writing prompt using all the words “rage, order, justice, common…”

underneath the anger, the rage, is the raw, soft belly of pain… it demands no explanation, no justice for past transgressions, no need of vengeance… does not desire assigning of blame or even restoration of order… but simply the freedom to spill forth, with abandon, with complete fullness the dark depth of its well… reservoir of secrets, silence, sorrow… the grief so threatening, so risky, so common to her that she somehow forgot how to feel it.

and here i am again… trying to get around it, skirt the rawness, the reality with the right words… think instead of actually feel… anything but to wade through it… sit with it, stay with it, with myself without DOING anything.

i keep bumping up against this overwhelming desire to fix it, figure it out so that i can be finished… when the point is to become who i am as an actual feeling being…

not my own

 

i am not my own

my soul subject to ownership

by she who dreamt in into existence

conceived and carried it

cradled in her secret soft places

claiming the tiny creature

as her own

perfect for mending her broken places

filling in the emptiness

perhaps finally satiating

the nagging need to find wholeness

she breathed life into these lungs

ensuring they never again

know the freedom of drawing

their own

 

writing prompt… “scars you have”…

too many to count. although i have attempted to number, catalog each one… no doubt in the light of day, in the wake of a new resolution, after the storm… in the shadow of shame. but a new one always seems to appear… or two… or sometimes sixteen, and my census is once again incorrect, incomplete… not having taken into account that my demons did not sign their names to my carefully crafted contract with hope, with healing, with the promise of freedom. they refuse to commit to leaving any inch of bare skin unmarred.

i am littered with the pink, waxy trails telling of battles and intimate love affairs with blades… and the unmistakable mark of a flame’s kiss. penance for her sins… permanent punishment that somehow has yet to pay the price.

and i am ashamed… of what they shout… speak in leu of my stubborn silence. they scream of weakness… of the wretched tears my eyes refuse to release… bear my nakedness to a world i seek so desperately to hide from. and i wonder if i will have any words left to spew from these lips when my hands finally put the blade down.

writing prompts and the gift of friendship…

a relatively new, and yet somehow amazingly deep and familiar friendship has brought encouragement, comfort, challenge, and creative inspiration to my life recently. cyndi and i spent last saturday evening sipping a iced “dirty chai” concoction, complete with a shot of expresso, in an local independent coffee house she had stumbled upon. seated at a pub table, our writing supplies, carefully selected poetry anthologies, and a mason jar stuffed with an array of brightly colored strips of construction paper. each piece contained a single phrase… a prompt… a starting place… a beginning.

timer set for ten minutes… prompt randomly selected… pen to paper, we wrote… stream of consciousness… seeking to subvert our innate “editing software” and allow our souls to speak… write from the deep places where we tell ourselves the truth. and it was awesome.

and when the alarm sounds, we share… reading aloud, without critique, and with reverence… giving voice and space to our stories, ourselves… each other.

this is freedom for me… it looses the chains that so often bind my tongue, and permits my fingers to speak what has been shrouded in silence, no longer struggling to assign language to what seems unspeakable, untouchable, just out of reach… and perhaps, in time, shed the skin of shame.

so as cyndi and i continue this writing process, committing to completing a ten minute prompt exercise daily… i thought i would use this space to share some of my rare moments of “unedited ellie”…

PROMPT… “i cannot remember”…

what it is to be me. the imperfect, messy, uncontained, uncontrolled, uninhibited, brilliantly crafted creature that i dream i once was… entered into this world loved, desired, cherished, or at least that is how the story is told. not that i doubt the underlying nugget of truth in this history… family fables told over dinner tables and in celebration of our tiny, fleeting achievements. it is more that i believe i came to exist more out of the desire- the absolutely consuming need to create something, someone to fill in the gaping, endless holes lusting for completion… to be satiated. and so perhaps i am not my own, my soul was never subject to ownership by anyone than she who dreamt me into existence… carried it, carefully knowing the fragility… and breathed life into its tiny lungs, ensuring that they would never again know the freedom of drawing their own.

i would not have blamed you…

most of me was waiting

convinced you would come to me

flooded by the depth of your need

holes i was familiar with

a void i knew how to fill

i would not have blamed you

nor found fault in the

weakening of your will

worn down by her indifference

witholding

unwillingness to love

or be loved

and so i stood

broken heart still beating

empty hands open

prepared to carry your burden

as well

Protected: that day never came…

This post is password protected. To view it please enter your password below:

Password:

midnights

it is empty in this room

save for the life that

escapes with each breath

his forced and labored

and mine silent and effortless

he entrusts these midnights to me

soft endless gray moments

delicate hours where angels

stare out into the city lights

glossy eyed with tears

we are both waiting

in unspoken anticipation

of sleep or death

satisfied with which ever

steals his soul first

things not yet lost

things not yet lost

“the cancer is back”

reading from a college ruled steno

matter-of-factly

practicing

she tries to memorize the words

as if that makes it easier

for a young mother

to tell her children

one daughter and one son

that she is dying

not today

probably not while the leaves

are still falling

but the snow’s thaw

may leave their lives empty

and she aches with knowing

the pain

of things not yet lost

Protected: suffocating under the secrets

This post is password protected. To view it please enter your password below:

Password:

the secret keeper

     it is absolutely my job to hold the secrets, the information that is too dangerous… caries the power to destroy our family, everything and everyone i hold dearest. 

     at first it was a shared burden… an unspoken pact between him and i… a shared silence that preserved the peace, and was necessary for life to remain livable for all of us. and i understood… could see why he needed me… why i needed to be strong for him… love him like she refused to… just between us.

     but lying in the snow, staring up at the sky that March morning, it became mine alone to bear… and the weight of it was crushing, making my chest ache with each breath. i wished i could just stop breathing… wished i was in the ground beside him, for both of us to buried with our secrets forever.

     so i picked up my yoke… after all, i had created this situation… it was my fault, my guilt to bear. and i was sure as hell going to be successful at it, make sure that no one could see my shame… there was too much at stake. and every time it bubbled up… some shred of truth threatened to escape, i stuffed it back down… telling myself to “remember what matters.”

     so i smiled and lied… swallowing down the secrets, convinced the smallest slip would topple our house of cards, and i would have failed with the one thing entrusted to me. and for the most part i did a pretty good job… played the roles of daughter, sister, protector… secret keeper.

     and when the facade threatened to crumble under the weight, slip through my fingers… i found ways to keep myself in line… keep my lips sealed, and punish those parts that continued to allow the shame to seep out, selfishly seeking relief and absolution… someone to make it stop… seeking rescue.

     so much of me would rather silence those parts forever, than to face and expose the pain and deceit… than to risk destroying the lives of those i love… than fail.

     but other pieces cry out for shedding of this role, exhausted from the constant vigilance and energy it requires… tired of denying the truth and my heart… sick of existing in this prison, with hopelessness always trailing behind, waiting to devour me.

     i so desire freedom… but i feel torn.