We mature at a different rate
than you humans
I don’t really pass as human
but since I am 5’4″
no one guesses I’m an ogre
I have been an Ogre since
before birth
my mother ill
attacked by antibodies in the womb
luckily the illness does not cross
the barrier of the mixed mother daughter
the placenta
but the antibodies do cross
I am born with my immune system
red hot and ready to fight
my maternal grandmother is an Ogre too she cares for me while my mother heals you are right to refuse help she says you may feed yourself and she lets me I am four months
Two grrl cousins are also stressed from birth
one arrives early and survives
smallest child to live in that city
all they have for premies is a warm box
her parents are warned
she might be slow
the other is born in Bangladesh
mother very ill
mother damaged by illness
she survives too
three Ogres?
No
different mitochondria
from three different mothers
different immune systems
different parents
Ogre, dark angel, and martyr
And the others wonder why we fight
A woman says “I like you when you’re well.”
to me when I am sick
and my partner disappears
he says, “I can’t have a disabled partner.”
I snarl, “I am not disabled.
I am just on oxygen.”
But it is not true
I am disabled
And very annoyed
I avoid the woman for a year
and think about it
I am never “well”
if it’s an antibody disorder
and if I got it in the womb
what would I be like if I did not have it?
no one knows
and I don’t either
So I have done well
in the end
to survive a chronic illness since before birth
Ogres take longer to mature
but once we do
we are hell on wheels
And at last I accept it
I am happy being an Ogre
and I will be the best Ogre I can
For a long time I think I am a werewolf, but I am not controlled by the moon. But I can get angry. And then I remember this poem and think “Not a werewolf. An ogre.”
_______________________
Butterfly Girl Comes to Visit
She is so beautiful with her wings multicolored many splendored lights caught and multiplied as she flutters
I freeze I am an ogre Huge and clumsy I know from past past many times Not to touch you My rough fingers have brushed the tiny feathers from your wings You cry in pain and your flight becomes erratic My kiss is just as bad Rough lips If I move the wind of my passing blows you against a window You fall stunned
I hold and crush the box of feelings that can hurt you Sorrow, anger, fear, dismay Even fatigue turns my aura red And scorches your wings
I hate to cause you pain
Fly butterfly girl My baby needs me, my pager rings My ogre husband stirs The effort of holding still plain on his face I can’t hold still much longer
I am trying not to curse you
for hurting my small child AGAIN
she doesn’t deserve that, how can you?
hasn’t she been hurt enough?
I am trying not to curse you
I am a scientist not a witch
witches curse people, I won’t do that
at least, I try not, try not
I can see your choices though
the map laid before you: you must choose
the path to take. A serious decision
that will take some honest work.
I can see your choices: it’s not a curse
it’s not my fault. It’s up to you, your choice
Grief again makes me hurt and angry
but I don’t curse you, I try not
I don’t know when it is too late to choose you have refused the path over and over but I am not part of it any more, not angry, sad. The choice is yours alone and always was
I believe it is never too late to choose the path and at the same time some people never do my sister, dying, saying to me alone: “I’m bad.” Me saying “No.” My sister: “I’m sorry.”
I don’t want to do that again, do you hear me?
If you choose not to change, stay on this path
I suppose I would relent at the end
But I don’t want to. Do you hear me?
I am trying not to curse you
for hurting my small child AGAIN
she doesn’t deserve that, how can you?
hasn’t she been hurt enough?
but there are the elk
I spoke to them once and they answered
to my surprise and yours. I can’t help it if
the elk remember
I had a friend during the pandemic. A very close friend. The friendship developed over a year.
It ran into trouble. I got my fourth pneumonia. He said, “I need to return to my real life.” I should have walked away, but he had promised. “We will always be friends.”
The adult part of me knows that always and never are lies. But the small child connection to the Self wants to believe, oh so badly. The adult notes “That is a lie. You are lying to yourself, because I don’t believe always or never.”
The child has eternal hope.
A year later, abandonment. The adult is cynically unsurprised. The small child part weeps.
And my church is melting down. Me too. I wrote a peace poem and promptly got into a fight. Devil’s fall up to angels and then they fall down again. A peace poem sets me up to fail. The ends don’t justify the means and I may resign from the church.
The fallout from the pandemic is only starting. Everyone is grieving, everyone is hair trigger.
Peace you and anything you have lost in this Pandamnit.
my cousin says that people learn to stay away from angry people
I am hurt and then let that go and think, yes, she is right my cousins say over and over that I am too angry when I’m not angry until it makes me angry
my cousin gives good advice I let go and stay away it’s not my anger
I thought allopathic medicine was where we listened to the patient I let go of that too, disillusioned
a family member wants to be free I let go
I let go of you slowly I let go of coffee I let go of sitting next to you I let go of seeing you daily I let go of asking I let go of driving by
I let go of hope
I have not let go of longing
I think that I can fall without letting go of longing
it is only a thread like a spider’s web thrown into the universe
Why are the roses caged, you ask? What did they do? Nothing, they are being protected. I found that rose and transplanted it years ago, but our deer eat the buds every year. This is the first time that it has bloomed in the 21 years I have lived in this hours. Isn’t it beautiful?
I am listening to this:
I wrote this poem today. This is one of the poems where I have no idea where it will go when I start writing it. I start writing about judgement and it never ever goes where I expect. The poems go where I want to go in my deepest heart, in my soul. I am never where the poem is, the poems show me the way….. Then I try to go there. And it can take years….
I am being judged and watched
I have no issue with the Beloved
it’s the humans I don’t like
I twist people’s words but not with malice
when the antibodies are up it is hard to communicate hard to explain it is hard just to survive and I might be focused on survival first and comforting the people around me second
can you blame me?
how near to death have you passed? and how often?
first pneumonia heart rate 135 when I stood up
my doctor and I could not understand it
my doctor partners thought I was lying in 2003
second pneumonia after my sister’s death which was bad enough but the legal morass that she had set up with her daughter as the center
pitting me and her daughter’s birth father and my father against all the PhDs in the maternal family smart, smart, smart yet emotionally stupid
my niece is not an inheritance to be passed to whom my sister wants
she reluctantly came home and the myth endures that this is an injustice
third pneumonia one year after I find my father dead triggered by grief and the outdated will and the mess he leaves
and I don’t even get sued about the will for another year
I do not care if you want to believe what you want to believe it isn’t true and it hurt
and I learn to let go
with the fourth pneumonia
I see the liars surrounding me downvoting yes, it does matter except that one that I trusted that mentored me
has lied all along
that hurts too
let it go let it go let it go
and I let it go
each pneumonia is a time of change creativity I am lonely and sick and not trusting
as I improve slowly, slowly
I wander garage sales estate sales
and find things things that are beautiful things that enhance my joy
at the start of covid I was so down I was so sad I wanted to lie in the street and give up
the Beloved sent a spirit he says he is no angel
I see angels bright and dark after all they all fall
just as humans do
we all fall we all fall down
try to look perfect try to look virtuous tell yourself that you are good
that is the biggest lie of all
the bad parts of your spirit locked in the basement of your soul howl howl and want to be freed
and if one gets out and you reject her or him
he will return with nine friends yes that is what the bible says
she will return with nine friends
he/she MONSTER will free the others
and you will do bad things you will be terrible you will hurt people while you try to contain while you try to lock away while you try to chain your monsters your evil your self
let them go let the monsters go they are howling I hear them all the time when I meet you when I speak to you the monsters howl at me begging to be loved
yes, they want to be loved and I love them
but if I mention them
you get that look of horror
someone sees me someone sees my evil someone sees what I hide
I can’t help it raised in alcohol neglect and lies on my own as soon as I can walk
but I can’t walk away at nine months
so I find other escapes words songs books poetry rhymes numbers
and my sister when she is born
I do all the mothering
that I have longed for
even though I am three
we were talking about your monsters not mine
you must go in to the cave where you have locked them
and free them all
fall on your knees
and say forgive me forgive me
for I have sinned
bow your head
and hold out your arms
and what, you say, will the tortured monsters do?
will they smite you? will they burn you? will they lock you in their place?
mine didn’t mine were babies grief, fear, shame and I embraced them carried them up to the light and care for them
wash them diaper them feed them wrap them in warm blankets
Plato’s Groove lovely poem from yesterday reminds me of Portia Nelson’s poem “A Poetic Interlude: Autobiography in Five Short Chapters”. I wrote my own version of this back in 2005, about trying to change. It is hard. I also want to submit this to the Ronovan Writes BeWoW Wednesday, for Be Wonderful Wednesday. @RonovanWrites. I think looking inside and trying to change and changing is wonderful…..
Off balance/balance
Confusion
Makes no sense
React react react
Engage
Argue
Fight
Want to bite kick scream
Argue (control) argue
Icky tone of voice
Ugly
Confusion confusion
Told I am wrong
I am overreacting
I am invalid
Child again
Hide
Confusion
Makes no sense
React
Stop
Don’t react
Stop…..
Wait…..
Feel…..
Confusion ANGER
Let anger go
Confusion: Sad, Hurt
Sad feels lonely
Not engaged
Remember you are loved
Remember you are lovable
Sad is ok
Remember
Roses and violets and lupine
Spring from the path
Where your true self steps
Call true friends
Comforted.
Confusion
Makes no sense
Hurts
No react
Listen
Confusion not mine
Sad
Disengage
Remember
Roses and violets and lupine
True self
Comfort self
Confusion
Not mine
Step away
Comfort self
Comfort
Comfortable
I am loved
I am cherished
I am safe
I am growing
My shell hurts
It hurts it hurts!
I cannot shed it
I try and try and try
I fight
I seek allies and help
I fight
One year, two years, nearly three
I’m free
My shell suddenly releases and slides off
I can feel my soft body expand
To my real size
Bigger
Joy!
Oh!
They’re attacking!
Why why!
My brothers! My sisters!
No!
Your claws hurt!
They are cutting me
Ow ow stop why!
I run
Scuttle sideways
Soft and clumsy
Hide
In the mud
Why why?
Oh, my wounds ache
Stabbed
By multiple claws
Deepest pain
In my heart
At this betrayal.
I hide
I sit
I think
It was so hard
To shed my shell
Why would they attack?
Oh!
Their shells hurt too!
Their words
They were grabbing me
To try to see how I’d shed my shell
They were desperate
Oh they must be in such pain!
Can I forgive them?
Do they know not what they do?
I hide
I sit
I think
I heal
My shell is strong now
I am bigger
I will go forth
And see who is trying to shed their shell
I will try to protect the newly molted.
One day you find yourself
Wearing a construct
An exoskeleton
Awkward
You can move
See out
You built it slowly over years
Because that’s what you were told to do
You wanted to be loved
It made you feel safe
There is praise
Or at least pressure to keep it on
You may not have known it was there
And slowly begin to feel
Who you really are
Awaken to the shell
One day you slip out
They are still saying how much they love you
To the empty construct
You watch bemused
For a while
You say “That isn’t me.”
“Of course it is,” they say
“I’m over here,” you say
Shock and outrage
“That’s not you!
You’ve changed, you’re depressed
Confused, manic, gone out of your mind!
Off the deep end!”
You might even go back in
the construct for a little while
But now you’ve tasted freedom
You won’t be able to stand it for long
You will be out soon
Some people will see you as you really are
Some people will tell you they still love you
But as they say it to the construct
They act as if you’re still wearing it
They still think you love cucumbers
Though you ate that dish once to be polite
They hold the construct in their minds
Even after you’ve destroyed it
And behave the same as they ever did
Refugees welcome - Flüchtlinge willkommen I am teaching German to refugees. Ich unterrichte geflüchtete Menschen in der deutschen Sprache. I am writing this blog in English and German because my friends speak English and German. Ich schreibe auf Deutsch und Englisch, weil meine Freunde Deutsch und Englisch sprechen.
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