Therapy : two years in (for the truly broken among us)

I'm learning...

i mean, i still fight back

but I stay.

I cry, I beg you to stop talking

I jiggle my arms and legs and arch my back

I hold my hands to my head and rock

and argue

of course

but I stay.

I stay with you.

I think you're telling me that I'm bad

to feel ashamed

and I do.

I hear the yelling louder an louder inside me.

just no, no. no!

my yelling.

but i hear something else too,

which is you.

I hear you over everything,

I hear you caring and seeing me,

even though i'm overwhelmed by all the past terror fusing into this moment,

even though you're about to kick me out for no one to hold

(not that i can tolerate being held anyway... i wish...)

so i stay.

I stay and feel what's to much to feel.

I don't exactly slam your door when I burst out of my seat.

because it's time. it's time.

not because i'm angry,

even though I am,

but because anger at you for kicking me out is the only way to leave

the only way to leave       so.

much.

pain.

in your hands.

but that's learning, right?

I mean,

you remember

incredibly.

how much worse i used to be?

what will you sacrifice?

I know it doesn't matter. I know I've nothing new to say. I know my words hold no special power by virtue of celebrity, or connections to the named previous tragedies (no more than any American). I know it's worse in a war zone. I know someone's said it louder and better and clearer and certainly many, many times before.
But I don't care. Because I'm angry.
and frankly
I'd rather not be next.
see the next
to lose a child
a boss
a friend
a mother
neighbor
or stranger who looks just like ( I swear) my sister's boyfriend's daughter.
I'm tired of watching it get closer
and closer
to home.
So here is what I'm willing to sacrifice
in the pursuit of
#nomoreshootings

1. My stock belief that a men's rights activist is almost certain to be profoundly misguided
           tell me sir, what you bring to the table.

2. My anger over the scapegoating of the mentally ill, which I'm certain is "othering" at it's core, but
           let's put it on the table, for the sake of even one less death.

3. My certainty that the NRA is trading lives for profit in the currency of fear.
            certainly there is room for you to prove me wrong.

4. My dismissal of anyone who has ever posted a meme about a gun not managing to run off and shoot someone on it's own.
             sure. point made. But now let's take it to the next level. let's please conversate

5. My inaction. I get it. preaching at facebook, crying to my husband, holding my children closer. all have done precisely nothing to stop the onward march of this perfectly preventable pandemic of violence and complacency.

Let's please be the next voice calling to #makeitstop

after all...

I'd rather not see the next one, be the next one, fuel the next one, resign myself to the next one.

and if I must

I'd rather die trying, even failing, than simply waiting

for the next one

#nonextone

On the topic of expeditions

Essay Poetry written fall of 2000 at the age of 16.

If I were to do an expedition, I would become the wind
I would sweep across the prairies and wage war with the mountain peaks.
Where fires burned I would breath on them and grow bigger and stronger and wilder with the rising heat. I would feel the pull of the moon on the wares and I would whip the froth of foam on every surfer's face.
I would moan and howl and cry out across the desert lands and purge the dunes for the crimes of those in prisons I could not knock down,
I would whip the hair back from the mourners face and streak their tears from their eyes straight to the ears.
I would be the furry for the meek and become silent, cease to be for the furious.
And I would remind myself to leave the lakes inside of roses.