Call for Input

[christabelll]

Hey folks
I am not sure how to go about this so bear with me as I stumble through...
I am compiling a series of poems and prose (all my own thus far)
The working title of this work is

Memoirs of Abuse - Emotional Holocaust
Over the years quite a bit of my own style of therapy has been in pouring out through words the traumatic residue of my childhood. Cathartic and wholly individual these words have taken the form of everything from Diatribes of Hate to Etheric Unreality. A lot of my adult experiences have centered around figuring out how to release the triggers that cripple a lot of abuse survivors.
We all find a way to survive. Maybe not well, maybe not "normally". But we do survive and find a way to make our lives work one way or another.

The one tool that seems to be more powerful than others is writing. It can change something terrible and ugly into something awesomely transforming.

So here is what I am proposing - - -

I would like to see your poems and prose on the emotional - physical - spiritual -impacts of abuse.

IN 100 words I have four posts that were written earlier this week that reflect more or less what I mean.

Eventually what I want to do is compile these writings into a book, and with all rights, royalties and such worked out - publish them. I believe this book would FLY to the top of the charts, wiz through Oprah and be an international best seller! Wooooo I really do....

If you are interested please post here. Including if you want your pieces old and new. Anything goes! I only ask please that it not be longer than 5 typed pages in length.

Write on, Crazy Dreamers, Write on.
Wouldn't that be amazing?

 

[christabelll]

The Opening Page

Call me - Non

Un -

Ir -

In -

I am Un - reasonable

I am Ir - redeemable

I am In - consequential

But I have a name

A Birthright, Burnt Whole

A Genocide of the Selves

I could have been

I am Non - refundable

Do not look back

For I will never

Leave Hades prison

If you do

Show the way

Then Leave

For I will become

So much more

Than ashes in the mouth

I am -

I am -

I will be

A stained glass

Masterpiece of Me​

 

[Angeline]

You raise a very interesting subject. Some years ago I spent a lot of time writing about traumamtic experiences from my youth, and at the time I thought it was good for me as catharsis if not my best poetry. I think now that I write better poems when I'm removed from them emotionally at the time of writing--when my focus is on word choice and line break and metaphor and such as opposed to pain (or whatever emotion). Now I think my memories still come through but in a more subtle way.

I wonder, too, what other poets think about this. I know others have discussed how emotionally they're invested (or not) at the time of writing, but what about those really hard memories? How do they work their way into what we write? Do we encourage them, intentionally try to mask them, tell them in parables?

Anyway here's a poem that I wrote about four years ago. It was very painful to write at the time.

Under the Bed

I hide under the bed, far back.
Sister says stay there, be good
and I'm a big girl, I can shhh
and understand to hide where hands
can't reach me, so I stay until
my sister says that it's ok.

You can be safe if you just
stay under the bed, far back
along the wall. It's dusty, but don't
cough or sneeze, be tiny as a mouse,
curl small and stay there please.
Big sister says not even mice

would creep when she is sick,
on bad days full of hands, the hangers
make my sister want to run away.
O sister please let me go, too,
don't make me stay alone with her,
but she says it's not you: it's me; shhh,
I'll stay with you. I'll take care of we two.

But what when sister is at school? I try
so hard to be a good girl, sometimes
even good girls spill their juice,
and when I say I don't know why
she screams, she cries, she says
it's an excuse, and other mothers'
girls are good, and now she's sick.

That's what we bad girls do.
We make our Mommy sick. If I
were you I'd stick under the bed,
just think of families of mice
of mommies who are nice, daddies
who don't act like it's all fine.

Mice sisters can be safe, ok?
And one won't need to leave
and one won't need to stay
behind for all those years
a little mouse under the bed
who cannot cry
because she's still too scared
because the other couldn't live
and found a way to die.

 

[christabelll]

Beautiful.
Really incredible piece there. So much in there.
HUGSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS

We, as writers, can be terribly invested in our words on the page.
I know that when I write I am enormously invested in it. Let me qualifiy a little further.
My stories, yea They are mine, but they are 99% fictional stories. So it doesn't hurt as much when some one tears it apart
My Poetry however, is a different creature all together.
Strobe lit snap shots twists and turns of speech double and triple entendre that are pieces of me strewn upon the page. (Oh I have to use that somehwere!!!)

I tried to explain it once to my ex husband when I discovered he had taken ALL of my writings to date, put them in a CARDboard box and hid them in a leaky basement where they began to rot and mildew.
I was furious and distraught at such a cavalier approach to what was essentially and still is pieces of my very soul on paper. I rescued the 100 lbs or so of my tattered existance and placed them in a plastic file bin that I have since carted across the country several times rather than lose them to callous hands again.

These words, and drawings, paintings and stories are parts of me that needed telling. TO lose them is to lose parts of me. I have worked very hard to improve how I write over the years. I have gone from simplistic word choices to complex and yes convoluted meanderings that USE the language to show and share and lead where ever it may go.

I commend you for sharing such a piece. Thank you! I look forward to perhaps reading more!

 

[christabelll]

So, It seems this is a touchy subject.
Yeah it is. A very personal and intense subject.
So my call for input is floundering, but the ideas aren't.
I will be posting more of my stuff soon (I gotta pull them out of aforementioned file tub and off of several cds.)

Take heart
Take courage
Take my love and go
So it was broken
So it will heal
Straight and true
is not something real
Like trees deeply rooted
my branches are wide
encompassing
self pruning
blooming
falling
Sometimes I think I am a cypress
others a yellow pine
today I am weeping cherry

 

[christabelll]

Scars

You should feel the scars you've given me
thick and hard like the words you spat at me
all my fucking life
They itch and burn like the acid
you spewed for me to drown in
Did you howl with hunger when at last
I escaped that torture trap
I heard you keening rage,
hot on my trail
Bleeding I crawled away
Licking my wounds
with a mouth made bitter
Soured by the venom
you infected me with
Oh you should feel the scars you've given me
Scarlet ropes of twisted flesh
Which kept me a prisoner
of your defeat
Could you ever see
the fucking things you did to me?
Your face was a poisonous toads
Demonic in its hate
Did my innocence taste good
as you bit it out of me
piece by tender piece
How many time bombs
did you plant around
the fields I ran from
Whose child's limbs did you break
to keep me silent and biddable
You should fucking feel
the scars you've given me
I hope you choke on them



3 am musings 13 years ago

 

[FifthFlower]

She Loves Her Brother Best

Her parents wish she'd give those dreams a rest,
Though she's a daughter who in time just might
Still prove that her life's darkness can shine light.
She trusts that she can pass each coming test.
Her strange and lovely brother, she loves best,
But he is shooting everyone in sight.
"Oh, take me with you! Let us leave tonight!"
His bullet spills her heart throughout her chest.

"I wish we could have simply gone somewhere,
So we could live almost as man and wife,
Oh, how it hurts! You never cared for me.
I cannot bear despising eyes. Your stare
Fills me with blame as bleeding breaks my life.
Perhaps, my love for you, you could not see?"

 

[christabelll]

Wow, thats a intense one.
Took me a read or two.
Thank you so much for sharing it!

 

[christabelll]

Ode to Grief (Take one)

An Ode to Grief

I grieve for grief
I wonder at lost suffering
For my suffering was all
Pains deeper than the madras rift
Gripped me tight in their sweet bitter embrace
Who am I that I could leave it behind
To sprout like blooms in rain?
I grieve for my grief
Sorrows of a woman and life
Blind manipulations that identified me
As Toy, thrown away when boredom grew thick
Refuse, scum, a bilge pumped senseless
In a damning parody of desire.
Transiting a constellation
A sky boiling in raging grey
I escaped from servitude and despair
OH How I grieved for that oasis of rank waters
Bound and fettered, through lifetimes of grinding pain
What made me think there was more?
I grieve for my grief
It’s what held me together
Fragmented to be sure
Proud of my scars, laughing up acid burns
Belly cramped spine bowed blazing sound
Bleating from lips that cried for solace and
Found none in the blistered hollow that I had become
Frothing whitely, bleeding to death from wounds
Meant to kill a spirit sundered
long before it came to be here - now
I grieve for my grief
As thoughts reborn clear away
The detritus of broken glass that was the mirror
I held up, examining a face that no longer was my own.
Recoiling, spewing denial as others speak
Of a beauty they see before them
Lightening, glowing, resonant and growing
How sweetly I could speak
Where is my grief?
What happened to my sorrow?
Who is this form before me?
In the deepening blue of eyes sparkling, clear
I catch a glimpse of losing shadows
I read of my past agonies and shriek in surprise
That there are no tears to shed
So I grieve for my grief
And laugh out loud
Pleased
Yes pleased
As I wave goodbye to then -

 

[christabelll]

Ode to Grief (Take two)

An Ode to Grief

I grieve for my grief, for my suffering was all. Pain deeper than space gripped me tight in its sweet bitter embrace. Who am I that I could leave it behind, to sprout like blooms in rain? I grieve for my grief.
The sorrows of a woman, of blind manipulations that identified me as toy. Thrown away when boredom grew thick; refuse, scum, a bilge pumped senseless in a parody of desire. Under a sky boiling in raging grey, I escaped from servitude and despair. Oh, how I grieved for that oasis of rank waters! It’s what held me together, proud of my scars, laughing up acid burns, sound bleating from lips that cried for solace and found none in the blistered hollow that I had become. Bleeding to death from wounds meant to kill a spirit sundered long before it came to be here - now.
I grieve for my grief. As I clear away the detritus that was the mirror I held up, examining a face familiar no longer. Spewing denial as others speak of a beauty they see - lightening, glowing, resonant and growing - how sweetly I could speak. Where is my grief? What happened to my sorrow? In the deepening blue of eyes sparkling, clear, I catch a glimpse of losing shadows. I retread my past agonies and shriek in surprise that there are no tears to shed. So I grieve for my grief, and laugh out loud. Pleased, yes pleased, as I wave goodbye to then.

 

[WickedEve]

You raise a very interesting subject. Some years ago I spent a lot of time writing about traumamtic experiences from my youth, and at the time I thought it was good for me as catharsis if not my best poetry. I think now that I write better poems when I'm removed from them emotionally at the time of writing--when my focus is on word choice and line break and metaphor and such as opposed to pain (or whatever emotion). Now I think my memories still come through but in a more subtle way.

I wonder, too, what other poets think about this. I know others have discussed how emotionally they're invested (or not) at the time of writing, but what about those really hard memories? How do they work their way into what we write? Do we encourage them, intentionally try to mask them, tell them in parables?

Anyway here's a poem that I wrote about four years ago. It was very painful to write at the time.

Under the Bed

I hide under the bed, far back.
Sister says stay there, be good
and I'm a big girl, I can shhh
and understand to hide where hands
can't reach me, so I stay until
my sister says that it's ok.

You can be safe if you just
stay under the bed, far back
along the wall. It's dusty, but don't
cough or sneeze, be tiny as a mouse,
curl small and stay there please.
Big sister says not even mice

would creep when she is sick,
on bad days full of hands, the hangers
make my sister want to run away.
O sister please let me go, too,
don't make me stay alone with her,
but she says it's not you: it's me; shhh,
I'll stay with you. I'll take care of we two.

But what when sister is at school? I try
so hard to be a good girl, sometimes
even good girls spill their juice,
and when I say I don't know why
she screams, she cries, she says
it's an excuse, and other mothers'
girls are good, and now she's sick.

That's what we bad girls do.
We make our Mommy sick. If I
were you I'd stick under the bed,
just think of families of mice
of mommies who are nice, daddies
who don't act like it's all fine.

Mice sisters can be safe, ok?
And one won't need to leave
and one won't need to stay
behind for all those years
a little mouse under the bed
who cannot cry
because she's still too scared
because the other couldn't live
and found a way to die.

Sad poem and I like the way you wrote it.

A lot of my sad poetry centers around my Katy, who has autism, and around bob bob. Since I've been on this forum, I've gone through being left with two kids, divorce, his marriage to a much younger woman, court, custody, finally dealing with his death in August, then all that's happened with the ex in-laws. bob bob has inspired poetry for the past 5 years. Some of it from a very sad place, but those poems are usually dark humor. I can deal with humor. I have a poem in 30/30 that I wrote on the 25th of March. It's a bob bob birthday poem. I was pretty much down about the whole thing and started writing. Of course, the poem ended up being about an amorous mole rat dragging him deeper into the earth. Yeah, I need my humor to be dark and sick. lol But it probably makes the poems more interesting to read.