Writing Through the Pain: one way to cope when your president triggers you

To start this post, I opened up Word and chose a blank sheet of virtual paper. Anything can happen on this page. Hold that thought.

I am reopening this blog, Prodigal Aspersions. Here, I wrote my way through several years of therapy when I didn’t have enough close friends to talk to. I talked to myself. Not surprising. I was always a loner as a kid – up a tree, in my grandparents’ attic, out in the fields, in the empty weekday church building. There weren’t any kids of my age in Keeling, Tennessee, just older or younger. But truth be told, I didn’t want any kids brought in. I never knew what to do with them and by the time I learned, I had come to enjoy my solitude.

I didn’t always enjoy my childhood. It was populated by some really good people – Bobby Coulston, Mr. Mac, my own granddaddy highlight the list. However, there were people who made my life one long dark night with new shadows and strange, ominous sounds, the kind of night where you hold your breath and stare at the shadow, willing it to be a newly broken branch or some clothes left on the line outside. Like when you see and hear frightening things in the night, I tried to make sense of my experiences. But there’s not a whole lot of insight available to a child of a violent alcoholic and who has an uncle who constantly tries to sexually assault her. Add the Asperger’s syndrome, shake, stir, and pour up a cup of dread.

I grew up. I got that therapy and still do. I talked and read. I came to understand that the chaos and terror around me had nothing to do with what and who I am. I was a little kid who should have been enjoyed and nurtured. It was not my fault. There were people, lots of people, who agreed with me.

I wrote things along the way – as therapy, in addition to therapy, for my own sense of worth and expression. I put them here and over in my other blog Dead Daddy. (Link at right.)

People found me. Looking for kinship, help, answers, they stumbled onto me. Not a whole lot of people, just the ones who needed what I had discovered, what I could say out loud.

I went back to college and to grad school and started writing academic papers, then my own work, and some side hustle gigs. I didn’t add much here.

I think I need to again. For those who are so tired of being triggered and poked and stabbed by sexual carelessness. For those who never said a word and now might want to figure out how. Because I need to do something positive for my own sake and work through returning demons that I thought were driven from the space outside the window of my soul’s night.

I am going to write here and at Dead Daddy. I know that writing can make it better and reading can too. I am going to do what I can to make it better. Anything can happen here. We are not clean, blank pages on a screen. Admittedly, we are people who have been through some hard times. If we were paper we would look rumpled, wrinked, maybe even crumpled up. But we are not paper. We are people. Our scars are our battle markings. The dented places in our skins are proof that we escaped from what held us. We can keep looking to make sense of the shadows of our nights. And we can write and talk about it. Or just read for now.

On this page, I can tell you how I became a battle-tested warrior. I can howl and I can laugh. Just wait. Hold on.

I will write. I will be here. It is what I can do today.

Cyn

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Where He Put Things

He put his hand over my mouth,
assuring me with shushes, “Relax, you’ll like it.”

................................I didn’t, any more than you enjoy reading this.

He put bruises on my thighs,
my underwear down around my knees.

................................Bear [witness] with me here.

He put his penis inside me,
along with quite a few abrasions.

................................Breathe through the lines, don’t panic.

He put my arms up over my head, pinning me,
so skilled he must have had practice.

................................Stay with me.

He put fear in my gut, terrors in my nights,
and post-traumatic fugues in the mess he left of me.

................................Attend to my words.

By extension, he put pills down my throat,
cuts on my arms, and me in bed all day.

................................Softly. Gently. Unwrap the pain.

He put trust out of my reach until
he sat me on the psychiatrist’s couch.

................................Sit beside me. Listen.

He put me into training class to advocate for others,
strangely, leading me to college and grad school.

................................There are more of us here who can’t speak.

He put words in my mouth.
“Hold on.” “It’s not your fault.” “It gets better.”

Survivor Statement

The mother in me
would remove your lungs
by teaspoons over
a number of months,
watching your breath
grow precious.

She would have you
live long years,
seeing those
whom you have loved
die in your eyes,
waking you often
to view reruns.

The woman who
put her child to sleep
brushing circles
with her cheek on
a tiny head of baby hair
would hood you
and beat you on bare feet with
bouquets of barbed wire.

The sensible liberal
who is carrying my purse,
containing a card for
the ACLU and a copy of
the New Testament (NRSV),
petitions nightly to God
to deny you entrance to Hell,
sentencing you to a lonely
oblivion, conscious of your loss.

We dream of these and other
gruesome punishments for you,
often shocking the little
girl in me who had her own
nightmare offender, but we shush
her protests. She is not a mother.
The only thing that might
make it any bit better
is to never have been born—
you or I—it hardly matters which.

Napalm Girl

See the Photograph

"Too hot, too hot."

Did you think to find traitors
burrowed into my muscles
like so many parasitic worms?

Should my small size seem somehow sinister?
Even smaller than you,
who are small enough.
Fit to tunnel
in the walls of your tunnels,
to pop out,
surprise!

Are we a wee army?

Do we lay in wait for you,
marbles in hand,
to pelt you with questions
which slay you?

Kim Phuc, the napalm girl, lives in Canada now, having survived the napalm attack by a South Vietnamese pilot. She was assisted in receiving medical care by South Vietnamese photographer, Nick Ut, who won a Pulitzer Prize for the photo. Here is a BBC News article about the incident in the words of Nick Ut.

Magniloquent Miscarriage

I am giving birth to poetry in the night now.
These babies born, not so much in words,
as in scent and intuition.
They suckle me in those night hours.
In the gloaming, I draw sustenance from them, too.
They snuggle to me and I curve them into my arms.
We are a happy family in the eventide.

As morning tide comes in,
I am swept into a verbal amniotic sea.
Weary, spent, the poems squall for me.
Casting indicting eyes my way.
I don’t love them in the wee small hours.
Last night the verses fed my amour propre.
As day breaks, I wish to drown them
in the same bloody flood that brought them forth.

In Pink Ink

When the music is faster and violins repeat the same phrase and melancholia slips around my body pinning my arms to my side and my psyche to the ceiling of my skull. It clinging there like a frightened cat that thinks, "Oh, shit. Now look what I've done. Won't someone get me out of this thing I have gotten into...I'm slipping...nails slipping!" When the very cells of my body scream, "We know this feeling, have felt it, loathe it. Save us!" When the smell of coffee and pumpkin bread doesn't comfort, but instead taunts that I will never feel that feeling again. When the pen in my hand, pink ink, doesn't brighten the words I wrote --
I wrote
Iwroteanyway.
It's all I ever knew and
what I ever do and
I will never stop
because just like that cat
I'm clinging and the words are my claws
and the page is my ceiling
and sometimes I don't really know
how I got there,
but I know the words hold me there.
And eventually, someone will come along
with a telescoping ladder
and rescue me
or, more likely,
I will take a deep, whiskered, meowing breath
and just let go.
So far --
I always land on my feet.

Life Story

I write with water on the tip of my finger
On wall board which will make the walls of my home
The story is old
The home is new

I write with scotch on the tip of my thumb
On my mouth which burns with unsaid words
The lament is deep
The kiss is light

I write with juice of strawberries on the tip of my tongue
On the side of your cheek which stains with each stroke
The meaning is tart
The taste is sweet

I write with tears on a lock of my hair
On the back of my hand which holds no hope
The traces are faint
The impression is strong

I write with ink on the tip of my pen
On the paper that makes it so which binds my word
The lines are short
The intent is long

The Fabric of My Life

As a child, there were wrinkles in my dresses.
Laundry was starched, kept damp, ironed.
Made for a much tidier presentation.

As soon as the heat from the iron dissipated,
The wrinkles were on their way back.
It was pretty obvious that I was unkempt.

You can never really keep a dress neat.
If it is cotton, and mine were, it will crease.
Creases don’t come out easily.

Starch it, sprinkle it, iron it.
No matter what, not crisp.
I was a rumpled child.

I remember when perma-press came along.
Amazing substance. No starching needed.
Dry it, wear it. It seemed like a cheat to me.

My mom loved perma-press.
She was overworked and under-helped.
Perma-press smoothed over a lot of things.


I like cotton. I like it just the way it comes.
Doesn’t need dye to be pretty.
If it wrinkles, I am plain ok with that.

My wrinkles are not only on dresses.
I show them on my face.
They highlight my eyes and my mouth

My husband loves my mouth
And I love my eyes.
There is truth to be seen in both.

I often wear a rumpled white shirt.
I love the feel of the cotton close to me.
The wrinkles just feel familiar and comfy.

I Once Knew Something

At the beginning of me, I was a clean sheet.
No words, no doodles, no marks.
I knew things then that I have lost.
They went the way of my illiteracy.
Tidied up and swept away.
I created poems and canvases and a child.
I took on a man and a vocation and a life.
Now clean sheets are where I wrap my babe,
where I make love to my man,
the place where I dream of my tomorrow and tomorrow.
Nothing showed on me back then,
not like now.
Scars and worry lines and smoker's wrinkles around my mouth.
I haven't smoked in 20 years, but there they are.
I wish I could remember what I came here knowing.
I feel it, like the piece of food between my teeth.
Tease at it, tease at it, suck on it.
But it just won't come.
And I can never leave a clean sheet lie.
I must fill it with doodles and words and my man and my life.

Going Back

There was no time to gather up clothes or toys
There were never many of either anyway

when we left

Many times there was a pistol
Usually there were bruises
Often it was night
Once in a storm

It was chaos when we left
from the outside looking in
but we knew our cues

time to go

Right after the fists
just before the gunshots
during the screaming

then we left

Mostly to Tommie’s house
Sometimes to Sherry’s house
Once to Doris Sartain’s house
in a storm

after we left

Morning would come
Breakfast was had
Coffee was poured
Nothing was said
The ground would dry up
Daddy would show up

we'd go back

Cross my fingers
pray to God
plead to stay
come the day
we’d go back

There was no time to gather up joy or hope
There was never much of either anyway.

Verbalassault

Therearehints

Thewayyourfeetarehoveringjustabovethefloor.

Theodorofburntdreamsclingingtoyourhair.

Theflinchflinchtheflinch.

Somedonotseethem,
donotwanttotheydon’t.

Thesecrimesnotmandatorytoreport.

Thesestrikesagainstyouwillneveradduptothree.

Itdoesn’tcountitdoesn’t.

Smallyouaresmalllittlewomangettingsmaller.

Soonhewillhavewhittledawaywhatlittleisleft.

Broken Bones Black Eyes

It’seasytoseewhyyourcrygoesunnoticed.

Rape Enchiridion

Never let me know you are looking.
Don’t ask too much.
Be around, not too close.
If you see the inside of me, don’t mention it.
Don’t take notes.
If something appalling should fall out of my head,
don't pick it up.
Ignore the inconsistencies.
Speak clearly.
Don’t speak.
Look for the mist of breath between my words.
If I hold my breath, hold my breath.
Don’t trace the scars.
Sometimes I like to take off my clothes and look at my naked skin,
just checking.
The hairs on the back of my neck are kept clipped short, never shaved.
My dog stands guard over me as I sleep.
I will not talk about it.
I won’t shut up.
I have a foul mouth.
When I lick my lips, I am not tasting victory.