Free Write/Ramble

I act out, fly off the handle, dissolve into a mess of “I can’ts” and drive people crazy, or drive them away. Being told to stop when I am in the middle of the melt down does not work because at that point I am unreasonable and do not believe I can stop. It also makes me feel worse about me, driving me deeper into the feelings of “I can’t do anything right,” and, “I am a bad person.” I feel like crap knowing my actions and reactions are hurting other people. Reminding me of this in the middle of it all doesn’t make me feel less like shit, or more like stopping, in fact it is the reverse. When you tell me you don’t like my poetry, the ones that hold me together by taking the power out of the thoughts by putting the dark thoughts into public words, I feel like I am a failure as a writer. When you say “Maybe somebody will buy your book…” I again feel like a failure. I feel as if my poetry is rotten and won’t be identified with or useful to anyone. But the point of the poems is to bring the dark thoughts and hurtful things to the surface, to show others who think the same that they are not alone, to let the world know we feel these things all of the time and keep going anyway, these are my points. I hope someday to write poems more of hope and less of my process, but I am in my process, I am not at the end of it and it brings out all of the dark to get to the light. For me there is a light, burning from within and without. It comes from me, from the Is, from all living things. I just have a lot of dark, painful, hurtful, fucked up shit between me and being in the light all of the time. I live in the light as much as I can, but for years of living in the darkness, the light is uncomfortable, bright, burning and feeling dangerous. I feel exposed in the light; funny how the cure for feeling exposed is to expose all the dark, all the pain, all the nastiness to the light and air, and to others. I don’t want others to know how often I let myself be victim. I already feel at fault for all of the bad that happened to me, but to expose that to others is just too dangerous. And yet here I am, exposing; my autobiography, my poetry, my secrets, all coming out for others to see. When I relay this to others and am believed, I am relieved, it is freedom. When I am disbelieved or questioned, I want to crawl back to the place where I never tell, where telling brings punishment or death. I don’t want to live in that fear. I don’t want to live with the feeling I am a freak for my memories, for the awful things done to me. I know some of the stuff I remember is beyond common understanding, but that doesn’t make it untrue or me a liar. When I am called liar, it is like a huge door shuts and no more can come out without hours of time with those who believe and understand. They give me safety. One gives me fear. I walked out of a life with a family because the fear and the memories couldn’t be contained anymore. I lost a mom, a nephew, a daughter, and more. I am alone in the world save a few friends and a niece or two.