Supplication

Diary entry, April 15, 1981

It’s been bad for me because my mom and dad are getting divorced.  We did a school play yesterday.  We were the Spanish dancers.

Notebook, 2013

Into words       into stars          into another boring discussion on who we are     who we were   who we long to be       I am still in that tree house   still hiding in the leaves                       if memory is my master then I am its beaten dog             wouldn’t I be clever it I could put it all together                      wouldn’t I be the one calling the shots             mock me with riddles         ridicule me with rhymes    you know I have no power      that I am afraid to be alive

Crisis, 2004

Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player,
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.

--Macbeth, Act 5, scene 5

Class journal, 1993

Entry #3

Let's move on to a more serious topic.  Last summer I knew this woman who had an extremely nasty history.  She was ritually abused, and trust me, you don't want to know the details.  As you could probably guess, even though she's a tremendous person, she still suffers major repercussions from what happened to her, and one of these is her fear of someone coming up behind her.  To accommodate for this anxiety, she always wanted to sit in the corner surrounded by walls, never with her back to the door or to anywhere else someone could creep, for that matter.  And she has these wide eyes that forever darted around the room, even though she otherwise seemed perfectly relaxed.  You had to watch her eyes to realize that she was never relaxed, since she succeeded so well at the illusion of calmness, although she did sit somewhat coiled like a snake.  She told me once that she never felt safe, never comfortable anywhere, especially since her abusers knew where she lived and probably knew that she had children.  When her grandma had caught wind of what was going on way back and temporarily rescued her from her parents, the satanic people would leave notes in the grandma's mailbox, and at night hang around the house, looking in windows, ringing doorbells...you name it.  People would say to her now, why don't you move? but she lives on a farm and you can't just pack up and take off from a farm.  Besides, she's not the type of person to complain or run away forever, and you have to wonder if she would ever feel safe anywhere.  Those of us in these types of situations have a saying when people run from place to place: they're only making geographic moves.  Your mind and your memory, unfortunately, always come with you.

Proof of Tomorrow

Tomorrow is Crying for You, Later Still

All of the followers had gone, sucked up into the girl’s funnel cloud and carried off to god knows where.  What remained lay on the ground, broken.  The restaurant would not be serving again.

I was wondering with a pang of regret where Marietta had gone when a dishevelled figure with a lopsided purple hairdo and an old face limped over to me.  The cruelty in her expression had now become mingled with resentment.  We just stood and looked at each other for a while, until she said, “You think you have won.  But the spell is broken for you, too.”

“I know,” I answered.  “But at least I can live with myself.”

“We’ll see about that,” she replied.  She then disappeared, rather against her will, I thought, into a cloud of foul-smelling smoke.

Floating

Letter from Suzy, 1992

I'm gonna miss you so much it sucks (lame card, they closed the bookstore early).  Thanks for the stickers & take care of yourself.

I'll be thinking of you - you're like the friend I've always wanted, but never found, till now.

Thank someone (NOT GOD) we were roommates!  I'll miss you tons!  I'll be home this weekend if you want to call.

Love, Suzy

P.S.  You're not ugly either & I DO believe you and I know how you're not crazy.  You were there, too, thank you so much.

Diary entry, April 29, 2004

No bad dreams last night, but I’m feeling anxious today.  I’m glad it’s Thursday and I get to talk to Carrie.

I had an unpleasant conversation with Ella last night about medication.  Certainly I’m defensive on the subject, and I know her general attitude toward it, so I should probably just avoid the subject with her.  She wasn’t mean or anything—she just told me two stories of women she knew who were on Prozak, and how fake and annoyingly happy they seemed.  Not that I'm on Prozak, but still.

She’s a great friend to me, but sometimes I wish I had someone to talk to who understood this stuff.  It can feel very lonely at times.  

Lost

There is no point asserting and reasserting what the heart cannot believe.

--Aleksander Isayevich Solzhenitsyn

Henry Street, early 1990s

I have considered you as

I watch the creeping

mould overtake the

fading paint on

the walls.

As the dampness of an

unventilated room drowns

each molecule of

air.

And I wonder which certainty

chased conviction away.

But whatever took me down the

other road—

it becomes simply another irrelevant,

better left unknown.

And just when I thought I had made

myself old over wishing for

something to whisper

like a kind stranger into

my ear,

            I understand, and I do not

            blame you

I find myself catching the edge of

every movement of

atmosphere even the leaves

have forgotten.

Listening,

waiting.

But you will not send me any dreams tonight,

when there are already so few left believing.

So it is here any chance for 

you to find me 

again.

It is here.

Just me and the mould,

listening,

waiting...

Release

You always feel when you look it straight in the eye that you could have put more into it, could have let yourself go and dug harder.

--Emily Carr

Letter from Jane Doe, 1987

I'm so glad I met you + I'm so glad you are a fellow Daphne Du Maurier fan!

Your ideas + your energy + your honesty are precious gifts -- please keep sharing them in your writing and in your personal contacts.  I hope you consider sharing your gifts with our readers, but if not, I hope you keep in touch.

I can sense you've had a lot of pain + struggle in your life, but that you've emerged full of life and hope.  If you ever just want to talk about the meaning of life + God, etc., just give me a call.

It was a great afternoon -- a pleasant surprise.

Peace + all good things.

Crooked doodles

Diary entry, April 25, 2014

I don’t really get what’s going on.  This is all pretty weird.  I wish I could just settle on being crazy.  It’s my insistence on sanity that’s the problem.  Woo hoo, who cares what the truth is, because look at me, I’m Princess Leia!  Sadly, I just can’t pull it off.  So I’m stuck in half-crazy, half-sane limbo land where I’m not sure which part of what I say is nuts and which isn’t, if any of it is either.  If that makes sense.  Which I don’t think it does.

Great.  Here comes the headache again.  I’m tired of being me, whichever me I’m being.  All of them, really.

The Dragon in the Elevator, Pt. 5

You tell me

You tell me who I am

I am too tired for questions

Take your riddle and shove it

where the sun don’t shine

I am sick to death of it

go ahead, blame me

I’m used to it

There is a dragon in

the elevator.

Boo.

Art therapy/Love, 2004

Class journal, 1993

Some people who know of my past in a general way treat me as if I'm other-worldly or a walking mine field.  I admit, it's awkward, but it doesn't have to be.  I don't expect people to take care of me or something.  Anyway, you can read the book of my life someday and it'll all make more sense, but don't hold your breath waiting for it.  My sister always jokes that our family will become the basis of an ABC Sunday night movie, a hideous thought.  I can see it now...it'll be like the Amy Fisher saga, with the perpetrators' version, our version, and the next-door neighbor's version.  (They never did like us.)  If I have anything to say on the subject, it is very sad knowing that your parents are alive but can never be a part of your life.  They're pretty crazy, but sometimes I really miss them.  Or, I guess the idea of parents.  Maybe sometime, if you want to read about attitude and body language, I'll describe my parents for you, as they are a genuine case study.

Blah blah blah blah blah.  How I do ramble, and I'm not even discussing movement.  Something about that word makes me want to italicize it.  One thing I've learned from my nasty past is how not to move.  I can not move better than most, although it isn't much to boast of.  I have to be in the right mood, however, because most of the time I have a plethora of nervous energy.  It could be worse--I could smoke.

The Promise of Rain

I have a great responsibility because I can afford to be honest.
--Mary Sarton

The Night Train

Where will the night train take me?

So many trains

all leading to distant December destinations

crammed full of strangers breathing

clouds against the windows’ glass

as they exhale their expectations

            Convinced we knew the future from what was

            afraid to confront the past in

            what we had

            become

But for the desperate promise to find a summer unknown

we dismantled the track that would lead us back

home

            No one remembered the snowstorm in

            the mountains

            how we yearned to crash

            to ride this shivering disappointment

            right down to its final

            gasp

When all aboard ride the night train alone

mark the passing of the time with the

falling of the

snow

No use in unpacking for tomorrow    

tomorrow is a thousand midnight

dreams of color

away

            This engine powered by

            frost-covered anticipation

            the eternal steel of millions of tracks

            rusting into the most elusive of

            destinations

only to find ourselves here once again

Where will the night train take me?

this I learned never to ask

            not with so many trains all

            vacating their station

            with so many tracks, less one, left for me—

            the one you have taken

Diary entry, 1994

A psychic told me once I was from another planet.  Perhaps she was right after all.  I feel strange enough.

Submission

The Hate List, 2007

109.  How you made me feel like I’m difficult and crazy and no one else could ever put up with me.

Diary entry, September 16, 1986

Oh, I could talk a blue streak about family, divorce, and such, but I’ve worn the subject to the ground.  I go see a therapist, which helps.  He’s nice and I always get to talk about what I want to talk about.  I think everyone would benefit from therapy, just to help them cope with day to day life.  I don’t think there’s a thing wrong with me at all—in fact, I think I’m better off than most because I get to get all of those yucky bad feelings off of my chest.  At least I have an alternative.

Tomorrow is Crying For You, Later

I buried the doll behind a tree.  Just as I was arranging some sticks and dead branches to camouflage the grave, a small, fluffy champagne-colored thing appeared from behind a bush.  It had large, dark eyes, and a face so flat it almost curved inward.  Barely clearing the ground, the moving fluffball either had no legs, or legs camouflaged by mass amounts of fluff.  Its head seemed too large for its body and in general the creature was so odd that for a moment I thought it must be some kind of alien from outer space.  Only once it barked in a friendly sort of way did I realize it was a dog.  “Hello,” I said, a bit uncertainly. 

The dog bared crooked teeth at me in a comical attempt at a smile.

“What are you doing here?” I asked.

The dog just wiggled its nose at me.

When I then sniffled, drying the last of my tears with my sweater sleeve, the dog shuffled over and gently head-butted my ankle.  I leaned over to pet it, which the dog seemed to like very much.  Suddenly grateful, I kissed its head.  It smelled like vanilla cake.

Escape

One must still have chaos in oneself to give birth to a dancing star.

                                       --Friedrich Nietzsche

To Remain

Notebook, February 12, 2008

The clock

            is a lie that

                        I must keep

                                    unwound

Predictability

is a lucky thing

A coin with two heads

or two tails

                        as the case may be

And yet too late

just one second too late

maybe

The joy was in

the terror of

the box

The Surface

Do you know me in the gloaming,
Gaunt and dusty grey with roaming?
Are you dumb because you know me not,
Or dumb because you know?                --Robert Frost, Flower-Gathering

Do you know me in the gloaming,

Gaunt and dusty grey with roaming?

Are you dumb because you know me not,

Or dumb because you know?

               --Robert Frost, Flower-Gathering

Diary entry, May 5, 2014

I feel nothing.  I will cut it out of me like a tumor, this thing in the middle of my chest.  All of the empty hallways.  Mile after mile of empty hallway.  The boy continues working on his own.  He doesn’t care if I know.  He doesn’t care if anyone knows.  He is a genius. 

We are all quietly sitting in an auditorium.  We are waiting for the presentation—for the balding man to come and turn on the projector and show us transparencies.  He will write on them in marker, circle the important bits, underline words, draw arrows.  We will all sit quietly but make no notes, because notes are not allowed.  We will just hear it again and again until his lecture is all we know.  And it is always the same lecture.  The same lecture again and again, with the same arrows and underlined words.  I have heard it so many times the words mean nothing to me.  It is almost as if they are in a foreign language.  They just roll past me like tumbleweed on the road.  I will stare straight ahead and hear nothing and turn written words into straws that represent intersecting hallways, each one leading somewhere I am not allowed to go.  If you stare at words hard enough you don’t see them.  You can read words out loud and not hear them.  I can read the same pages again and again and again and not recognize them if someone read them to me.  I am a master.  I am a genius.

Draft letter, 1992

I acknowledge your request for a meeting etc.

In response to your request

I am not ready for a meeting or to have any contact with you to discuss anything.

I don’t need you to decide if I need therapy.

Away

'Hope' is the thing with feathers—
That perches in the soul—
And sings the tune without the words—
And never stops—at all—

--Emily Dickinson

Diary entry, March 25, 2004

Today I saw Dr. Winston and then Carrie.  They are all on the same page about the Lexapro.  I have four boxes of free samples sitting on my counter.  I am told that this is not a failure of strength or will.  Hopefully one day I’ll believe it.

Triumph is for Dreamers, Pt. 2

I left you                                                                    

                        I did

that was me who limped behind

who whimpered and begged as

fear threatened me blind

            but I left you

                        yes, I did

Your voice now I must ignore

oh, and it sears and it soars, and it

roars with the ferocity of a

jungle cat

            because I left you back there

            with the imploring stare

            on your face

                        yes, I did

Old truths fill the

black hole where

I buried the leaking need

for you

I know all about incurable wounds

            So much and for so many weepy and

            lonely afternoons

            I meant to leave you

            for so much, my friend

                        and I did

It cost me the ravage of an atomic rage

poisoned the air with its smoke-orange 

memories

maybe it will melt my blistering heart

maybe it will leave me to freeze in 

the drift of its nuclear winter

when the death that crouches in wait 

for me

crouches close for you, too

            forgive me for pulling this scratchy scarf

            over my eyes  

            forgive me, love, because I was made to 

            leave you

                        and I did

Childhood dreams

Diary entry, April 15, 2004

My relationship with my family is basically premised on lies—and I don’t want to be a part of that anymore, particularly since the lies just go on and on.  But at the same time it’s really scary.  I had this dream last night where I was trying to make all of them happy, but when we got together they put a shroud over me while I was sleeping and said that I was dead.  When I got up and tried to interact with them, they wouldn’t acknowledge me.  I knew I wasn’t one of them anymore.  It felt sad, and just a bit lonely.

Sleep journal, July 8, 1985

I’m not quite sure what’s scaring me.  It’s kind of dreams even though I know they can’t hurt me.  They’re just so weird. 

Diary entry, April 24. 2014

Knowing matters.  Why does it matter?  Because it does.  It matters.  But that’s the game—the torture—the double bind.  You will not be allowed to have the one thing that could either give you peace or send you off the cliff of despair, or both.  This one thing will be taken from you.  Instead you will wonder whether you have banana Weetabix poisoning, or if you are right but lost in the red straw network, or if you are sort of right but kind of wrong but full of good intentions, or if you are just a nutter.  You will be told you hold the answers, but there are no answers inside.  Just a howling wind, an incessantly buzzing bee, a mass grave filled with the fallen, the ones who foolishly entered into No Man’s Land armed only with a musket and grim determination.  A musket is no defense against an ICBM.  Grim determination and a dollar will get you a ride on the bus.  Or it would have about twenty years ago.  Now you’d probably need a couple of bucks.

You will be denied all knowledge.  Knowledge will die within you, to be replaced with rotting suspicions and wilting hope.  No seeds can be planted here.  You will be left a slave to ambiguity, a prisoner of doubt.  Enjoy the banana Weetabix, because there is no going back.  And I do like it.  It’s quite nice with yogurt.  Not with milk.  Must never eat cereal with milk.  Never ever ever.

The Witch, Pt. 2

Notebook, 2013

This is a fool’s story warped into submission

Say what you want to say?

No one wants to listen

No one will help us sleep at night and

no one can save that kitten

No one wants to know if it is spring

or winter

Or whether the stars were bitten

Jump off of that bridge if you want

but that was never my mission

Blame yourself for your liar’s heart

The truth was always there but

YOU WOULDN’T LISTEN

Draft letter, 1992

I’m probably going to deny that I wrote this, just to let you know straight out (this wouldn’t fit in with my image of myself).  But I wanted to thank you for whatever it is you’ve done to help me, for putting up with my constant abuse, and for making me feel less scummy.  And I had fun, too, which according to you is okay, so I’ll trust you on that one.  I guess I do like you after all, and I will miss talking to you (kind of).  (It’d be too much to admit that I’ll miss you, so I won’t.)  Thanks for the water gun and for the bell that chased the evil spirits away while I was here.  And for the safe “connection,” which does mean a lot.

Haunted

Diary entry, April 24, 2004

I had a dream last night where I rescued a little boy.  He was very special and he knew important things, so this particular group was out to get him.  I snatched him from them, then took him to all of the places he needed to go to in order to get the information he needed--the nasty group hot on our trail the entire time.

At one point I bust us out of a building owned by the nasty group; we stole a gold convertible and drove it into St. Paul, where we kept missing buses to the train station while I found food for the boy.  There was someone else with us who kept freaking out, but I seemed fairly calm, and the boy, very cute and remarkably cheerful, all things considered.  He was smiling the entire time and he had beautiful eyes.  We just never gave up.  We kept moving.

The Locked Door

Madness, March 22, 1990

Sometimes I am lost,

wandering around my

mind.

And the madness that

touches me,

touches you,

too.

It beats me inside,

it makes me swallow

what I should

release—

but it beats me inside,

I have to swallow

or I will

choke.

It follows me,

but it can run so

much faster.

It can run so much

faster...

School essay, January 10, 1989

From When I Was Twelve

With such a beautiful family history, it’s not surprising I was afraid of turning out mentally scarred for life.  I was so nervous about it that I stopped seeing a psychologist and wouldn’t talk to my mom about any of her support groups or anything.  I didn’t want to have anything to do with it.  Now I know I was just scared of going through what my mom did, but I know I never will.  I mean, parts of it weren’t so swell, but I’d still say I had a better than average childhood.

Secrets

Diary entry, February 6, 1983

Dear Diary,

You can’t believe how relieved I am because I didn’t have to go to church today!

Notebook, 1992

Dear me—

Hi there.  I won’t ask how you’re doing because I know, so...I guess you’re doing all right, you’re still smiling sometimes, although yesterday you were pretty angry over a dumb dominoes game.  I know, it wasn’t the dominoes game that made you mad.  I know it upset you when Ryan wouldn’t leave you alone, why won’t he leave me alone when I ask him to?  Anyway, you’re spinning and sinking again, I can tell, which doesn’t make you very happy although you know why.  I know you’re just sick of all this crap, you wish it could be over and you wish you could make your past vanish, or at least not matter, but you can’t.  Just accept it.  Yeah, I know, it’s hard to accept.  You’re getting that scared despairing desperate fear again in your chest, it had left you alone for a few weeks but it’s back again, like it or not.  The world’s not going to disappear any time soon.

Diary entry, May 25, 2004

It’s a good thing I’m on the Lexapro or else I don’t think I’d survive this phase of my alleged recovery.  But I really have come too far to go back.  For the second time in my life I've passed the proverbial point of no return.

The Crooked Window

Every man has the right to risk his own life in order to preserve it.
--Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Essay, April 26, 1989

Picture a black, moonless night.  Picture yourself working your way up a mountain, a mountain so tall that the peak is not in sight.  You have climbed and climbed for what seems like forever, and you wonder if you will ever reach a plateau.  Forced to stumble on in darkness, you curse and cry of the cruel fate which pushed you to this endless mountainside. 

For so long you have walked alone, frightened and cold, that you ignore the paths which spring up beside you and lead in unknown directions.  Sometimes you hesitate, tempted by the chance of finding a better route, but you kill the longing by reminding yourself that this mountain is all you know and it is all you have.  Do not take chances – do not stray off the road which has always supported and welcomed you

You took a different path once.  And even though it was beautiful, and even though it was warm and inviting, it was not the easy way you had been led to believe.  It too was a struggle, and you were not prepared to face the difficulties ahead.  In anger and confusion you turned to your mountain, and now your mountain forces you to painfully remember the path you once knew.  Do not take another risk although you do not know whether or not the risk is as dangerous as you once believed.

You have poured every ounce of your energy into scaling your mountain.   If you abandoned your mountain, you might not have any life left inside of you.  No matter what you have been told, you know that they mountain They call Hate will never break your heart and lie to you, as the mountain Love did long ago.

Notebook, 2013

Because you are the waving gun         

Because you are the last admission

Don’t blame me for your bleeding gums

You are the one who brushed them

Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one's courage.
- Anais Nin

Notebook, June 19, 1990

Forgiveness will infect me

slowly.

Poison for me to swallow.

Oh, but how much better

I will feel.

How much better I will

feel.

Hate is nothing precious,

nothing scarce.

And my love for you,

so out of touch.

This love I have lost for you,

I never hope to find again.

Yet, let forgiveness color

my memories.

Let it color my

reality.

Because it surely will.

For now I will remember,

because one day I will

forget.

And when I am surprised

once again,

never worry—

you never need to worry.

Forgiveness will come.

Diary entry, February 3, 1983

Mom is back home today FOR GOOD!

The Slow Twisting Place

Email, May 18, 2005

Thanks for the email, I’m fine.

I’m surprised that you would think anything is wrong.

Nothing is wrong, just like you did these past several months I’ve been taking time for myself to work on things.  But I appreciate your concern.  Everything is fine.   I hope you had a nice birthday.  Your boyfriend sounds nice.  Unfortunately we aren’t having visitors right now, but thanks for the offer.

I hope your job’s going well.

Love, me