One cannot always do all things. There is a season for everything. Perhaps it is not the season for writing, for me, for now. Maybe what I am doing really will take everything I have, and more, and there is just not room for anything else. Sacrifices must be made. If it were easy to do what I am doing, more people would do it. It’s not.

And yet, here I am. I don’t want to quit. I can’t quit. Neither can I quit what I spend all my time doing. Because I do have a dream, and dreams are what I live on.

 

Everything is a matter of perspective. Do I sound unhappy? Well, some days I really am. Some days I want to close the doors. Go ahead, fine me for breaking the rules. I just don’t care, because I am exhausted beyond all reason. It’s too much. Too much for one person. I want to quit it all, give it back; turn the headache over to someone else.

I don’t have the time, resources, finances to do what I am doing in any of the prescribed ways for doing such a thing and I’m just worn out by my own creative ways of making up for that.

And then a magic thing happens. A person comes with a story, and I know they are coming to me by no accident. They bring something that I’ve never seen before, and the something has a story too, and of course I have to know the story. I fall in love with the thing, the story, and the person. I wouldn’t miss this for the world. I have to hang around to see what happens next.

Someone else finds this thing, falls in love with it too, wants to know the story, and then has to have the thing. I am now part of the story, and this is how I make my living, one story at a time.

I don’t always tell the whole story, nor do I usually really know the whole story at all. Sometimes I have no vital information at all, but that creates a mystery which I am happy to segue to another story. After all, possibilities are just my game.

I’m never dishonest, but hey, I was a waitress in another life, and I can read your mind before you know yourself which dessert you really do want after all. This is an art, trust me. How good would I be if I didn’t try at all to anticipate what you might fall in love with, and help you along so you might realize what you must do? Like I said, I’m always honest; I’m just helping people be happy. I’m kind of like a matchmaker.

I’m enjoying, just a bit, the way I’m beginning to be the “go to girl” for some folks’ favorite things. What a hoot. Do I know where to find it? Do I even know what it is? Not necessarily, but I might find it anyway. I often do. Even if I can’t profit, it’s the possibility that draws me, and the mystery; the magic of finding just the thing asked for that makes me feel like I’ve won something.

I’m living the dream. I am a business owner. I wear the Boss hat now and I don’t punch a time clock or ask other people what they want me to do. I can’t be fired and I can make up rules and write my own contracts and have a cigarette whenever I please, if I can ever find the time. I eat, sleep, breathe this business and I worry all the time how I will pay the next mind-numbing power bill or even buy the next boat-load of light bulbs and tubes I will shortly need yet again. I borrow from this, cover from that, float what I have to. I have no idea how this will ever work, but I am the mistress of my own destiny. I have bought myself a job. If I might fail from working my ass off and receiving no pay-off, let it at least be for myself. I have possibilities!

Every day I meet someone who thought they had a “future”, who went to work every working day for a decade or two, until one day they went to work and were told their job had been eliminated. And most everyone else I know has lost their ability to work for themselves as well. They have lost homes, assets, credit, bonding, licenses, equipment, and sometimes self respect; they chase work and leave town to find it. They take what they can find and put up with conditions they would not have before. Most of them just cannot find work, or only the most sporadic kind. Everyone is insecure. Things have become simple, basic, and the survivors get creative.

I am a survivor. No, I don’t know what I’m doing. Yes, I would like to go back to an easier time, when I could work as I needed to and have a “life”. Yes, I am in over my head. No, I don’t enjoy this every day. Yeah, you will get really sick if you work all the time, don’t eat or sleep enough and get really stressed out. Whatever, that was the way it went down, that’s what it took. If I knew what I was doing, I’d have not done it.

But News Flash: there is no Play It Safe way left. There is no “I want to have a life” anymore. This IS my life. There are no avenues that do not include big risks. There is nothing to be gained by not trying, and if you’re going to try then try with all your might, and don’t be a quitter. Against some of my own limits, I’m making new ones, and I haven’t quit.

I do realize that most do not understand if I say sometimes it’s just too hard, that I’m overwhelmed, that I don’t know if I have what it takes. They are visibly distressed to hear me say I don’t have the means to do this and would like to walk away every other day. They think “business owner” and assume solvency, competence, and consistent income. They don’t understand even if I tell them, that I’m not in a position of any glory and I’m not “getting all the money.” They don’t know that “success” for me today might be staying open another month. I realize that all I do is scare some people when I tell them how close to the bone this is, and that some other people may only judge me stupid for taking such a risk with so little means or know-how.

I’ve learned to keep my mouth shut. They don’t need to know, and only those closest to me know the truth.

So there it is. This is all I have; running on empty with no resources and little experience and a bit of nerve. Not as much as people think. And every day is a ride I wonder if I will live through. There’s no time to regroup, and most of the suggestions people have given me for improving my business are things I struggle to not snort at. They have no clue that it’s simply not possible, that anyone would dare to do this without the means to replace, repair, hire, buy, and borrow from a bank. They have good ideas, and I file them away for future reference.

Am I crazy? A fool? Some days I think so. On sleepless nights I definitely think so. And then I go back and do it again the next day.

I want to write. I can’t find my magic place, the place I used to write from. There’s nothing in me right now but this runaway horse, and the one I keep kicking along. Maybe I will have to write about the ride, even if I write it badly.  And if  I am willing to do that, I can always write about the Dream. I’m living it.

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You See Now…

You see now. I didn’t know it would be like this. Who in their right mind would have ever taken it on had they known?

I didn’t know the thing would follow me here. I thought I was safe from its nose, always sniffing the wind and watching for movement, any movement. I hid in plain sight and moved slowly, so as not to call attention. After awhile, it had been so long I assumed I was forgotten. Wouldn’t you have? Years went by and the signs all pointed to the same thing-I was safe. No longer a hunted thing, of no particular interest to the one who watched.

What would you have done? I couldn’t stop living forever.

Man, was I wrong. Of course I was wrong. These things don’t forget, they never just quit. That would be like losing and one thing’s for sure, winning is everything. I’d given up the idea of that long ago, had settled for survival, but then I’d gotten tired of that and reached for something more.

I guess I forgot myself and who I’d been. I bought into the idea that freedom was my birthright, once I’d had a good taste of it myself. And you know, it is. But dance with the Devil just once, and you might have a hard time ever convincing him and his ilk that you are your own, ever again. They wait.

I’d danced to that darkness once, alone I thought, but of course I was not alone when my eyes opened in that dark. The thing was right there beside me, his hand sliding up my dress. It reminds me now of the one time I fell asleep at the wheel and eyes open, drove clear off the road. I guess I’d have to say I wasn’t really asleep, but in a kind of hypnosis. Leaving the road, I willed myself back at the last moment, but found it hard to resist the sweet slide to oblivion. Like the overwhelming urge to sleep, the drift insisted that I just let go.

The dance was the same-a demand to let go and just drift where it took me. Kind of hard to explain now, but if you know what I mean then there’s no need anyway. Once you’ve felt it you need no description. The only sane reaction is to jerk yourself away before being swallowed by a tree or embankment or the devastation of a car wreck. Sometimes there’s no going back fast enough, and it’s too late. Me, I’d just get the willies whenever I thought about how close I’d come.

Ah, but enough of my mixed up analogies. The point is, I got away with my life and after the heart-pounding stopped I was really careful for a while. A long while, in fact. Eventually I got braver and took some risks. I wasn’t such a secret. I let the world in. I bought a business and one day had a business card and then I was on TV and everybody knew my name. Well, I know it wasn’t everyone, so what could the harm be? No one was watching anymore, right?

Besides, the name wasn’t quite the same name then, and who watched the local news channel but local people?

It started with the one I called Cowboy. He materialized beside me in the quiet part of the day, and left me the sound of spurs though he wore no boots. Afterwards, I went about my business, focused on the work, and tried not to think about it too much.

A month or so later, when I’d nearly forgotten, I found myself in conversation with a young man who wore mirrored shades like that other. A different guy altogether, so I’d thought. At some point I realized he’d just stopped talking altogether and was staring deep into my eyes. I felt a lurch in my stomach and a chill when I knew I’d stared right back. Not out of any kind of man-woman thing on my part, but like a rabbit stays still when finally cornered, staring at certain death. The young man breathed in time with me, then smiled wide and showed a pointed tooth. I almost fell backward and wanted to run but could not.

“You have a nice day now, Ma’am” was all he said then, not breaking eye contact, and slowly backed up before turning away and showing me that he walked on hooves.

Was I imagining this? Had my mind finally broken? I most certainly had done some damage to myself somewhere, what with the life I’d once led. Maybe I’d finally lost my grasp on reality.

But I knew it wasn’t true. Things were insane, this was insane, but it was real. I was going to have to deal with it; somehow I was going to have to find a way to not go crazy.

I did what I did the first time. I went back to work. I smiled, made money, looked like I was supposed to look. I looked good. At least good enough to look like I belonged where I was.

Summer came. I’d always liked summer best. Everything’s more relaxed and I’m not cold all the time. I like driving, and I like to put the window down. I didn’t miss the bad weather. I’d been out looking for treasures and trying to keep cool, and my guard was down, like before.

He wasn’t there when I pulled into that gas station. And I know the sound of a Harley Davidson as well as I know anything. But then he was there, astride the big hog, across the drive from me. He was next to the gas pump, though I knew he wouldn’t get any gas. And he was grinning.

His voice came across silky smooth and honeyed in my ear, while he still sat grinning across from me without saying a word.

“Nice day.”

“Yes” I smiled. Why was I smiling? I knew it was wrong, but I was scared so I smiled. Girls are dumb that way.

“Why don’t you get out of that truck and come have a seat? We’ll go for a ride.” The warmth dripped off him in waves.

“No thank you” I whispered. The sound of his voice filled my head. His lips hadn’t moved but for the smile. I looked towards the highway and stared, cold all over though it was at least 100 degrees. Maybe I could just drive away and not get stopped for taking the gas nozzle with me. It was taking forever.

Now he was in my face, still on the silent bike. His face was in my window. How had he gotten so close?

“Just get on.” Grinning. A tiny fleck of saliva at the corner of his smile.

I don’t know if I said no, if I whispered it, screamed it, or only thought it. It didn’t matter; he could hear me and he could smell my fear. Still his smile could melt butter.

“No. NO.”

This time I’d said it aloud and I wasn’t smiling; I’d said it strong.

 He tilted his head like a beguiling child might, all charm and wistfulness, even looked a little hurt, and said “Well Honey, you don’t know what you’re missing.”

“Yeah, I do” my mind spoke. And like that, he was in my ear again, only this time it hurt, each word like a blow; “Get. On. The fucking bike.” I turned towards the right, the passenger side, the side my ear was hurting on, and he said there from the seat, “Last chance.”

I didn’t know what it meant, what last chance I drove away from, but I watched him ride off away from me too, heard the bike’s roar, at the same time he spoke from the passenger seat. A tail brushed the gearshift and I flailed at it in terror, a live snaking thing that didn’t belong there. And then there was nothing there at all, no one beside me now. And no one was watching and no one had seen a thing. I could hear the bike circling the block and wondered if he would come back for me. I knew no one would think a thing if he came back and cornered me, not in this neighborhood. But I also knew he didn’t have the need; he’d made his point. He’d find me.

So, you see. I would never have started this had I known it would come. I really did believe I was safe. I’d survived the dance and got really strong but I never guessed at what didn’t get undone. And I knew I had to stop waiting, it was crazy to keep waiting when that shit had all stopped for so long. It was time to start living again. What I didn’t know was that IT waits, and can outwait me.

I’m sorry I dragged you into this. I really wish I could pretend it wasn’t happening, but I’d be lying. Maybe if we stood together I’d have a chance, but I wouldn’t blame you if you split. Knowing what I know, I would.

Then again, you haven’t left me yet. Maybe it’ll get tired of chasing me after all. And maybe, just maybe, Ill be stronger than I think.

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The Devil Without Horns

No, you would have shunned her

Had she not

Ever scornful

Of innocence

 

It was the contrast

You dug

Ever the enigma

Of labels

 

You couldn’t pin her

Down

Not really

Even as she tried

To define herself

She proved this

Even as she swore

Undying loyalty

Ever yours

You knew

 

She would never be

One thing

Or another

 

She bared

Her many faces

Truth is

You liked it

 

Without her devils

Without her angels

You would have spit her out

Quickly

 

Now don’t complain

About the horns

 

                                                  —inspired by words from Uncle Tree

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The Dark

Run in the dark

Blood pumping

Legs pounding

Crashing

Breath and heart

In my ears

Waves sounding

On the shore

Shake me

Drowning out

All else but the fear of your

Insistence

 

Your hands

On me

Gripping pulling

Tightly

Your face voice yelling

Into mine

Sobbing sucking air screaming no

Until I collapse

Drowning fast

Under the weight of your

Persistence

 

Fists fingers feet bucking

Stuck in sand

You never falter

In the dance

Breath and heart and legs

Pound

I am the prey of chance

Taken down

Shaken to

Drowning

In the wake of my

Resistance

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Waiting On Him

She waits

Counting hours

Days

Weeks

She’ll wait

It’s been a year now

She’s waiting

For him

 

She stays

Counting fears

Doubts

Assurances

He’ll stay

For all those tears now

She’s staying

For him

 

She hates

Counting signs

Red flags

Hunches

She hates them

There are so many

Waiting

On him

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Just a Kid

When you’re a teenager, you think you know everything. You also think you are indestructible.

I look at kids that age, and I see children. But once in a while, I see one who also reminds me of me. A certain squint in one eye, a stance, a way of breathing. Not willing to wait, be held back; accept what she is told; that it’s for her own good, that she doesn’t know what’s good for her, that really, she knows nothing yet at all. Something about them, these individuals, these upstarts, calls me and makes me want to look away even while I am looking in, into them, into myself.

Who speaks to them? Do they have a net? Someone who will remind them of what’s important, of what must be held onto, even while they let them fall? A someone who plants a seed of meaning that might grow when there is solid ground once again?

Or is there a someone who rages at their impudence, their rush to taste all that waves at them from life? Who tells them always that they are out of step, that there will be Hell to pay; that they disappoint and embarrass with their refusal to just be children when they are already miles across the line from any “just”?

You can’t hold back the tide. Everybody knows that. Yet still, we have all tried to, somewhere.

When that damn breaks, it breaks. It just will. Go. Where it will.

I like the idea of a breakwater, maybe. A way left still for the water to go around. A buffer, not a bubble. Bubbles break. Then, they are no help at all.

 

Most people believe that if they are not controlling their children, they are doing them a disservice, being irresponsible. They think that whenever a child goes astray, the parents must not have controlled them very well, but often, the opposite is true. It is in that controlling that one such as I was ceases to hear anything at all that might be useful. She begins to know only that everything she wants is wrong, bad, and forbidden. At this point, who is she willing to be? If she is a strong willed one, she tries to put her will to conforming. Of course she fails. She never was a conformist, and it is not the trait that made her “good”. That was simply her own natural desire to please.

Now there is rebellion. Rejection. The only restoring of herself she knows so far—the move away from all restraints.

This child believes that she will die if confined. The only real strengths she has so far wither under the bindings of familial care, so it is with a kind of survival instinct that she separates herself.

 

I think of individuals, who in their quest for explanation, blame, or exemption, have made the statement that I chose everything I encountered.

At the risk of splitting hairs, I must qualify this. Ultimately, perhaps we even choose who we come into this world as. Some say we do. But it’s like telling a person they have chosen to have Cancer—another thing some actually believe.

What’s the point? All that matters is whatever choices come before us everyday. I was given new choices. I took them. Some lose their choices, along the way.

 

What else matters to me now is this—in trying so hard to keep something the same, in protecting those we love from all their own choices, instead of protecting in ways we really can, we do them a disservice, and ourselves as well.

We forget to honor in them their ability to discern, or even allow that ability to ever develop. Soon, choices are so much less about what is wanted or needed, but about just having a choice at all.

I myself clung to that; just having any ability to choose anything. Even if my choice was what my poison would be, even if my choice was who or what would control me, it seemed better than obedience to something I didn’t believe in at all. If I had to be untrue to myself, let me be the one who chose how.

Was this a mistake? Surely I paid an awful price for my choices. I had no idea, at the time, how long term the effects would be on me. Long after this chapter was far, far away, I would know the dents on my soul that I could never push out. My form is forever shaped by the things I’ve seen and known, and I have wished them undone so many times. I have wished for my innocence back, and grieved the losses that came from allying myself with powers that nearly destroyed me.

 

So I’ve had to ask myself, who would I be, had I chosen differently? Would I have found an easier way to move through society? Would I have come from my youth unscathed and unscarred by things most people are sheltered from in their young years? Would I have grown up not missing parts of my heart and soul?

Would I have learned to become the conformist I fought so hard against being? Perhaps life would have been easier, softer, and years later I would have paid with a simple and boring mid-life crisis instead of posttraumatic stress disorder. Perhaps when age caught up to me I would have been happy to have played safe.

I really don’t know. Regret is rather useless at this point. As one friend is fond of saying, “It is what it is.” Or, as my mother puts it, “You can’t unscramble the egg.” Well put.

 

When I see her now with that squint in one eye, I know there’s not much I can say about this. If there is, I’ve never figured out what it is. But my reaction is always the same; I’m drawn to her like I am to my own reflection the first time I see part of my life newly reflected in my face. You know, those feelings and events that take up residence there but sometimes take years or decades to move in. It has indeed taken decades for me to realize I am looking at me when I see her, that one with the defiant stance, the stare, the breath raging just beneath the calm of the skin.

What can I tell her? What would she listen to, remember, when the walls tumble down and she only needs to choose something herself, by herself, for herself?

 

I admire the delicate artistry of her new tattoo, chosen for great personal meaning and beauty, a symbol of her individuality and feminine strength. This is no peer pressure tattoo, but completely original, a collaboration between tattoo artist and herself, one of a kind.

The placement of the tattoo is significant, and affords concealment. Like carrying a secret talisman for life; one she can choose to share or not, but does not wear to the world. I can appreciate her choice to express herself with something so beautiful, yet so personal.

 

I make her tell me all her makeup tips, for I can see already that she has a talent for doing things her own way; ways that work better than the ways “they” say to do things.

I ask her, as I do each time, if she’s written anything lately.

I don’t encourage her to run off, like she is wont to do. I just ask her what she hopes to find. I talk about what it’s like to come home, what it really means to any person, “coming home”.

I ask her about her dreams; ask her what she would ultimately like to be doing, down to the last detail. I ask her about time; what time is it in her life? What would she like to have happen in the next year or two or three to give her the choices she craves? I know that for her, right now, it’s all about the right to choose for herself.

Mostly, I just listen, because I can. She is not my daughter. She is not my blood. I’m not compelled by duty to make her “shape up”.

She is just one of those kids I look at and I know, she’s not “just” a kid.

She is like water, unstoppable, flowing where she will. I don’t want to dam her up. I can’t. I don’t want to fill her up with fear, daring her to fail. And of course, I am afraid she will. We all have to fall down.

I want to be there when she scabs both knees. Girls like us always scab them both, because we run way too fast. For the sheer fun of it, for the chase, for the escape, for the momentum we can’t stop sometimes. I want to be there to tell her the scars will soften.

I tell her I like that she is herself, and not like everyone else. I don’t want to see her spirit broken, all though I can see where it might break one day; she will not settle for safety either. She will go places she ought to stay away from, just to know she went, just to taste her freedom.

I want to be there when she comes home, wherever she finds that home to be. When she does find it, she’ll know it, for herself and by herself, and she won’t wonder if someone else has made it up.

After a while she’ll lose her squint, but one eye will always seem to be a bit more open than the other, and she will have a crooked smile.

She will look and see and talk and smile with the side that is herself, and the side the world wants, so it can see her, hear her. And she will smile a lot. And when I see her, we will share our crooked smiles and say, “Hey, it’s good you’re home”.

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