My body remembers
The truth of your lies
The way that you violated me
So deep inside
My mind a blank slate
Panicked with fear
My body says I remember
I know you are near
I know what you did
And I know what you said
No matter how much
My mind is misled
My body remembers,
Your touch and the fear
It quakes with shame and pain
When you are near
You took something from me
Just took it away
And I was never the same again
So I relive it today
Something I felt,
Unseen and unheard,
My mind doesn’t know it
And it seems so absurd

But I know it inside me
My body doesn’t lie
If only I could trust it
It helped me survive
I feel broken in places
I didn’t know exist
That live only
In shadows and mist
Thanks to you and
The twisted games that you play
I’ll look behind every bush, every tree
Till I find all you’ve hidden
Playing hide n seek with me

I can’t know in my mind
All you’ve made me forget
But I know in my body
From the time that we met
It curdles and twists deep inside,
In my guts and my limbs
You thought you had left me
With nowhere to hide

You left me
Defiled, without a trace
But there’s echoes in me
That you couldn’t erase
From an old storm
I’ve been wearing so long
Like a favourite jacket that’s warm
It’s a familiar sort of stain,
I’m far too accustomed
To living in shame
And living in fear
To never being able
To shed a single tear

Can’t Say Your Name

I can’t say your name
Can’t speak it aloud,
Not without the fears
Inside I’m trapped with you
Trapped in shame
And unshed tears

With memories
I cannot bear to look at,
Not even now
After all these years
You’ve made my mind a prison
In which I can’t bear to be
I don’t know that I’ll ever get the place
You’ve rented in my head
Back to being free

In my mind, to me,
You’re like a God from hell,
I fear to just say your name
As though you’ve cast
Inside of me
Some kind of wicked spell

You seem so big
And I feel so small
It doesn’t take very much,
All you have to do is push me,
Ever so lightly with your touch
And still, you can take me
Back from here to there
In split seconds I can fall

You should not have so much power over me
Now, and yet you do
Even though I told you, way back when, “No.”
And really it wasn’t so far from there
To get to “we are through”

The hardest part was saying “No” at all,
How long it took me,
How much pain,
And how hard it was at the end,
To stand firm within myself
And never make that call

I don’t know why you responded how you did
And became what you became
Don’t know how you could do to others
The cause of your own shame

I choose to believe
That was one small truth
Among the many lies
To get me in your spiders web
Where you had caught before me
So many other flies

But even if it did ring true
You used it against me
Nothing to fear you said,
Because it happened to me too
You used that
To get me to have trust in you
It was too late by the time I saw
To you it was all to get me
On the board of your twisted game
And rake my insides raw

A game of shame, and fear and pain
And shadowy confusion
You showed me how you always win
And every day you won that game
Always at my expense
Till my child saved my life
And drew it to conclusion

I got strong enough to stand my ground
My thoughts and my mind finally clear
And you tried to get me back to how I was
To rule me with fear
But no longer lost within my misty mind
I could finally stand up to you
You traded me for your own needs,
And would have traded your daughter too
She’s not yours any more,
If she ever was
And now she’s mine, through and through
And from day one till now
She couldn’t possibly be
Any more different from you

And now she’s in this world
She’s grown up so much
She’ll never know a word from you
Not a single touch
I’d never let you near her,
Not till the day I die
I will not let you harm her
You’re not hurting her deep inside
If I have to haunt you from my grave
Trust me, that’s what I’ll do
For ever and for always,
I’ll keep her safe from you

You betrayed my trust and lied to me
Knowing I was so fragile
You could easily have crushed me in your palm
I’d disintegrate to dust
Instead you used me
To satisfy what bent and twisted thing
In your world, would be lust

I’d been so hurt,
You didn’t care
Not even when I trusted you
And laid my secrets bare
Not even when I risked the most
I had in years
For a friend that you pretended to be
Instead you gave me tears

And shame so deep
It will never let me breathe again
You seemed so nice,
You were so different
While you pretended to be my friend

And then I met you
And in an instant it all changed,
You turned from sheep to wolf
I had no chance against you
If only I had known then
How much you were deranged

Before I was in the fire,
I tried so hard to protect myself
To keep myself safe
To not get hurt again
I was so alone
And it was the first time
I took a chance
And let somebody in

But the person
I opened the door to
Did not exist at all
You lied so you could snare me
My back against the wall
You scared me so much
I couldn’t even speak
I couldn’t scream
I couldn’t say no to you at all
And my crying
The only thing it ever did
Was bring you to your peak

I’d come crashing down
And fall
While you enjoyed the ride
While every day,
In every way
It was killing me inside
You really didn’t care
As long as you got your way
Kept me confused and lost
And in that daze I stayed

I thought that I deserved it,
What you did to me
I thought every thing that came before
Was my fault, you see
So this was just no more than I deserved
And I deserved no less
Inside I was more damaged
Than I can describe,
I really was a mess

Because of that,
And because I was so lost
You were able to do
What you wanted,
No cares about the cost
But I didn’t matter anyway
My body was yours,
Not my own
So I didn’t even have the right
To tell you, I said no

You covered yourself very well
I will kill you if you don’t do what I want
But it’s all a joke, a game, you said
Just in case I should ever tell
But that wasn’t true,
There was nothing fun or not serious about it
Between the two of us we knew

Choked me and smothered me
Till I could barely breathe
Held me down and tied me up
Pulled my hair until I cried
That just got you excited
And every time I died
The shame I felt spiralled
Well out of my control
My self hate and self blame
Increased a million fold

To a vicious cycle it led back
I felt more and more the more you did it
I deserved the attack
Every time you touched me
All I felt was fear and shame
Every touch, my body braced
Waiting for the pain
The only time you were ever gentle with me
Was when it got to be too much and I said
I can’t stand it anymore, please
Stop hurting me
And so you’d be gentle once maybe twice
Until you could back to
What you most liked

And then I’d be living the nightmare again
And again and again
Every day and every night
And I couldn’t stop you and couldn’t fight
I felt my body was yours not mine
Still I see the words “My Body Belongs to Me”
After so much time
I am surprised, I think “It does?”
Somehow it has never seemed that way
I always felt like something, a discarded toy
For grown men to use and to play

You were more extreme that way
You really thought what’s mine was yours,
I had no right to say or choose
I had no right to stop you
Me, you had every right to use
Because I belonged to you, and
You had the right to sex with me
It didn’t matter what I would choose

(Written yesterday, November 16, 2011)

My Body

My Body


I can’t stay here,

I have to fly.

I have to run, I have to hide.

I have to escape, inside my head

Have to scurry, filled with dread

Like a frightened mouse,

I slip and slide,

Trying to outrun

What’s in my mind

Trying to flee this haunted house

That carries ghosts within it still

They try to catch me,

Try to kill

Whatever is left of me inside

Whatever I protected,

Far  away and back in time

Back when I froze,

And kept inside me blame that was mine

When I forgot

When I became numb,

Every time terror was brought

In fits,

In scenes,

In nights, in days

Of mornings and evenings

I walked through life in a haze

Of weeks and months and years and single nights

And all of them, every one

Sent me into such terrifying frights

That froze, that burned

That hated and blamed,

And festered inside me

A deep and secret shame

Another layer of numbness brought

Soon it’s not enough,

And I find I am caught

It burns like fire in my veins,

In my body,

My mind, my brain

Soon even the numbness, the freezing, the flying away

The depression, self hatred, self seeking shame

A blame that burned inside my soul

And left behind

A gaping hole

It’s not enough, I can’t contain,

It’s all spilling out of all the broken places,

Cracks and holes that are leaking pain

I can’t even begin to try to seal

A shattered heart,

An inner starvation

That can never be sated by any meal

I can’t turn inward anymore

Can’t turn outward

I am alone, there’s no support

Can’t rely on my defenses to stop the pain

Can’t say I’m too tired,

I want to go home,

I no longer want to play this game

I am strangled silent

I can’t scream or cry

Somewhere along the way I lost myself

I didn’t even get the chance

To tell myself goodbye

Turned to pills, to knives, to glass

To fire and burning smoke

Just trying to survive,

Just waiting and waiting for time to pass

To blows against my body and face

And secret words of written shame,

Indelible even after they are washed away

 I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to escape this place

Nov. 1, 2011

A couple of days ago, it was suggested to me that some of the information in the AA "12 Steps & 12 Traditions" might be helpful to me.  At least, I think it is the same book.  Don't know yet.  It was actually one of many I dragged down from my bookshelves, many of them 12 Step or ACOA related.

I've started trying to read the book, in an effort to perhaps gain some useful information, but although I have only read Step 1 so far, I am finding it surprisingly difficult.

It is not the steps, or the information therein, that I am having difficulty with, since I've done several step groups so I should have some understanding by now of what all that means.

The problem I am having relies solely upon the fact that every sentence contains the word "alcoholic" and the mind set of an alcoholic, the behaviour of an alcoholic.  I'm sure this is deliberate as they are attempting to drive home the point, break through denial and unacceptance of the steps and the program.  Which come to think of it, this actually makes me think more of "programming" in the sense than in most 12 steps that aren't related to AA such as Al Anon, ACOA, CODA, SARA et al, they do not try to "break through" your psyche, they help you to stop hating yourself and more gently help you come to realize how you are getting in your own way.

But that isn't it, either.  I just find reading about alcoholics, and alcoholism, very triggering.  It's hard to get something out of a book that upsets you with every sentence, shoving painful parts of your life in your face, and not in a helpful, recognizing the ways it has impacted you, sort of way.

It makes my stomach upset.  It reminds me of horrors I'd just as soon not go back and relive.

I don't know how the hell ACOAs who are also alcoholics handle it.

But right now, I don't think I can handle reading step 2.

It is also, unfortunately, reminding me of the one period in which I did drink alcohol, and not really in a willing, it's-my-choice, sort of way.  And I sure as hell do not need reminding about THAT right now.

I need a trip down sexual abuse lane again, especially this week, like I need a hole in between my eyes.

GO AWAY, past, because I cannot deal with you right now.

It's just going to overwhelm me, given how I'm already feeling and how I'm not back at my meeting yet.

Nov. 2, 2011

I'm feeling very depressed and sad today.  And stressed.  And I am extremely tired, I have not been sleeping at all well recently (which is most likely contributing to all the other feelings).  I've been thinking about the sign in the billboard above too, since this has come up this week.  I've been thinking about God, and spirituality, and religion, and politics and beliefs, and humanity.

And about how many hateful people there are in the world, willing to hurt, attack and judge, willing to force their own beliefs onto others, onto the lives of people they haven't even met, or people they are supposed to know and love.

Willing to disregard humanity, and decency, and love, and compassion, in the name of their religion, or their spirituality, or their political beliefs.  Willing to take the "human" out of suffering, while protesting in outrage it isn't about the people, it's about the politics, or it's about the ideal, or it's about the principle.

What are politics, or ideals, or principles, or religion, or spirituality, without humanity, without people?

If all the people simply disappeared from the world today, there wouldn't be any politics, ideals, principles, religion, or spirituality.  There would be no faith, love or kindness either.

And, along with the multitudes who choose hate and condemnation, there are just as many who, while they are not foaming at the mouth one way or the other, are still willing to sit back and allow those people to assault with their hatred, or their rabid fanatacism, who won't stand up and say "This is unacceptable."  Who won't choose love or compassion, preferring instead, to stay out of their path, even though to do so means tacit agreement with the actions of those they profess not to agree with.

It is this sort of behaviour that makes "good people" allow, en masse, atrocities such as Hitler and the Gestapo, or the Crusades and the Spanish Inquisition, or the Salem witch trials and sadistic killings.

Paranoia.  Fear.  Hate.  Not to mention a healthy dose of "There but for the Grace of God go I."

In other words, better them than me.

Better to be the torturers, the killers, than the suffering, the prey.  Better to be the horrified onlookers, gossiping and righteous, than the ones inflicted with the pain.

But someone has to stand up, and reach a hand out to those who are hurting.

Someone has to use their hand for something other than slapping someone down, their mouths for something besides spewing and/or judgment, their minds for something besides rigidly adhering to their beliefs and finding fault with others.

Someone has to be proactive as an intellectual, emotional, physical, spiritual being.

"Proactive" these days is a buzzword for how much you can get done in a day.

And God forbid someone else doesn't achieve that in the tangible, measurable way most people measure their worth.

What is a human being?  How does a human being have worth?  Does one human being have more worth than another?

There is a reason we are called, "human beings", not "human doings".

Does a baby have more worth than an elderly person?

Does a parent have more worth than a person who is single and has no children?

Is a person with a family worth more than an orphan?

Is a person who works worth more than a person who doesn't?

Is a healthy person worth more than a person who is blind, or in a wheel chair, or has some other physical disability?

Is a happy person worth more than a mentally unstable person?

Is a "normal" person worth more than one with a traumatic brain injury, or a neurological disorder or disease?

Is a healthy child worth more than a child with autism?

Is a person who has led a normal, stable life worth more than one who has lived a lifetime of pain?

Is a rich person worth more than a middle class person?  Is a middle class person worth more than a poor person?  Is a rich person, a middle class person and a poor person worth more than a homeless person?

Is a heterosexual person worth more than a homosexual person?

Is a person with a stable job and a good family life worth more than a person with an addiction, who lets down and hurts everyone around them, most especially those who love them?

Is a religious or spiritual person worth more than an atheist?

Is a Christian worth more than a Buddhist?

Is a Muslim practicing jihad worth more than any other religion?

Is an American worth more than a Muslim?

Is a Canadian worth more than a Native American?

Is a child born to two parents who love each other and their child, worth more than one from a loving single parent home?  Are the two parents worth more than the single parent?

Is an adopted child worth more than a child who goes from foster home to foster home?

Is an honour roll student who lives in a wealthy, hard working family, worth more than the one who skips class, and goes home to two broken, unhealthy parents, who are unable to love themselves, each other, or their child?

Here's another question:  

What is the difference between self worth, self esteem, self respect, self regard, self integrity and self love?