Marriage

Behind the curtain of marriage I treasure the single men I know, each one a potential gem who would surely treat me better than my husband does.

I imagine how they would listen to me as we engage in stimulating conversations over a meal they provided, how respectful and grateful they would act, how passionate as lovers, how giving and attentive.

I fantasize about men who balance their check books and clean up after themselves, men who are calm and communicate maturely, who do the damn dishes, who save money or at least spend it on their family, who let go of past hurts, evolve and hold space for me to do the same.

I try to make myself at home within the sound-proof confines of my marriage, though the walls threaten to close in and crush me; both execution device and tomb.

Within the secret tortures of my marriage, my husband and I fight fervently leading up to the moment that we arrive out our friends’ houses, quickly plastering smiles on our faces as we ring the doorbell.

My veins are scalded by resentment for all the ways my husband takes miles without giving an inch.

I scan the horizon for a silver lining, a way to improve my situation: so far marriage counseling, life coaching and me doing the work on myself have all fallen short.

Yet deep below the cracks in our relationship, I sense a fertile humus.

We share more than our sordid history together; we make a home and a family.

We are united in our love for our baby, though we often disagree bitterly on how to raise her.

We share a commitment to our life together and a vision of our future, though we put different amounts of effort and resources towards both: in our relationship, I do all the earning and handle all the responsibilities for our household.

He drags down my energy and my finances, invoking a slow and destitute death.

Perhaps I’m not in a position to judge him: maybe he is the better one and I am the bitter one.

For now, I remain hidden behind the curtain of marriage, bound to my husband and yet alone.

Guys I’ve Dated

I’ve dated guys whose eyes watered from the burn of undiluted wasabi

Thinking they were Japanese cuisine purists, they were only fooling themselves

He judged others for cutting off their chi from wearing their socks too tight while his own panties were in a bunch

He took me to a restaurant where the jazz was so loud we couldn’t hear ourselves

He didn’t intend to listen to me anyway, I found out later that night

I’ve dated guys I could only wash down with an unhealthy amount of alcohol

Guys who made gourmet meals taste bland with their predatory presence

I’ve dated guys who tried to shame and control me

They must feel so ashamed and out of control themselves

I was never into that scene

I’ve dated guys who believed their suffering was unique, artists who didn’t want to feel understood

I’ve dated guys who made me feel special for a time, until I realized that they only wanted me to make them feel special

They didn’t see me as a person, but a tool to be used, an addiction to leave them unsatisfied

I’ve dated guys who drank too much and called out for me in the middle of the night like a babe to its mother

Like a mother to a babe, I gave them my teat

The narcissistic and manipulative, the accusatory and dramatic

Guys who implied suicide if I ever left their side, yet somehow they are still living

Guys who stalked me and threatened me with their bodies

I prayed for boundaries

My man isn’t like those other guys

But he wants to know how many, and why

All I can do is bask in relief and sigh

Grateful, deeply grateful

Push

My husband pushes me with prodding questions about my sexual history

It enrages him that I don’t display the intimate details of my past like trinkets at a flea market

He pries with jealous tones in his voice

He has nothing better to do than ‘solve the riddle’ of how many men have slept with me

I tell him the truth; I don’t know

I don’t tell him why there were too many to count. Early abuse trained me to be sex-trafficked, I was overworked and undersold

There are experiences in my life that I didn’t ask for

Uninvited guests who ruined my party

I have been violated more times than I’d care to tell

I don’t want to relive that hell

He is undeserving of such personal and painful information

His prying unlocks in me that deep dark, that suicidality that was once my constant companion

Standing face to face again, it is clear how much I have healed over time, and yet

I understand why ending my life is a natural conclusion

To take back my body, reclaim my flesh as my own

To liberate myself at last from the unbearable physical memories he invokes with his dredging interrogation

He cannot fathom the damage he causes

We end this round shouting

I dread and prepare for the inevitable; the next time he broaches the topic

When he demands out of the blue that I recap the worst moments of my life, I feel energetically destroyed

I start to count the cars on that long train of trauma and feel like a trapped animal, desperate for a way out

My old friend suicidality extends a hand, ‘I am here for you, when you feel pushed.’

The Benefits of Dating Yourself

1. No fighting
2. No bad sex or pressure to have sex when you don’t want to
3. No wasting time, money or energy on somebody who only gives you grief

Budding

Puberty

Overnight breasts sprung forth from my previously washboard chest and even more surprisingly, my hair became curly

I suddenly had the body of a full-grown woman combined with the underdeveloped mind of a teenager

Delighted by the gifts nature had bestowed upon me, I exercised my newfound power

I had always been shy, so I was relieved that my body could do the talking

An empath without knowing it, I felt the attraction that boys had for me and interpreted it as my own

Neglected as a child, I got high on feeling loved, even if what felt like love was really just attention

Not yet fifteen, I made out with three different guys at the same party

‘You need to stop snacking and settle into a meat-and-potatoes relationship’, my girlfriend advised upon hearing the recount of my latest conquests

How much richer to have the depth of one relationship, instead of innumerable budding connections

I had many friends with benefits

I was the benefit

For years, I lived off of sugar and kisses- I still do, though I am more discerning of my sources now

Due to the trauma of being molested as a child, I kept my teen sexplorations at second base and above, redirecting wandering fingers away from my trigger zone

To all the struggling young people: hang in there, life gets better

Flowers spring from the long, cold winter

Just wait

Tsunami

I want to go with you to the place beyond words

The place where our bodies do the talking in that effortless language

I want to go with you to the place where we first met and knew in an instant what we wanted

The place where a wordless message was exchanged by forces unseen, forces that move us ever closer

Forces more powerful than a tsunami

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

 

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

Samurai

Before I knew how to love,

I freely offered up my heart

Blind shot in the dark

I was the one who dropped my heart on the floor

From my open hands

Not knowing that I had smashed through a door

Not knowing what I would gain

Not knowing what I could never lose

No one seemed to notice, no one intervened

As I set out on my own

Lifting the veil, stepping through the screen

It wasn’t easy

I made every possible mistake

Burning my fire to fulfill other people’s desires

I was able to do everything and anything,

Because I already felt dead

From the heartbreak which split and throbbed in my head

I flipped circus tricks in the strangest of beds

Unscripted, I drifted

I met so many people

I worshipped under unconventional steeples

Life is my book, my science, my art

It all started when I sacrificed my heart

Everyday I learn how to love more

Love myself, my life, my family

Love even the dregs of humanity

Those who have yet to wander away from themselves

Those who have yet to realize who they really are

Because they cling so tightly to their identity

I’m privileged to live like a Samurai; at once warrior, servant, and free