The Missing Ingredient

I finally found the ingredient that was missing in all my previous relationships: forgiveness.

Besides the fact that I repeatedly dated needy, jealous, dramatic, alcoholic, narcissistic, energy vampire, borderline personality disorder types, my relationships failed because I failed to forgive.

My marriage is infinitely sweeter now that I am no longer clinging bitterly to expectations and resenting my partner when he falls short, no matter how reasonable my requests seem to me.

I give myself and my partner permission to mess up endlessly; to selfishly waste time and money and to be forgiven even for our own inability to forgive.

Newly armed with this panacea to soothe any interpersonal wound, my ex-boyfriends don’t seem sinister after all, but simply in need of forgiveness.

The floodgates of my heart swing wide open and I feel pure love wash our transgressions clean.

When I get lost in the humanness of my life, may I return home to a heart connected to the Divine.

May I be both forgiven and forgiver.

I finally hear you, sacred silence.

Too Much

Are you upset because you feel that you gave too much, darling?

Too much love and affection, only to end in rejection?

Too much energy and time, too much of your body and mind, did you spend too many of your dimes?

Too many gifts, too many kisses?

You were too much for me

I risked my life for you, with every imposed act of unprotected sex

Your arms were prison bars to me, your body was a wall I couldn’t make fall

Finally free with the help of geography, I set to work separating you from me

I told you so many times that your love was toxic for me

You cared only for yourself, I was an object on your shelf

We both gave up the chance to be with dozens of other lovers

I gave you the best years of my life and you riddled them with strife

I thank you for all of that, even though being trapped in an unhealthy relationship damn near killed me

You were my drinking buddy and my drunk enemy

You never kept the peace for long

A loud grievance about how the world did you wrong was perpetually erupting

Despite the fact that you were a spoiled, silver spoon over-fed blond haired, blue-eyed white American male

Honey, your complaining is still ringing in my ears

You gave me the time of my life, never after

Our friends went out of their way to keep us apart because the damage we caused each other was so painful for them to watch

Our approaches to life are opposite

I ask what I can give

You ask what you can take

No wonder you were so fond of me

You want without end

I could never satisfy you

I am at peace now, and I wish the same for you

I no longer feel torn by my simultaneous love and loathing for you

I feel only grateful to have survived our relationship

It was almost too much

Spelunking

What if I stopped caring about pleasing you and everyone?

What if I felt safe even around people who are upset?

How much energy would I free up, and what would I do with it?

How much lighter would my body feel, would my breath flow easily?

Would I be able to sleep at night, without feeling hunted by your animosity?

Would my pounding heart simmer down, and my jaw unclench?

What would I think about, if I weren’t worrying all the time how to make you happy?

What if I told you that your feelings are your responsibility?

What if I liberated myself from unrealistic expectations?

What if I let go of expectations for others?

If you love me, it doesn’t feel like it to me.

I want positive, supportive, unconditional love from those who practice humility, humor, and curiosity.

I radiate those qualities when I’m not lost in a cave of depression.

When spelunking, bring a helmet and a light.

A helmet to protect you so that thoughts of suicide don’t become acts of suicide.

A light source as a spiritual anchor to remind you not to take yourself too seriously.

Cup

This is it, the big one

The debridement of my most primordial wound

Dissection of what my parents did and didn’t do

Releasing us both from the impossible task of fulfilling each other’s expectations

Seeing them for the first time as the narcissists they are

Pretending to love me only when I made them look good

Spitting on me with their words and crushing me under the boots of their ego when I was hurting

When I needed them most they abandoned me

Like childish bullies, they took no responsibility for themselves or others

I’ve turned my face to them time and time again looking for love, searching in vain, coming up short

They refuse to see the parts of me that they don’t want to

My father told me I was flabby and looked like a monster when I was 15 years old

I subsisted on a high-glycemic diet stolen from my workplace because there wasn’t enough food at home, which resulted in weight gain and horrendous acne

I didn’t see my father for what he was; a negligent parent and an asshole.

Instead I wallowed in sorrow for my innate deficiencies, contemplated suicide because I wasn’t beautiful enough

Don’t worry Dad, I was still attractive enough to get raped enough times to lose count

As if you care

I can’t imagine treating my child the way you treat me

Lord, help these wounds heal

I am ready to move on, to break the inter-generational chain of toxic parenting

To write a new song instead of the broken-record of your critical dialogue

You can live your life in crisis mode, but don’t impose your crises on me anymore.

You imprinted your patterns of anxiety on my developing body and brain

I felt the need to gain the gushing approval of everyone around me

To be the smartest, prettiest and most accomplished in the room

I made many men swoon

I don’t need that anymore

Take your booze and do with it what you will

My cup is full

I depend on no man to keep it filled

Poetry

Poetry won’t stop leaking out of me
My hands get a tingle
My mind sings a jingle
I search for paper on which to scratch
Anything within reach
Backs of receipts, napkins, old scraps
All other activity falls to the wayside
Until I see the poem before my eyes

I write about the unspoken suffering of my life
Of being brutally silenced
Since infancy I was trained not to cry when I wanted to cry
My feelings were an inconvenience to those by my side
I came to understand that my needs were not important enough to be expressed, and if I made the mistake of even showing how I felt through my face or my body, such truth was beaten out of me by those closest to me
Far worse than the violence was the mental abuse
and even worse than the mental abuse was the neglect
Sometimes I felt invisible and other times I felt like I wasn’t invisible enough
I wished that I could fly away
The shouting was so loud, where could I hide?
I locked my door but they always burst inside
No boundaries
I cried in secret silence everyday
I learned that I existed to be what others wanted me to be
I delivered what was required
Though inside me raged a fire
The primordial desire
To be free
I’d give anything to live just for me

When I became grown, I left home
But my well-trained brain followed me wherever I roamed
Autonomy is foreign to me
I met many lovers but they always chose me
Because I pleased them easily
I never returned the favor
Of serving up the criticism they so abundantly showered upon me

Joyfully, I recently discovered that the suffering of my life has a name;                                                            Narcissistic Abuse
There are healthier ways to love, ladies and gentlemen
I want more harmony and less harm done to me
I am trying to create a life that I want to live,
One where I give from my heart instead of feeling like a marionette jerked around by the malicious hands of fear

I want to tell others how I feel and what I am thinking
Speak from my heart
Release my throat chakra
Weave a tapestry with the golden thread of my truth
Relentlessly I work at this nearly impossible task
Like a seed below the soil, the only place I have to grow is toward the sun
But healing my mind feels like building a castle on quicksand
My efforts collapse, fall and fail every day

I must remember to give myself compassion, the way I try to give my abusers compassion
I have succeeded before in speaking my mind
With every break-up, no matter how clumsy my wording or how long it took me to work up the courage
I want to tell my exes that when I hurt them by finally breaking up with them, it was because I was trying to reclaim my life and honor both of us
God, have I suffered at the hands of men
When they hurt me, it was because they were trying to get a rise out of me, or hurt me out of spite
I want to tell them: Get a life, you jerks

May they stop terrorizing me and find inner peace swiftly

I feel awful about the things I’ve done that I didn’t want to do
Especially the things I’ve done with men
The sex was violent, violating, painful and humiliating
If only I could forget it, but even my body remembers
I think I will always see men as perpetrators, even though not all of them are
An overwhelming amount of the ones I’ve known are
I struggle to shake them off me when they’re ready to rape me yet they’re nowhere to be found when I’m ready to abort our unplanned pregnancies
That excruciating physical and emotional pain is just for me

The bloody landscape of no man’s land

I understand that as an adult survivor of child abuse, I attract abusers
I’m developing a repellant
By noticing patterns and breaking them
Prevent problems before they start
The best defense is a good offense

I still worry
Worry that my heart will always feel broken
Worry that the countless times I was raped will catch up with me in the form of STDs or infertility
I worry that I will always live in fear
I worry that I will always worry
I worry that I will feel sad and mad all my life
I worry that I will continue to suffer though I shouldn’t worry about that because suffering is guaranteed and worrying will do no good
Life is pain
That’s the rule of the game
I can still win the game of life even though I was born with disadvantages, for my advantages are greater still
I have hope and heart
I’m writing a happy ending to my story
I am writing with a golden pen of glory
I am writing unstoppable poetry
Until victory, always

Thank you.

Bra-less and Lawless

 

Bra-less and lawless
That’s what I am
I solved the problem of my poverty creatively
That’s code-speak for ‘illegally’

Because prostitution
Isn’t recognized by the institution
Ironically, it’s the same men who rule the world
Who pay money to have sex with girls

I’ve jerked off CEOs of international companies
Wildly successful ones that you might support everyday
In our inevitable, consumeristic way                                                                                           Like common street pimps, the government and corporate thugs take the money they want, leaving the rest of us just enough to stay alive so that we keep making them rich off our blood, sweat and tears all the years of our lives                                                           We break our backs while their bank accounts grow fat collecting tax

Sometimes I break the law                                                                                                        When I was a sex-worker, I limboed around the law by making a living without paying taxes on my wages, unless you count the immeasurable tax of physical and psychological trauma, which like a war within me rages

Sex work was an avenue to do what I could to improve my reality
With a heart of gold: I did it without hurting others, young or old
I even donated some of my hard-won earnings to charity
Robin Hood is a hero to me

Sometimes I let it all hang out and go bra-less
I am a woman in a man’s world (though we’re fighting for our human rights!)
Taking my bra off feels like exhaling, ‘Yes I am!’

Letting my breasts fall forward to where they naturally lay
Feels like the first time I did sex work and got paid
I could finally afford to buy food instead of scavenging through the trash,                         no more would I dine on the stale leftovers of rats
All I had to do was survive an hour behind closed doors with an asshole rapist                   it was like any other day, except that I got paid a livable wage

Poverty feels like an uncomfortable bra
That is two sizes too small
It cuts into you and suffocates you
Until there is only one thing left to do, if you can
Break free

I’m not saying that everyone with financial difficulty should find employment through illegal activity, although that seems to be the only option at times
I’m saying that feeling comfortable
In your body, your mind and your life
Is something worth striving for
I hope you feel comfortable in some way every day

Freeing myself from poverty was not quick or easy,                                                      Although the lucrativeness of sex work at first made me believe it would be.      Sustainable change takes time                                                                                                         In the long run, it took a lot of hard, unpaid effort educating myself to reach a place of true comfort; for austere years I lived without many things I wanted because most of all, I wanted to be free                                                                                                                                I wouldn’t change my journey for anything                                                                                    I am grateful for all that I learned, the profound ways that I healed spiritually and am healing still, the people I met, the goals I accomplished, the places I’ve lived and…

how good it feels to finally come home to myself, to my heart and my body                     The journey isn’t over, but I know that whatever the future brings, I am ready

…and for the moment, bra-less

Safe Space

I currently work in a high-pressure, male-dominated profession
This old school boys club is rough and tumble
Giant egos clash and bash one another
I try to stay below the fray
But they smash me anyway
They don’t care who they hurt
As long as they puff themselves up bigger and louder than all within earshot of their tantrum

I don’t buy into their bullshit
I want to pop their over-inflated egos with my sharp sewing needle
But I keep quiet, for my own safety and sanity
I’ve learned to keep my head down and keep moving forward,
Because I have better things to do than try to teach grown men how to act
They don’t know how to act and I’m not their mama

Despite my best efforts to keep calm, I get stressed out

when my narcissistic, masculine bosses maliciously razz me
They are too afraid to admit that they are afraid
They are too blinded by their vanity to see that fear is the motivator
Behind the furious spinning of their transparent webs of false perfection                                                  The only prey they catch is themselves
I used to be a black widow spider, I know their game
At least I know that I am afraid of imperfection, I don’t play

I also know that I will never be perfect, and I accept that as part of being human

Who are we fooling when we try to act like we are anything other than human?

What brings me peace in the midst of the psychological violence of the workday
Is that no matter how tense and dramatic the guys act, as long as we are at work
I will never have to see them naked, nor will they get to watch me undress
I will never have to please them sexually, talk dirty, or stick their dick in me anywhere

They do not know that I know what they want behind closed doors
They’d never suspect that I am a former sex-worker
Remembering my whore-rrific past soothes me in the pressure cooker of my present job

No matter how bad it gets, it can’t get worse than what I’ve already been through, right?

Special message of respect for the current working girls: I love you and feel a kinship to you stronger than I will ever feel for the over-privileged pricks who are my co-workers now. No matter how far up the career ladder I climb, I will always be by your side as your sister in heart and soul.

With a prayer for serenity and safety to all.

Little Prayer

I humbly offer a little prayer
For the little life
That grew inside me for a while
They were due to be born yesterday

I think it was a girl
I will never know for sure
Not knowing is part of the price I pay for ending the pregnancy
How I would have loved to love her

Unbeknownst to me at the time of conception, her daddy was not fit to raise a baby with
Nine weeks later, he made it apparent that I needed to have nothing to do with him        In order to protect my own wellbeing

At the same time, I lacked the socioeconomic resources
to have the baby without him
So I gave her up, though I struggled to pay for the abortion

I would like to express my heartfelt gratitude to Planned Parenthood, the Women’s Action Fund, and the many strong, generous advocates of women’s rights around the world. Thank you.

To the ignorant people and policies that get in the way of women accessing the health care they need, to those who do harm by being obnoxious obstacles to women’s rights, and to the health insurance companies that don’t cover jack shit of abortive care, I would like to express a sincere ‘Fuck You’.

Ending my pregnancy was a tough choice
But I’m glad I made it
It was the best decision for me
I am happier, healthier and freer now because of it

Still, in my mind’s eye I see her sweet eyes
Whisper in her little ears, caress her soft curls
Hold her little fingers and the tiniest of toes
In my imagination, I kiss her cheeks and her nose
I hear her laughter and her cries
I delight in the chubby rolls of her baby thighs

I hope you understand, little life
That your mama did the best she could
With what she had at the time

I bow in deep respect to you
With compassion and gratitude
Beaming always peace and love to you

From the spiritual realm, little life, I’m sure you can see clearly how                                                  Pro-choice is pro-life; pro-women’s lives                                                                          Women’s lives matter                                                                                                                       My abortion allowed me to give birth to my own life                                                                   I am so fortunate to live the life that I want                                                                                 To make decisions about my body                                                                                                  To be free

I pray that all women may know this freedom                                                                             If I had kept the pregnancy and given birth yesterday, I would have raised my child to value and fight for her freedom of choice                                                                                            So that if she got pregnant she could choose to do what is best for herself

 

The Sting of the WASP

I hope this doesn’t offend anyone, it’s just that

I have some long-standing frustration to express.

My personal experiences with the White Anglo-Saxon Protestant culture which I was born into are not meant to characterize everyone who identifies as a WASP.

The WASPy culture of my home community is one in which
everything is wrong, but nobody talks about any of it.

This illusion of perfection only fools ourselves

In reality, we are just as lost, anxious, depressed, alcoholic, drug addicted and trapped in abusive relationships as any other community.
From the outside, everything looks fine:
Picket-white fences, freshly mowed lawns
The house has been painted and the windows washed.
On the inside, our bodies are ravaged by insecurity and fear, leaving us worn down and raw like the bulimics that we are: caught in the binge and purge of a life of vanity.

We’ll do anything to keep up appearances even as we disappear further from our authentic selves.
Putting such effort into pretending to be what we are not is a tremendous waste of energy.
We strive to keep up with our neighbors in an empty shell of consumeristic existence, even though it costs us the true richness of our souls.

We go to church and recite prayers monotonously like mindless drones.
Can any discernible note of true worship be heard when we are only regurgitating printed words without feeling?
In our daily lives, how much are we really doing as Jesus would do in our thoughts and actions?
From what I have seen and heard, we could do much more.

Even as a young child I felt that attending my WASPy church was a time and place to desperately try to save face-
Emphasis was put on what to wear,
Instead of how we felt on the inside, in our hearts and minds.
We went to church to trick ourselves into feeling like we were living our lives right.
When actually we were living quite selfishly,
Without true regard for the suffering of others.
Our capacity to give was far greater than what we actually gave.
Even in giving, we were narcissistically trying to feel better about ourselves.
The same people who faithfully vowed to ‘judge not’ in church
Could be heard loudly judging their neighbors before and after the service.
I don’t want to judge WASPs on being judgmental.
I know they have suffered a lot and are doing the best they know how.

In a sincere wish to help them live their happiest, most fulfilling life

I want to gently remind them that they will suffer less when they judge less.
I’ve noticed that when I judge others, I only hurt myself.
Mentally separating ourselves from other humans by labeling them as ‘other’, ‘inferior’ or ‘defective’ only separates ourselves from our own humanity.
No wonder we often feel that our lives are insanity.
This rings true for judging ourselves too.

I judge myself and others every day, and every moment is a new opportunity to practice non-judgement, which to me is the highest form of spiritual practice.

I feel the heaviness that judging leaves in my heart, and I am ready to lessen my load.
Changing mental habits is a practice, not a perfect.

I feel lighter and happier when I connect through my heart to humanity.

I pray for spiritual awakening and liberation from suffering for all.
It is a goal as lofty as the tallest church steeple-
It is my dream, big enough to include all people.

The divine light within me bows to the divine light within you.

Triggerfinger

I wish I wasn’t so easily trauma triggered
It doesn’t take much to push me out of touch with feeling safe
A slightly raised voice makes me lose all choice but to
freeze and collapse
The physiology of my stress response takes over
Though I try to stop it, my heart races, my pulse pounds, a heaviness crushes my chest, suffocating me, it feels like I can’t breathe
How long has it been since I last took a breath?
Now I make a conscious effort to unclamp my rusted-shut jaw from my tongue but the battle is not so easily won
Years later the everyday trauma tape continues to play on loop I feel like I’m still in those moments when I didn’t know what to say, the epic fail drags me down into a pit of mental battering and spirit shattering
‘Good enough’ remains just out of reach
I hold the tension in my body and the voices of my aggressors echo between my ears
I’m caught between anger and tears                                                                                Regretting the past and fearing the future
I worry that if I ever get married or have a baby, my ex-partners will come after me in fits of blind jealousy
The ex’s that have expressed ill-will and death-wishes to me,                                                the ones with guns, violent tendencies and criminal histories                                               God, will I live my whole life without ever feeling safe?                                                    Mental abuse is physical abuse: you can see it, feel it, measure it in my body                       It is detrimental to my health and wellbeing                                                                                    I meditate on being held in a sphere of protective light                                                          and pray that I won’t have nightmares again tonight                                                      Healing the mind is not easy                                                                                                               I am humbled at how quickly I slip into depression and anxiety                                           my constant companions of which I am never truly free                                                       The next time my trauma gets triggered, which will happen soon                                      May I relax the grip of my fingers and remember that I am held in safety                      even when it feels impossible to believe                                                                                          I find peace in remembering that not even my trauma,                                                      which seems to be at the very core of me                                                                                      Is mine to keep                                                                                                                                   All things end eventually