Nap Breeze

Candy glass, butterfly smash

Falling pieces fall together again

Riding on a dandelion seed, floating on the wind

Intergalactically I travel

Dreaming through open eyes

Effortlessly flying through starry skies

Harnessing the strength from which the planets spin

I am the daffodils, the earth and the rain

I feel the world weightless inside my brain

I can almost see what can’t be seen

Formless, colorless behind the screen

Until the breeze pulls this nap from me

Off My Chest

I need to get you off my chest

I’ve never felt relaxed in my life because you raised me in the war zone of your wrath

Bombs of panic explode in my mind all day every day

Choking me with your smoke and mirrors even though you are far away

My ears ring with your shouting

You were the biggest little tyrant

Not even two years my senior

Yet always more needy

Mandating, yet begging

I didn’t realize the power I had over you, and still do

You were the one dependent on me for affirmation, not the other way around

I didn’t have a choice then, but I do now-

To live a life without your storms brewing on my horizon

I’ve never slept well in my life because I thought you were going to murder me in my sleep throughout our childhood and adolescence

I used lie in bed wearing a cross around my neck with a note attached to it asking you to think before acting, waiting for dawn to break, dreading another day with you, feeling trapped and hopeless with no end in sight

I never felt protected, respected, seen or heard by our parents

In moments of desperation, I wish you had killed me

Instead you continue to torture me passive aggressively, and I am passive passive aggressive

Silenced, as if buried alive

I toss and turn, tormented between insomnia and nightmares

I’m trying to think before I act

I am upset that I’m even thinking about you now

I am upset about how you get upset ‘at’ me: you throw your rage at me and have me clean up the mess, time and time again, left to calm your ass down as if your reactions were justifiable or somehow my fault

It was never my fault

I am not responsible for how you feel

Leave me alone you evil bitch

I want to scream at you with the force of 35 years of repressed anger and tears

At the same time, I am trying to let go of the hot coal which burns my palm

I am trying to let the rippling waters of my pond be still

I am trying to not be irritated, for only then will you no longer be irritating

I am trying to take responsibility for my thoughts and feelings

I am tired of trying so damn hard

I am ready for ease

I am ready for peace

I am ready to breathe

Please, get off my chest

I don’t need to ask- I am responsible for how I feel

I’m not sure what to do next

I’ll probably meditate and self-medicate with raw emo poetry

Like the note pinned to my cross-necklace, you will probably never read this

But maybe those who matter will

Those who feel they are suffering alone

May find healing in this onion peel

And breathe just one breath more freely

For this I humbly pray

Namaste

Workaholic

I went into medicine partly due to heartbreak

The exhaustive training of medical school and residency was a welcome albeit ineffective distraction from my sorrow and loneliness

24-hour shifts are a convenient justification for not keeping in touch with loved ones

Even though the real excuse is my social anxiety and sense of inadequacy

Living within hospital walls, I suspect that I am not the only physician who became a medical doctor to try to forget unrequited love, to escape the world of human relationships

My older colleagues work far more than they need to to make ends meet, far more than any reasonable person would work in a week

Who needs friends or feelings when you have patients and science?

Our skin grows pale under fluorescent lights

Our vision becomes shortsighted as the screens stare unblinkingly

Our hearts forget how to feel carefree

Our muscles atrophy as our brains hypertrophy

Our minds become boxed in with facts, our mental filing cabinets overflow

I am a recovering workaholic working alongside workaholics who do not appear to be in recovery

Perhaps they suspect the same of me

Heads down in the trenches, none of us can know another’s heart

We can only know our own heart, if we listen

We carefully administer medications, surgeries and therapies

We measure progress in numerical metrics of lab values, calculated scores and vital signs

We arrive early and stay late

We work day and night without a break

We always have too much on our plates

We deprive ourselves of sleep, fresh air and food

We know why we have irritable moods

Practicing medicine is an unhealthy, imbalanced lifestyle and we know it

We can only ever heal ourselves

I’m ready to show it

I am finally healing my broken heart

I found that I had to begin at the start

Childhood wounds tangle and bloom

Trauma begets trauma until we change our thoughts, words and actions

Breaking old patterns even as we hold traction

I am love itself, I am the source of what I sought

My cup overflows, it was not all for naught

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

Our Mother’s Face

We thought we could improve perfection, Mama

When we drew lines across your face

Highways of asphalt scars connecting the

Clusters of concrete wounds on your cheeks

High rise buildings offering every luxury but you, Mama

We dig into you without asking, Mama, pounding into your bedrock

Even as you gently rock us to sleep each night, as if our actions are alright

We are the ones who refuse to turn out the lights

We don’t hear your wisdom, Mama, which you sing softly even now

We boast loudly but when do we listen, Mama?

We are shaken to the bone when we drill into you, Mama

Between fracking and petroleum, our hearts are in pandemonium

We make ourselves ill when we poison your blood

Dumping debris into your waters

We choke as we pollute your lungs

Pouring smoke into your atmosphere

We share a single circulatory and respiratory system with you, Mama

Our shortsighted deeds will always come back to haunt us in spades

We drink from your abundant cup, rarely satisfied that we have enough

We pretend to be separate from you even as we depend on you for our every breath, from birth to death

We think we know best but we haven’t fooled the rest, only ourselves

We act big, but we are dust on your mighty shoulders, Mama

Our mother has the most gorgeous face

Deep blue-green eyes and a sparkling smile

Bathed in rich brown skin, holding the miracle of life itself within her

Her beauty cannot be improved by anything man-made

To thrive, she needs only to be loved by those she loves unconditionally, by us

This is her divine lesson of self-love

Caring for the Earth is caring for ourselves

We spring forth from the Earth’s womb, are nourished by her breast, and remain connected to her indefinitely by an unbreakable umbilical cord

Though we mistreat you, we love you and we need you, Mama

You are the only oasis in the vast desert of the universe

We feel calm and content when we are close to you, Mama

Words are not your language

We must show our love for you through actions

Spending quality time with you

Living simply and sustainably

Voting with every transaction

Passing legislation to protect you from destruction by our hands

We have injured you too many times in the name of profit Mama, which only robs ourselves of true wealth: clean air, water and soil

We can’t buy more of you in any store, Mama

When we hurt you, we hurt ourselves more

You wait patiently for us to learn, even as we pillage and burn

You demonstrate how to love more completely, Mama, but that does not excuse our transgressions

This Earth Day, may we pause for reflection on our self-centered predilection

May we hold you in the center of our heart, where you always belonged from the start

Though at times we get distracted, more of your children are treading softly on you each day, Mama

May I be one such child of the Earth, and help others so inspired do the same

Your health depends on what we do today

May we lift our faces to you and see our collective dream come true

ACEs

ACEs

Adverse Childhood Experiences

Most of us have had adverse childhood experiences
Some of us more than others-
Traumatic experiences with catastrophic consequences which ripple out from our core to the edges of existence
Some of us have lived a life of consistent resistance
We were struggling, fighting uphill battles
When we should have felt carefree, playing with rattles

Experiences so awful and early
That rigid prison bars were imposed around our developing minds and bodies
Restricting our growth

I’m not writing an excuse for my shortcomings
I’m fueling my fire to heal humanity
Enough already with the insanity

Trauma tangles our DNA, the epigenetics way
Turning off certain genes and turning on others,
But we can be better than our fathers and mothers
We don’t have to pass it on
We can heal ourselves

Do something each day to heal yourself, your body will guide you in what to do-
rest, relaxation
movement, meditation
quality sleep and fresh food to eat
energy healing visualization, repeating positive affirmations

I won’t ever be the person I might have been had I not had all those adverse childhood experiences- every form of abuse and neglect
raised by people who were unwell, making my childhood a living hell
However, because I am a wounded warrior, I have a burning desire to share my fire, let my inner glow light the way for others to know that a better life is possible

You are your own healer.
There is so much to fear and worry about.
So much to feel sad and angry about.
I spend a great deal of time and energy worrying what others think of me.
This is likely because of the explosive rage inflicted upon me whenever I displeased others while I was growing up.
But they were displeased to begin with.
Their happiness was never my responsibility
And now I feel like everybody’s happiness is my responsibility
But it is not
I am only responsible for myself

It is enough to mind my own mind- check in with my thoughts without worrying about what everyone else is thinking all the time.

This is a practice, and practicing is enough.

Constant dripping of water hollows out a stone.

My pain is the stone, and my healing is the water.

Like water, I do not stop when I encounter an obstacle, I keep flowing. I heard that all rivers flow to the ocean.

Your healing is natural, it is part of the universal life force.
But you can help it along- how you treat yourself is the most important action you can take.

Oh Great Spirit, may I stay on this healing path.

I have taken many exams, however healing from my ACEs is the most important test I want to ace.

Thank you to all the healers, all the hard-working professionals who help raise awareness about ACEs, help prevent trauma, and help blaze the trail of recovery.

Fleeting

Where do ideas come from?
When I get inspired it feels like an itch
Irresistible to scratch but if I don’t promptly act…

Where do ideas go?
Sometimes I get a flash of what appear to be                                                                 profound, brilliant, and wildly creative thoughts                                                                       Just as quickly,  they vanish into thin air
Faster than ice evaporates on a hot day                                                                                 Before I can write them down, they’ve already gone on their way

My brain is beaten down by sleep deprivation and stress
So it makes sense
That it would hold thoughts
As efficiently as a sieve holds water

Still I wonder
Where do ideas come from,
And where do they go?
As they disappear through the door of my conscious mind,
I want to say to them, ‘Thank you, come again’

Waking Up

Last night I had two dreams
In the first
I dreamt that I was sleeping
My mom came into my bedroom and molested me
The way she did
As usual I felt horrified, humiliated, furious, violated, suffocated
I tried to shake her off but she was still bigger than me
Even after all these years

In my struggle to escape
I woke up
In my own house at last
At least I didn’t wake up to the living nightmare
Of my childhood

Eventually I fell back asleep
And dreamt of an angry man
He thought that I was the cause of his anger
Though I knew that his anger went far beyond me
I tried to hide
To make myself smaller and more silent than I already am

But I was not small or silent enough
He found me and shot me with a gun
Many times in my body and my head
But I kept right on breathing
And felt once again relieved
To wake up alone                                                                                                                           Instead of wake up to the living nightmare                                                                                         Of my adult relationships with men

When I wake up alone                                                                                                                          I wake up to peace                                                                                                                                 I wake up to infinite potential                                                                                                                  I wake up free to be myself                                                                                                                  I am just now learning                                                                                                                  Who I am