What Was Once A Home

I am home.

Or what was once my home but now just a museum that holds my old memories. The memories of pain, of heartache, betrayal and guilt. But these moments born from agony, blessed by religion are not all bad. They are not all memories of broken devastation and morbid curiosity. Just most of them.

I sift through pictures of myself as a child, the pictures of me with a sheet on my head, of me playing Mary in the Christmas pageant and of me with a smile that says I know things will get better eventually. But pictures fade. The past whispers lies to our future. Lies of a child pretending that things will be all right in the morning, that god really is alive and this is just his way of testing us all.

Unconditional self-sacrifice. This is what I give and give and give. And continue to give.

I'm tired of being prayed for, of being told I'm not good enough. I'm tired of searching for some semblance of a life well lived, of the unending support of parents who don't understand what it means to give. I'm tired of trying to make them love me, of searching for their support and trust. That I'm living my life the best way I know how and it's not personal. I didn't become a disappointment on purpose.

In my heart, I know they love me. I know they want what's best for me. At least this is what I tell myself to stop the tears, to stop the dry heaving and self-hatred. This is what I tell myself when they come in beaming about a young married couple, a wedding of purity that was just performed at their church. Each word spoken is like a punch in the stomach, the wind is knocked out of me and I sit. I am unable to do anything else but sit.

When was I ever pure? When did I ever hold this fictional innocence they once believed I had? When was I ever the child they envisioned me to be?

This is what I am. This is who I am, no more and no less. My anger grows and I desperately want to end this search of peace and gratification. I know it is an endless quest to find the parents I had always hoped they would be. They disappointed me, they were never enough for me. And yet somehow twenty-five years later here I stand with all the hopelessness I felt at five. I will never be understood by these people, I will never be forgiven and most of all I will never be loved for this person I have become.

As I lay down to sleep in my old bed tonight, a little part of me that had held on to this place, this home, so tightly is drifting away. Soon this endless quest will end and another will begin. A new journey with attainable hope and realized dreams. A new journey to a life lived for myself.

Depression, My Bitter Friend

she sits in silence
awash in her statuesque beauty
she dreams of vibrant colors and broken hearts
standing at the edge of her mortal abyss
she waits, she stays in silence
"please do not take me today"
she screams at the invisible, phantom pain
that attacks her daily without fail
she must fight to win
and every moment the battle increases
every moment she loses more of herself
in the game she never learned to play
self-sacrificing desperation
she breaks the darkness with movement

"you will not have me today. I won’t give in, give up until I am whole again. You have taken my innocence, my confidence. You have stolen my freedom and I intend on having it. Maybe not today, maybe not the next but one day I will stand in the light again and piece myself back together. You will not have won, this is just the beginning of my struggle. And struggle I will"

again covered in darkness
she sits, she waits for it to come

Next Year

as i walk along these streets
of this light coated city
with bells of the salvation
ringing in my head
there is nothing left to give
i do not feel the celebration this year
i do not feel the joy or peace
i want to stay where i belong this Christmas
with the homeless, the few, the strong
home is the hardest place to be
when all you want is a truly honest family
there is no warmth by the fire
there is no quaint mistletoe
we do not live in a painting or believe in Santa Claus
it hasn't snowed here yet
we just got our tree that took me a week to decorate
and my cards were all sent late
i feel the void, the bottomless emptiness
of what i've always wanted, of what i'll never have
a safe, secure and blessed home
but instead
i will climb aboard that train
to take me out of the city into the state
i will be bound to my old home
i'll drink the eggnog, i'll sing the carols
i will hold a candle
and pray for my true self, my true home next year

That Christmas

*because Liz told me to


I did not understand
when I took you by the hand that Christmas
that I would still be holding it this one
We made snow angels, I lost my phone
we did not kiss
because your heart belonged to another
until we did kiss, and you have been mine since.

You are my greatest gift
even when we can't quite seem to sing the same lullaby
we will always seal the night with one kiss.

Sitting on that bench
looking at the lights those few nights before Christmas Eve
I never thought of how often we'd laugh
or how I would fall asleep by your side
I didn't know what this could feel like
and that I could keep you for always
my greatest gift that Christmas and this.

Untitled #4

Written November 19, 2007

I walk home in the cold frosty November air and I am reminded of a sad song. But I can’t remember the name, I can’t remember who sang it. I can only remember how hearing that song made me feel. There is one light on in my apartment building but I know no one is home. I am the only one. I am here and no one is around to see it. The light burns blue and I notice a notice on the door. A clean white sheet of paper written in agony, sealed with tears. A woman’s son has died. A woman on my block has lost her son tonight; she will say her prayers and his too. She will never again tell him to pick up his clothes, to not ride his bike in the street, to not talk to strangers, to not hit his sister. She will sleep in his bed tonight; she will hold his baby boy scent close to her so she might never forget. So that she might hold his memory for one minute longer. This is the feeling of loss; this is what it feels like to feel. My grandfather couldn’t get up. A son dies on a bridge. A young woman dies of a rare blood disease. And yet we still continue to get up in the morning. We brush our teeth and we eat our breakfast while taking our vitamins. We shower and pick up clothes and we go to work. A childless mother, a friendship remembered through a scrapbook, a desperate attempt to hold on to those we love but we have lost. We all cry ourselves to sleep at night.

Waiting in the Wings

waiting in the wings
awaiting all these things
to clear up and rock my unsteady soul to sleep
AND I AM STANDING ONSTAGE
alone and unsure
the lights are hot and I am still

But
while waiting to go on
I hoped the act before me would last a lifetime more
hoping for a time when I won't be scared
when I will no longer fear the expression of my true self to another

the sound of
my voice echoes from the walls
reverberating in this hall of chaos
choosing this life is never easy
the life of a performer, of a writer, of an artist
continually challenging yourself
waiting for the show to end, waiting for it to begin
Waiting to go home where you can once again hide
from yourself, from no one and everyone

My
night is
finally over and all I want is more.
I hide in the shadows and fade into the background
and more, more
Oh yes there will be more.

Cigarettes and Meaning

"I have no will power,” she says as she stubs out her Marlboro
taking a sip from her stale beer
and wondering when she will change
knowing she will never change, at least not the way she planned
another episode, another hour lost
another moment when she won't have to think
about her stagnant life
minutes pass, hours
of blank thoughts and dull dreams
vivid images leave her mind
because she loses herself every time in the buzzing, blurring void
"my life has meaning" she breathes in and breathes out
but doesn't breathe enough
never enough, there is never enough air
"Taking charge of my life is not ever easy, living the life I have planned is not ever enough"
breaking at the wrong time, cracking at the worst moment
she chain smokes because it helps, it makes everything fade
and makes her world easier to deal with
"I am a shit show in a blue wig" and for now that will have to be enough.
and with the flick of her lighter, cigarette poised in between two fingers
she burns down another one.