hear me roar

I am a woman.
I am a daughter, sister, lover, and friend.
I am a nurturer, a caretaker, a hand holder,
and a macaroni and cheese maker.
I am a fighter, a strong resister, a risk taker,
and a loyal protector.
I am an animal watcher, a dog walker, a belly scratcher,
and an aquarium and bird cage cleaner.
I am an honest soul, an honorer of good deeds, lost souls,
and drunken sods.
I am a lonely girl, lost in escapism and fantasy, caught up in make-believe
webs of tears and twine.
I am an artist of worth and talent, a person of interest, a human being
of a versatile mind.
I am a person of amicable face and personality, welcoming love from
anywhere I can find it and sharing love with anyone I can.
I am a woman.

ccccourage

these past few weeks have been hard for me because was judged, (not for the first time) but perhaps the most blatantly, by my appearance. to be comforted i was reassured again and again by the important people that i am more than such visual consequences. that i am independent and strong, empathetic and loving. i am a person worthy of much more than cursory judgements. then i whimpered to a counselor of the familial kind who has always had a comforting ear and heart and was slapped down into a spiral of shame and depression to hear her words of judgement on my appearance as well. we have since mended bridges as she swallowed her former words and admitted that my arms make a sadness rise in her because to her, they represent a pain that went unrecognized for so long.
needless to say, i have been through a whirlwind of emotions, brutal, shameful, full of rage and sadness and finally empowered in these few days. and all for something i rarely think about. i'm usually more concerned with the permanent ink on my wrist proclaim my belief in myself than the wreck of rough skin tissue that precludes it. so i have made a decision. these marks across my body and heart are signs of courage and survival, not pain and sickness. so here is the story of a few of my scars.
the red keloid that screams the loudest is from a kiss with a hot iron that happened on a day i was afraid to cut. on a day i needed to express my pain but was so low i didn't trust my hand to be steady with the razor, i let the hot steam scorch my skin until it didn't hurt anymore. as heinous as it is, it's a giant reminder of a day i chose not to die.
as for the assorted slashes up and down my tender forearms, what can i say? they were my bright red screams. a proclamation of despair i couldn't put into words. i was finally stitched and stapled together until the horror lessened in my head. each mark is a pill not taken, a rope not hung, a call for help made and answered.
and now i bear these scars forever with my tattoo reminding me to believe that i am more than them but at the same time knowing i would not be me, or here, without them.

purple haze

The things that confuse me about life are...
so i could make a list
or write a poem
or i could tell a story
but all of this is hiding
behind the wordplay
that protects me so often
from the barbs of
confusion i'm supposed
to be describing.
so i'll just share
an uncomplicated truth.
Existence confuses me. Specifically my existence. There are so many facets of me and my life that i just don't understand. Obviously i don't understand my illness but not in a " why have the fates dropped this in my lap" kind of way. Instead i wonder if i invited this into my life. Before i was ill, i ran with a cynical group where words like "crazy" and "suicide" were often a punchline. i know the environmental, biological, and situational basis for my bipolar but i can't help but wonder if whispering those incantations of insanity when i was untouched opened a window somewhere.
i am confused by my writing. some call it talent, some expression, but to me it just is. sometimes words flow from me so independently that when i look back on it, i feel like i can hardly claim authorship. and i know the inauthenticity of it all, how i choose words or phrases to elicit emotion and reactions in the reader or listener. why can't people see the hypocrisy of it all? am i really that good of a liar?
forgiveness confuses me. i have expressed this before but my parents, close friends, my brother, aunts uncles, i know they are meant to love me by rote, but when i look at my scars and remember the harsh falsities i hurled at them in the midst of symptomatic madness, i am confused by how they let me back into (some) of their homes and lives. perhaps that's why i accept so many pains from them. i'm attempting to repay a debt that never can be. i can be used up entirely and it still won't be enough to fill in the hole i gouged in their collective psyche.
finally, i am confused by my survival. i tempted God to take me so many times, yet He didn't take the bait. my mother has told me that i don't know how many lives i touch in that scolding tone of "so shape up" that all mother's have. so am i meant to be this shining example/role model of recovery where i have come from the pit and see how shiny squeaky clean i am now? is this despite small relapses, look how far i've come...is that the clarifying truth to my life?

rude awakening

I never became when I was
supposed to become,
lost in a wood
of what I should be's
no speeches of eminent
changes,
life cycles,
the motion from
childhood to adulthood
was a mystery to me.
perhaps that's why
I put it off for so long.
my youth dwindling
while I lingered doing
childish things with
children of the like mind.
I did mature though-
in an even field...
surprising myself
with my own precociousness,
breaking bonds I had tied
myself with,
thrusting myself into
the arms of startled lovers,
hoping my fantasies were true.
They weren't of course,
and I was alone again,
less innocent,
disrespected,
a bit ashamed.
but this is what it means
to be a grown up, I guess.
The pain out weighing
the silliness.
I do not begrudge
my lack of warning,
the absence of,
"this is how it will be" speeches
make sense now,
because really,
how fair is it to
sit a child down and tell them
that the future is going to
break their heart?

pontific ponderings

i have often thought
of that kernel,
(you know what i mean)
that bit of God's love
that preacher
pastor
priest
tells us is the essence
of our soul.
it is what the "us"
or the "we"
is shaped around.
-the beginning of our being
before we began.
so sometimes i wonder about this
uncontaminated little sprout,
this piece of God inside me...
i can resent it one minute
and rejoice in it the next,
but i think i am forgiven these petty thoughts,
because God knows my brain and the kernel
glows brightly still.

personality grocery list

i can:
-spell world backwards
-give the best belly rubs in town, nay the county
-listen without judging
-judge without listening
-be joyous and giggly
-be sad and morose
-keep to myself
-shout out to the world (dlrow)
-read
-write
-sing
-pray
-wish
-believe
-imagine
-betray
-ignore
-respect
-be the most empathetic person in the room
-be the most oblivious person in the room (what?)
-be pretty
-be ugly
-be clear
-be confused
-treasure my intelligence
-pray for the cloud of ignorance
-be a loving sister
-be the family albatross
-be an honest and loving friend
-be selfish enough to crumble friendships
-be flexible
-be rigid
-be loved
-be resented
-want more than anything to have the idealized "normal" life
-honor my individuality and wear my unique eccentricities like the brightly colored bits of armored personhood they are.

i will:
-open myself up to healing
-take care of and honor my physical body
-work towards emotional stability
-work on eliminating compulsive and obsessive thoughts
-be strong and personable
-help without being manipulated

the reason why

why do i write?
a slight gesture;
a smile,
a sigh,
a grunt,
a grumble
all of these things
take on their own lives
when they leave the body
of the utterer.
A stammer magnified tenfold
can disappear grace,
leaving a muddy heap behind- no longer the item of profundity
it began as.
such configurations are confounding;
some malignant,
some benign,
all different from their intention.
this is a unique horror-misinterpretation,
when one, such as i,
am often caught up in
the simple wonderment of
communicating.
So that is why i write.
my thoughts and feelings
are suddenly concrete and real,
no longer hidden or
subdued in some
silly place behind
my tongue and teeth
where propriety and
sublimation reign.
Here, on the blank page,
I can be as raw or as delicate as i like
without fear of misunderstanding,
(or understanding for that matter)
-as this can be a complete conversation with myself.
i can invent, implode, rejoice, reject, fume, have fun, cry to, and cry about-
i am the hero
and the villain,
the princess
and the dragon,
i am the creator
and the relator.
as i write and heal i have a voice that will not be silenced.