Walking in my shoes : an exercise in insight and compassion.

Imagine...

You go to your Dr. and are told you have growth that will need surgery. It's benign but it should be removed and studied just to be on the safe side. They refer you to a surgeon, say you'll be in good hands. You meet the surgeon, he seems knowledgable, compassionate. On the day of surgery you sign all the waivers and consents, get changed, are hooked up to the IV with assurances of being well cared for and what to expect when you come to. You may be groggy and confused, but we will be here to help orient you, and in a few hours you'll be sore, but doing much better.

Then, right as you begin to feel the effects of the anesthetic taking over, your surgeon closes the door, leans over and says,

I'm going to fuck you so hard you're not going to know what hit you, and the best part is, you're not going to remember a thing.

The lights flicker, a machine beeps, a nurse laughs... you try to say something, move an arm. nothing. nothing. nothing.

You're dreaming. Someone's dropping boulders on you, but just as you begin to feel their true weight they burst into cloth water balloons leaking warm water all over your abdomen, sex and legs. You're at a park... at night for some reason. Or is it day but dark out? A truck rumbles past. Now you're on the truck laying in the back of it swaying with it's motion. It's definitely night and the air is cold. You're feet are cold. You hurt everywhere, especially in the stomach and between the thighs. You are in a mostly white room. Someone is talking to you. Patting your shoulder. You are crying. Another voice says, "Here (s)he is."
The surgeon's face appears. His features are calm and at once reassuring and confusing. "Hi there" he says.
"Did you have a bad dream?"
He pat's your shoulder again. "Well, everything went well. I think we got everything cleaned out. The cyst looks benign, but of course we'll send it to the lab, just to be sure and see if we can find a cause. I'll be back in a few hours when you are feeling a bit better, and keep you updated."

He taps the nurse on the arm with a file, presumably yours, "These guys will take good care of you" and walks out.

You can not keep your eyes open. You struggle to, but everything goes black anyway.

The next time you wake it is to the quiet beeping of your monitors, you're partner is quietly reading on their phone next to the hospital bed. You are wearing a differently colored gown. You hurt. Your mouth is dry. You hear the muffled evidence of the nurses going about there work out in the hall, caring for other patients.

What happened?

Indeed.

The proof is in the following hours, days, weeks, months and years. The evidence is within you, if not within your body, within your soul. For you to acknowledge or laugh off as a strong reaction to the anesthetics and narcotics. The truth is in your recovery and what it takes, in what works and doesn't work.

Who would you tell? Who wouldn't you tell? How hard would you insist if you were told over, and over again, that your experience is common and what you say happened is impossible? That there would be evidence, but there isn't. Would you request a rape kit? What if it came back negative? No one's DNA anywhere inside of you? Security camera footage was not on you much of the time, but also show's nothing suspicious. What do you do the next time you go to your Dr.'s? Was he/she in on it? Was it a dream? What do you do the next time you are told you need anesthesia (of any kind)? What do you do with your new obsession with sleeping with everything that walks? Or your total disinterest in your partner?

How do you proceed with living life?

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.

brothers have nothing on us

           Brothers are great...

                   but sisters!

   sisters hold you legs while bear new life

sister's have seen when you never had a chance

 and sacrificed without ever telling you.

   sister's observe your every flaw

    and yet forgive your every sin.

  Only a sister can speak the harshest truth

                                                                                             in a tone that reassures

                                                                                    or wake you from troubling dreams
                                                                                 
                                                                                                  without a start.

                                                                                     it is our sisters who restore our faith

                                                                                                   in humanity.

                                                                                                        surely...

                                                                                  sisterhood is the sanctuary of womanhood

Ansiedad (Anxiety)

I watched a movie once
about a girl named ansiedad.

I think she lives in me.

I have known her so well for so long that I hardly even notice she is with me

Like a parent you take for granted

but are always trying to please

until years of counseling later you finally begin to realize just how

bad they've always been for you.

(yeah, that's not where you that I was going, is it)

Except, unlike Ansiedad, you can learn to disentangle yourself from their clutches

or kiss them goodbye with a hug, or a fuck you
                (listen, if you knew my parents...)

In theory you can learn Ansiedad's tricks and quiet the force of her voice in your mind

but it takes energy.

Energy to quiet her

Energy to ignore her

Energy just to share your brain with her...

She wears me out.

Much of the time, she just makes it that much harder to think, make decisions, breath

like trying to write a paper or study for a test while someone in the same room as you watches The Walking Dead on a large screen TV with the volume all the way up.

It's doable, but it's hard.

And sometimes she makes me cry.

because of why she's so strong with me,

I can yell at her to "turn it the fuck down, already"

but she know's as well as I do how many times she's saved my life

and that kicking her out might mean I die the next time

                                                             

It's a great movie, though :)

today i'd give in

Today it burst out of me.
The all alone.
The on my own.
the always have and
always will...
the crazy me
who clearly sees

that no one ever wanted me...

enough.

many people love me
or have loved me
or might love me

but I could make them all leave.
a skill which no one comes by easily
one, by one
by two by two
i could make them follow you

some hurt
some mad
some bad
some just relieved to have...
finally
given up on me

freed themselves from loving me,
so broken,
so confused
so angry and so lost.

so loving
so ragefull

so prone to repeating history
while always maintaining the mystery

and it isn't fair
wouldn't eve be 'meant'

just a slip of the wrist
a trip of the wire
letting the toddler within
pull out the pin


just doing what I was programmed to do
when every lost battle
can be a lost war

for no damage control
can undo the unpinning
of an emotional grenade
18 years in the making

I'd give in,
but I have
and it's no way to win

so i cry and i cry
for the pain still within
and I wish i could wish the unwanting away