Around the Elephant

I don’t read instructions but I keep them around for future reference

I start sacrilegiously but tend to end with reverence

I don’t have a plan as often as I have a man: that’s a poor combination depending on the situation

When I illuminate my dusky corners, I see the sparkles that were there all along

Though I awake with amnesia, I dream in song

I’ve learned to love doing nothing, to look forward to stillness and inactivity, to settle into peace with humor and curiosity

Why so serious? Asked the fly to the spider

Drawing close, the fly offered hot cider

Take, eat, remember me, or not

The gift was unconditional anyway

It is enough for me to have a cosy corner and a cup of tea tonight

Listening to the rain, old friend and fellow traveler, land with gentle impact outside my caravan of dreams

I am warmed by the glow of light within and without

Perhaps the deafening din of my own carryings on will simmer down enough for me to listen to the voices of others

Sacred silence is my favorite meeting place, in that field beyond words where kindred spirits melt into bliss

Then I return here, to my life of toils and troubles

I live with one foot in each world, walking the line between Earth and the Divine

To the Men

In the middle of the night

Life catches up to me

My heart is both hunted and hunter, yet I stay in one place

None of these poems are about you

All of these poems are about you

Looking across the battlefield

I see many hearts, some still beating for me

Fallen soldiers, which way did your body land?

When I recognized that you did not serve my soul, I left you

I left you with respect and hoped the best for you

At least I do not call you spiteful names

Nor do I reject the lovely moments we shared

I do not fire hurtful words at you to make myself feel more powerful

Even as you show me how small your mind is

Now

I used to run with the boys

I was determined to prove that I had the biggest balls, that I could withstand it all

Until I couldn’t stand how near death my own ego brought me

When men bought me

I thought I was clawing my way out of poverty

But no amount of money can undo the trauma I endured

All I can do is rewire my brain

Write my story to have a happy ending

Starting with a happy now

I outran the boys and became a rich man so that I didn’t have to marry a rich man

Now I am happily married to the man of my dreams

I don’t ruffle my feathers over the penis-size competition at work- the self-stroking of egos which is habitual amongst my male colleagues

Though I am attracted to women, I’ve never had a penis

I’m ok with that- at least I’ve never raped anyone, never left anyone stressed about what they couldn’t see- STIs and pregnancy

I am happy now, as happy as can be after one has endured the smattering of battering my childhood gave me

I continued the chain of abuse on myself into adulthood, not realizing my own role in the game, not seeing how I invited abusers into my life

I’m getting off this trauma-train; I jump off the caboose, let it ride away without me

Next to the tracks, nestled in the woods, I am happy now

Reality

You’re creeping on my heart

Changing my reality

When did you start moving in

Did you ask me

When will you pick up after yourself

You’re changing my reality

Fast-forward a year or two

I’ve grown to accept you

I’d still like you to clean up your mess

You’ve changed my reality

I care about you as a person, and how you treat me as a person

I don’t mind your broke down truck or your empty wallet

We are rich in love

We are supported by a foundation of spiritual love

Thank you for changing my reality

History

My man says he wants to know my history

I’d rather let it remain a mystery

I’d rather root into the present and grow a vibrant life

Than be blown over by memories of past storms and strife

Battered by hard knocks too soon

I hungered for the elusive silver spoon

How can I tell him about that first burning sting

Of too-soon penile penetration, I was barely fourteen

Of teenage crushes that crushed my heart

To this day I wrestle with heartbreak in the dark

Of older men with erectile dysfunction

I thought I’d moved beyond that at this junction

How can I tell him about the prima donnas

Inexplicably exploding bombs of drama

How can I tell him about the mobster

Who said I was safe because he had a loaded gun in his trunk

If I was so safe, why was he driving drunk?

How can I tell him about the rich man who offered me everything

Except happiness and peace

I’ve dropped men so fast they felt hit by concrete

Don’t come between me and my dreams

I’ve made a lot of mistakes, painful and blistery

Yet I keep moving forward to write my own history

Sleep Talking

Long ago and far away

On a bus grinding through the night

The air thick with sweat and grime

All we had was time

Beer and ice cream on my lips

Bitterness and liquor on his

The man next to me said that I was afraid of talking in my sleep

He overstepped the boundary that I failed to establish between us

Sometimes when I wake up alone, I wonder if my lover heard me sleep-talking and left me to wallow in my past

I want to tell him the truth about my life, but I fear that he would stop loving me,

or worse- rehash it endless times and tell his religious family who would judge me as a hell-bound, lying, baby-killing whore

They’d be right, in a sense

I have exchanged sex for money and I’ve had 3 abortions, each one horrible in its own way, but not as bad as being stuck in an abusive, disempowering situation

Judge not, motherfuckers

I don’t want any man to judge the decisions I’ve made about my body

Least of all a man who is financially dependent on my career: a profession which swallowed my fetuses whole

My past is nobody’s business but my own

I don’t want to be given a hard time for the hard times I’ve already been through

I’m trying to heal and move on

I’m trying to meet myself with compassion for the trauma I’ve endured

I am strong and tough and vulnerable and delicate

My dark secrets are at once more innocent and scandalous than my jealous partners imagine

I didn’t want to be pregnant anymore so I stopped being pregnant

You weren’t supporting me by being broke and leaving me shamefully unmarried

I didn’t want to spend the weekend with you so I didn’t

I regret the weekend away because the other men treated me both better and worse than you, but I love you- painfully clear now that the hormonal storm of pregnancy has simmered down

Why do I set myself up for drama and disaster? I’m trying to heal but your rehashing of the past dredges up emotional detritus, dragging me back

My old stress addiction dies hard

I clamp my jaw

My teeth grind like a bus in the night

I pray that I didn’t sleep talk last night

Sex, Money, Dishes

Tell me you’ve never fought with your partner about sex, money, or dishes.

Sex

I used to fight endlessly about sex, mainly because I didn’t want to have it but my partners did, so we’d fight and fuck, then I’d cry and be blinded by images of destroying my body or their body just to stop the rape and the torture of not feeling safe in my skin. Amazingly, we all survived and now I have a loving partner with whom I have gold-medal sex; you have to experience it to believe it, it’s like I’m cashing in on some sex fund which I invested in long ago. Happily I don’t fight about sex anymore- I’ve got a man I’m attracted to inside and out, and he loves me the way I want to be loved.

Money

I used to exchange sex for money. It seemed like there was always too much sex and not enough money in those transactions, or transgressions. Even those back-alley deals were more straight forward than my relationships in which sex was exchanged for the illusion of not being alone, for food, housing or ‘safety’, though I learned that the cost to my physical, mental and spiritual wellbeing which false relationships exacted was not worth the dinners, drinks, gifts of lingerie, attention or the roof over my head. You might get raped if you travel alone, but if you travel with a man you are guaranteed to get raped. Live within your means because fine dining won’t taste good if you are eating with a strange man, believe me I know. If you have to learn on your own I understand, however if my years of pain can help prevent a moment of your suffering, it will have been worth it.

Dishes

Rare is the man who finishes the dishes. Common are the men who stack the dishes artfully in the sink until there is barely room to turn on the faucet. I have noticed this pattern during my co-habitations with men. I’ve done too many dishes. It especially irks me when men drown sponges in the rinsed yet still not washed dish pile, unperturbed as the sponge decomposes into a musty mess. Men seem deaf to the silent cries of the forgotten dish sponge. Day after day, I rescue the sponge, wringing it out and restoring it to its rightful place safe on dry land, in sight. My man shows his love for me not only through our award-winning sex, but also through money (ie, responsibility for personal  finances to contribute to our future together) and dishes: ladies and gentlemen, my man did the dishes tonight, thus allowing me time to write the words you read. If a man loves you he will want to learn your love language, which you must teach him with patience, positive reinforcement, and more patience.

I grew up doing the dishes, in poverty, and sexually molested by family and friends. My sister would beat me when she got in trouble for not doing the dishes with me after we were told to do them, but the alternative would have been getting beaten by my parents for not doing the dishes, so I was going to get beat no matter what I did. I wished that someone would do the fucking dishes with me. A girl can get lonely amidst the dissolving suds.

HPV

She told me that I have HPV

Human papilloma virus: the ghost of ex-partners past came back to haunt me

I want to line up my exes: the awkward horn-bag teens, the sex clients who shortchanged and stole from me, the abusive drunks, dramatic douchebags, one-night-too-long one night stands, and interrogate them whodunnit.

I will never know, of course

I may have gotten HPV from dreadful fingering, though it was probably from unprotected intercourse

Intercourse most likely undesired, as most of the sex I’ve had was unwanted by me

It could have been worse, at least it was only HPV which I contracted after riding bareback on so many dozens of dicks- I don’t know now many men have slept with me, but any one of them could have easily given me HIV, somehow I was spared

God, you were there

Kids, don’t try this at home

I tell my cervix to hang in there, I will make it up to you, treat you right

My ex-boyfriends aimed and fired at my cervix: the bullseye of my reproductive tract

Whether I got HPV long ago or from my most recent mistake, it is in me now and I may lose a piece of me in a LEEP if I don’t overcome this virus

My LEEP will be a leap of faith that I will regrow intact and complete, heal myself and still have the power to create and give my baby a better life than mine

That is the goal in all I do, even the abortions I’ve endured were to make a better future for my children than the hell I’ve lived through

So listen little virus, I am a strong, powerful giant and I will destroy you

I’ve survived too much to be taken down by the likes of you- senseless double-strand of DNA who has consumed too many of my sisters, lost to the sands of time

You won’t take me, the war is on and it got personal

There is no way I’m going to let one of those awful men leave a lasting lesion on my body

I am the supreme iron dragon goddess warrior, and my healing potential is infinite

My abilities to love and forgive and understand are among my many strengths

Watch out, virus, watch out

Instead of spreading you to someone new, I will melt you with my amazing body, take you down with my brilliant immune system

You will no longer struggle to survive, you will unite with the Spirit which flows through all things, and you will flow right out of me in peace

 

You Can Have It

Darling, though we’ve never met

You rolled the dice, you placed a bet

That you could win a lawsuit

Born of the heartbreaking news

That your baby died inside you

A horrific experience, true

But of your baby’s death, I had nothing to do

The coroner’s report reveals the truth

Your baby passed away at least a day before you ever walked my way

Darling, I didn’t even lay eyes upon you

I was being a team player, not a baby slayer

In going above and beyond to help another

I didn’t imagine I’d be sued by a mother

You said we dropped the ball

But we were never playing at all

If it is money you are looking for,

Honey you’re knocking on the wrong door

All those years I could have been earning

I spent in medical school learning

about medicine, not about law

Perhaps I wasn’t well trained after all

You want us to take the blame

for your unspeakable pain

Can you imagine what I have given up

just to help you, is it never enough?

For you, I went hungry, I went without sleep

Hard years away from my family, I didn’t see

I got stuck with needles, splashed with blood

Only for you to smear my name like it was mud

On the journey that led me to you,

I gave up love, I gave my life

I turned away from ease and took on strife

Of my own pregnancies, I sacrificed them all

My weeping uterus bled raw

Just to give you my best, I gave up the rest-

My youth, my babies and childbearing years, too many unnumbered tears

I stayed in an abusive relationship throughout medical school

Because the only way to escape my abuser would have been to drop out and forego my education

I stayed in hell for all the women held back from their full potential because of men

Though it was the hardest thing I ever did, and I still have nightmares about him

I don’t feel safe in my skin, but then again I never did

I wonder if I’d do it all again, just to reach out my hand, only to have you bite it

I fought hard to serve you, and serve you I did

Without a word of thanks from you, kid

Then again, we’ve never met

I’m named in your lawsuit, yet

What I’m trying to tell you

Is that my medical degree,

My heart, my mind

My hard work, and all my precious time-

You can have it

It was always yours anyway

Everything I do, dear patient, is for you

I give you my life- you can have my lawsuit too

In trying to hurt me, you only harm yourself

We are all connected in the One True Self

Limitlessness is bliss

Reach out and return the infinite kiss

Available to you at any time

You can have it if you understand this rhyme

Alice in Recoveryland

Alice had her heart broken

When she was quite small

And healing a broken heart

Isn’t easy at all

So she drank

To forget it all

But she couldn’t forget,

Even when she felt tall

In fact, the more she drank

The more she felt like she was falling

And falling…

Until- kerplunk!

She hit rock bottom, landed on her badunk

She had no where to go but up

But getting up is hard when you are on your badunk

Though Alice was hurting, she was also incredibly strong

So she climbed and she climbed, though her journey was long

To this day, she is climbing still

She is higher than she ever felt when she was looking out over windowsills

In towers guarded by grumpy ogreish men

Alice is a survivor, and she’d survive it all again

Her heart may have been broken,

But it never stopped beating

Though the sweetness of love was fleeting

And the bitter years of sadness and tears

Left a sting on her cheek and made her feel meek

She is finding her true voice

She is exercising her choice

To express herself in this world

Hers is the story of one small girl

Who grew into womanhood

The only way she could

Smoking this, drinking that

Sleeping with men wearing mad hats

Alice is every woman, in a way

Doing her best to recover from her past today

Building herself a better future

Re-writing her fairy tale

After giving so many men happy endings

She is creating a happy ending for herself

Filled with love, hope, and peace