Paint a feather
into my soul
So I may fly
And be forever known
Starts with one
Until it grows into wings
Paint me a feather
So I may be free
Paint a Feather
I Play Ventriloquist
I play the ventriloquist.
Begging you for help.
But I don’t let you see
the words forming from my mouth.
I need you to step in,
when I’m sinking in to do’s.
House work, school work, three children.
Way too much to do.
Sports take all evening.
E-learning takes all day.
Let’s not forget meal prepping
and bathing not too late.
Myself is losing focus.
Forgetting who I am.
No time for self reflection.
No time for where I stand.
This is for the parents out there struggling. I feel you. We normally live a very busy life with three daughters and we have a very busy schedule. Lately along with the rest of the world, our lives have gotten way more stressful and chaotic as we fight to do the right things while trying not to take away from the children. I choose to live a very full life with them and right now with them all so young it is very easy to lose who I am. I am so very thankful and lucky to have a husband who battles time along with me to help save my self identity. He helps me make time and pushes me to follow my dreams so that after parenthood I will not have lost myself. I know that not everyone has that. So if you do not have that person, you need to be that person. As hard as it is to find time for yourself and for your goals, you need to keep on fighting. You are YOUR savior. I choose to conquer one small goal at a time each day no matter how small. You can do the same. You can do that and be in this battle right along with me and countless others to save our true selves who we have pushed away. We are all in this Battle for Self Identity together all fighting our own obstacles. We can have the role of parent and take on the smaller battles until we have time to tackle the bigger ones when we can focus more on ourselves. You can do both. You can be a parent and fight not losing yourself. Just work on not letting your true self slip away behind all the chores, sports, cooking, cleaning, and mile long lists. We are in this together. Be true to yourself, forgive yourself, and know that you are YOUR savior. Give yourself time.
The Poetess
The musk of her words
Brings tears
like rainfall.
A weeping rain.
Heart caged.
Pulling at the bite.
The poetess.
Destroyer of Content.
The Bringer of the Real.
Keeper of the Imprints of Hearts.
When her words fall,
the world aches.
And there is no thing as a better place or time.
Help Me Love Me
Pour love into me,
So that I may be filled.
Lend me my destiny
To make this life real.
Give me a purpose,
So I have no doubt.
Help me love me.
Raise self-worth profound.
Finding The Other Half Of Your Soul, But Awaiting His Uncertain Boundless Return Continued
In my previous post from last week, I explained how my husband worked nonstop which left me countless days and hours with myself. Some days were harder than others and sometimes no matter how hard I tried to keep myself and my mind busy, the doubts, fear, and depression came working their way into my soul. I said I would continue from last weeks post with a few more poems that were deeper and more broken from some of my harder days. Here they are.
Sick Of
Having a hard time holding on.
Too many things broken to fix.
Broken love, broken soul, broken promises
with no mending on your list.
Sick of no time to rebuild.
Sick of no time on your watch.
Sick of little children’s tears
and mommy stuck cleaning up.
Sick of hearing “Where’s daddy?”
Sick of what was important being no more.
Sick of underappreciating
what once was us before you opened this door.
Don’t know if I can hold on any longer.
Having a hard time not letting go.
Don’t know if we will ever have time to fix this,
since it’s just like you to never show.
In Need Of Touchable Nostalgia
Falling apart.
Tears falling down.
Not what I used to be.
No where to be found.
Can’t be a good mommy,
when all I carry is grief.
All I need is to see you.
I need things how they used to be.
Want You Back
I loved it when you cared.
I loved it when I could open up.
I loved you when you were you,
before you gave all that up.
You went into the darkness.
The darkness I tried so hard to hide.
Working for things that don’t matter.
No more caring what’s inside.
Dreams are what took you.
Good intentions, you’re falling fast.
Demons are what lead you
down this long lost path.
Please come back to us.
I’m begging for you, please.
Family isn’t what it is without you.
We aren’t what we used to be.
We all cry for you in the distance.
Just wanting you to come home.
We really don’t care about the money.
We just want you back to hold.
Finding The Other Half Of Your Soul, But Awaiting His Uncertain Boundless Return
Playing Hero
She sits in the dark awaiting
her loved one who never comes.
Her thoughts drift to pictures
of them when they were young.
They were laughing and dancing,
never without a smile.
Kisses and hugs,
man, it seems like such a while.
But he is off playing hero
for the family he deserves.
So she sits and waits quietly
knowing that when he can he will return.
Life on Repeat
I miss you.
I kiss you.
We hug
and you leave.
Same thing every day.
Every day on repeat.
When will things change?
You say change will come soon.
I want to believe you,
but I only see doom.
When I first met this man, he was working at DQ and was definitely what I would categorize as a boy who loved to do the stupidest things and get hurt. Then he went to work at Burger King in our small town for awhile before he transferred burger kings to the one in Lafayette where we moved to to go to Purdue. There he worked part time and went to school to be an engineer full time, until his friend presented him with a better job working at WWL. He took it and then started working full time third shift, with a lot of overtime and continued to go to school full time. I swear he didn’t sleep. Then he sadly failed a class. Not because he wasn’t smart enough, but because we lived in a bad part of town and his gas got siphoned on the day of his exam. He actually pushed his jeep to the gas station to fill it back up, but still ended up late to his exam and they wouldn’t let him in so he failed. He was obviously upset and discouraged, but it didn’t let him completely down. We ended up finding a better apartment in a better area that we moved to since I was now pregnant. He started Ivy Tech with a different major now in mechanics since he decided he wanted to do something that he loved with his life. He continued life still working full time and getting any overtime possible to help us get by, going to school full time, and helping me with the baby when he could. Then after awhile with some more months of schooling still left for him to finish we bought a house in Wanatah. Right after that he lost his job. I’m talking directly after that. But he refused to let that slow him down. He found a job up north in Porter. And continued to work full time there, while traveling to Lafayette to go to his college classes to try to finish. Some days he would sleep in our now empty apartment since our lease wasn’t up yet, but I would hate to know how much sleep he missed. I know that the driving so much back and forth scared me with how sleep deprived he was. But finally he graduated and was able to stay up north with us. He ended up getting a second job part time to help us get by. Until he found another job that paid better with crazy long hours. Then after switching jobs once again to go back to work as a mechanic he ended up impressing some people and ended up switching fields doing something that he never would have imagined doing, didn’t know exsisted, but happily enjoyed. But then he started working more and more almost 17 or 18 hours a day and night for at first weeks until it turned into months trying to start up a company on top of the job he was already working. Then days would go by without him even coming home working crazy like always. But finally he has started his own company with a couple companions and is back down to one job. Watching him work his body sick for years has been incredibly hard, but I couldn’t be more amazed and proud that it has paid off for him. He is definitely the definition of determination and a hard worker to me. It has been amazing to watch him grow from that boy who didn’t care if he ended up in the hospital for a thrill to the man he is today doing anything and everything he can for the little family he has built.
So, as you can see my husband worked a lot and nonstop so he could build the dream life he wants for himself and his family. He still continues to do this to this day, but so far things have gotten better. Throughout the years though it was not easy waiting with the heart breaking for the one you love to return and fill you with the love you so desperately needed to be filled up with again to keep going. My husband is a hero in my eyes, not just for working as hard as he has forever for us, but for fixing me and getting me to the point where I can actually look at myself in the mirror and not completely hate myself. He helped me get to a place where I never thought or dreamed I could have ever gotten to. I can actually love and enjoy life now and focus on my goals instead of battling with myself mentally and physically every day. I truly owe him my life. But as I said, the journey was not easy. There were a few times that depression and loneliness started to work deep into my mind and made things harder than they needed to be. Not today, but Tuesday I will continue this with some of the more deeply broken poems where I started to lose hope that things would ever get better and I started to lose faith in our bond.
(Sorry about there being no spaces between paragraphs and poems. For some reason it won’t let me fix it and it only wants to stay this way. Except for this last paragraph.)
Fighting The Too Common Tragedy (Three Poems)
Lately, I don’t know if it is because of the age group we have reached or if it is something else, but there have been more and more suicides in our community. When I say community, I am meaning friends or family of our peers or our peers themselves. Maybe it is because of Facebook and the better access we now have to what is going on in people’s lives that we are more aware of this sad and tragic occurrence happening more often. I really don’t know if it truly is more common now, or if it always has been, but either way it always comes as a shock that shakes us to our core. What I do know though is that the pain the victim feels is real and that it is a hard and difficult struggle between life and themselves in those moments before they decide to take their own life or decide to continue living. I know it is difficult for many to understand and that the concept or thought of taking your own life is unfathomable, but people do at moments deeply feel like the world does not need them and that everyone around them would be better off without them. There are moments that people feel too worn down and weak mentally to keep carrying on the road that they are on and see no other way out of their pain. These are three poems I wrote the day after I found out that there was one suicide attempt and one successful suicide that happened on the same night. It frightened me more so than usual because that same night I was also struggling like I have many times before. It was and still is eerie to me that in a small area so many people were feeling and contemplating the same things. I feel like I can manage the thoughts decently enough since I have battled them on and off for many years. After awhile for me it just becomes a nuisance and a focus on the duties in life I have and need to complete, because what helps carry me through is all the things I know I still need and want to accomplish and that I want to be around to hold my children for as long as I can. Also looking at all the times that I had thought the same thoughts and have come close to the same dreadful end along with the fact that I am still here helps pull me through knowing that it gets better. The more you fight it, the stronger you become towards those thoughts in my belief.
I Was Almost You
I was almost you…
I saw your name today and realized I never knew you,
but yet I did.
We were in the same place last night.
We were lost in the same unforgiving darkness
willing to take a life.
We were both struggling hard
trying to hold onto any amount of breath we could breathe.
We were trying to forgive ourselves,
trying too hard to please.
For a moment the thought flickered across our feeble minds,
but that moment was too long for you,
that moment was your time.
Now today I’m alive and breathing my normal breathes.
Shocked that you were in the same place as me.
Yet, I never would have guessed.
Maybe if we could have called out to each other,
desperate souls trying hard to see.
I would have found you
and you would now be alive with me.
I look to the face this morning
of my little baby girl
and realize that no amount of darkness
should be allowed to take us from this world.
Why Without Goodbyes?
It’s crazy how common it is,
the thing that flashes through my mind.
To give up when you still have fifty years to live.
To give up and take your life.
I cannot understand how hard it is,
even though I’ve visited more than twice.
Why it is never completely possible to fight it.
Why we give in without goodbyes.
I don’t get why when we are in the deepest of our lows,
how hard it is to realize that we have so much more time to grow.
That in that amount of time things can get better than we even believe.
Why do we not ever give it the chance?
Why do we not take our time and breathe?
Monster in the Town
Was there something in our town last night?
Something searching for souls.
Something trying to dive into the weakest of minds,
trying to make people let go.
Who knows how many people tried to come to their lives’ end.
I know that at least one succeeded, and that it almost had my head.
Mixtures and Dependent Love (2 Poems)
Lately, I have been having such a hard time even looking at some of my sad poems from my past. So here are two more nice ones for the week ❤ And isn’t this picture wonderful and amazing!!! Crazy the beautiful and odd things you see out in the country, even just on the drive home.
Mixtures
A bloom, a blossom.
A farewell, a goodbye.
A hello, a dying flower.
A smile, a guy.
All come in mixtures,
some sad and some gloom,
but when all put together
people are happy as loons.
Dependent Love
She’s happy, only when she’s with him.
He warms her heart, and she lets him in.
Protects her soul from doing horrible things.
He is her life, the reason she breathes.
Worst Battle Of My Life (including 3 poems)
So the hardest thing I have ever had to deal with in my whole life so far has been an eating disorder. I fought, lost, and dealt with it for nine long horrible years. I finally was able to beat it, if you can call it that since it still lingers, and have been “clean” for almost two years and eight months now. It is seriously amazing how different you view things and how much easier it is to enjoy life and everything around you when you are not fighting for your life against your body and your mind. I am beyond thankful to my husband because without him I seriously would not have been able to make it this far. He never gave me an ultimatum, but just stood by my side, gave me stability, and was there to comfort me and talk to me when I needed it, even if that meant countless hours of talking me through the same things over and over again. Now I am more happy with myself than I have been in my entire life, and I am beginning to love myself and see myself as a friend instead of an enemy. So, here are some of the poems that I did while battling the disorder near the beginning. To give you a time reference it all started near the end of seventh grade or in the summer after seventh grade when I completely stopped eating and would work out until I would pass out. I had many scares and even would pass out on the side of the road during a run. That was scary because before then I’ve never seen a road come up to meet you in the face before you blacked out, but then without even knowing that it was a thing I started eating again and throwing up. Which landed me in the hospital after a while when I wasn’t able keep water down anymore. My blood pressure was 70/40 and I weighed 92 pounds. Then I was sent to rehab, which didn’t do anything for me because I was the only one in the place with an eating disorder, and as soon as I got out my mom took me out for pizza, and then on the way home I had her pull over and I threw up again. After that everything went from there with me even eating food out of dumpsters sometimes and wasting any money I could get a hold of to buy food from gas stations at one or two in the morning while everyone was sleeping and finding anywhere I could to hide to binge and purge. I would do it at family gatherings. I would do it when friends and family were were just in the other room. Anywhere and anytime I could find, I would do it. Sometimes it would even get way more than up to twenty times a day. Once I could drive, well then that didn’t help at all, and it was nine beyond horrible years that this went on that I wish I could take back. But now I weigh around 140 pounds 🙂 sometimes even 145 if I do a super heavy weight program for a few months, and I feel healthier and happier than ever and am super ecstatic to be as far away from that nightmare as I am now because I never thought I would be.
She’s so confused.
So lost in her head.
Thinking weight is what matters,
so she’s sinking in dread.
She knows she’s killing herself,
but she just can’t quit.
She feels bad with what she’s doing,
but see’s no way out of it.
Shes scared to eat anything,
yet wants it so much.
Getting into everything
and making it come up.
Why can’t she control herself?
Why can’t she just quit?
There’s so many people praying for her
trying to get her out of it.
But she knows she can’t do it,
unless she helps herself.
She has to learn to eat
and stop swimming in doubt.
She wants a good future,
but know it will never come
if she keeps going down this road
not finding a way up.
(A second poem I wrote in my journal right after that)
It’s such a mix-up,
Which way should I go?
Should I go with my fear
and let everything show?
Should I not eat at all
in worry of weight?
Or should I have it all?
It’s never too late.
I could purge it up later
and go out for a run.
Ugh… I want chocolate,
or do I want none?
Ugh! What’s with my mind?
Why can’t I think?
Can think only of food.
Can do nothing but freak.
No, I can’t have anything.
Got to lose weight.
But come on, it’s delicious
it’s got to be fate.
I know I’m addicted.
Addicted to food,
but I’m also scared of it.
Could that happen too?
Why am I all three?
Why not just one.
Why do I have to starve, binge, and purge?
Why can’t I be none?
(Poem I have done after “beating” the disorder for more than a couple of years. I’m afraid it will always be there waiting for me, but with knowing that I know that each year I just have to get stronger in my mind, with my self image, and with my relationship with myself.)
It lingers
awaiting
awaiting the fall.
Will you give in
and just lose it all?
Will you let all your hard work
suffer in disgrace,
when you pick up the infliction
and lose all your faith?
(A picture of when I was admitted to the hospital. They brought in a dog to try to raise my blood pressure.)
(Three Poems) Crazy What We Can Pull Through
I’m going to do three poems today from my past. Not the worst ones. There are some that I am a little hesitant to share, but maybe I will get to them one day. I have just so many journals full of them. I want to get them all out there, but I’m not a fan of letting anyone into my past and seeing my dark side. I’m talking my really really dark. But I feel like people should know that no matter how dark you may be or have gone, that you can pick yourself back up. Some of my horribly terrifying poems I have written shock me at how messed up I really was. I look at myself now and I feel so much stronger, better, and happier. I remember not too long ago when I thought that I would never be able to make it out of a certain something. I could see no light at the end of the tunnel, but I did it. I conquered something that I never thought would be possible, and doing that has made me realize that there are so many things that I can do and accomplish that I don’t even know about yet. It has made my marriage stronger, it has made me desire more to better myself, and it has helped me help people close to me and I’m hoping one day people who don’t even know me.
When Are You Theirs?
They keep coming and coming,
visions black with fear.
Eyes start blurring
from straining them to clear.
They won’t go away,
small glimpses of hell.
Killing, sex, and burning,
people dying out.
They keep on taunting,
never going away.
With nothing left worth seeing,
our imagination it plays.
Words they keep on coming,
silent as the grave.
All filled with lust and torture,
raping another’s game.
They just keep on stalking.
People, they want to sleep.
Kids while they’re playing.
Pets while they eat.
They just sit and watch at sin,
of sex, guilt, and play,
of lust, envy, and anger,
anything that’s lame.
While we’re all lame inside,
can’t move. Can’t think.
Can’t swim. Can’t flush out evil.
Can’t work. Can’t sleep.
We have things go in our heads.
Are they real? Are they true?
Is it when they control,
or end up marking you?
Marking you with scratches
from their icy fingers that burn.
With eyes that slice like knives.
With memories that yearn.
Is it when they make you suffer?
Is it when they make you play?
While making you have sex?
No control left to escape.
Leaving, It’s up to them.
To make fear rule.
As you keep on having visions,
while the demons take with you.
(When Are You Theirs was when I was having hallucinations when I was in late middle school and early high school, which I’m pretty sure were caused by a mix of medications I was taking. I won’t go into what the hallucinations were of course. Also, just so it is known, I am only now just naming some of these poems so it is easier to separate them and find out their meaning. In my journals they have no names. The poem below this I won’t name.)
Life is done.
Death is near.
We all hear panic.
We all see fear.
We close our eyes
to block out the pain.
The darkness has taken,
the light from the day.
She runs to hide.
Hide herself from strife.
He comes for her.
Comes to take her life.
He grabs her now,
rape in his mind.
His face all darkness.
His eyes not kind.
His hands all cold.
He holds the knife
and thrusts it home.
Her end in sight.
It strikes her heart.
She holds her breath.
Blood in her mouth.
Blood on her breast.
Her face turns pale.
She sheds one last tear.
Blood in her eyes, she swallows
the last of her fears.
(A poem with a mixture of elements I was obsessed with and that were going on at the time.)
Please
I’m lost, lonely,
frustrated, scared.
Worried, confused,
trapped, and bare.
My thoughts are running.
I’m drifting away.
I’ll never know if
I’ll see another day.
Everyone reads me
when I want to stay closed.
Waiting to seize me.
Me not wanting to go.
Waiting forever
for someone who’s real.
Not leaving me helpless
and making me feel.
Being numb and cold
not feeling a thing
makes you …. want to
only just dream.
Because while everything’s moving
as fast as it goes.
It calls into question
how far we will go.
Will we go on forever?
Are you and me real?
Or am I just sitting alone
waiting to feel?
Feel someone with me.
Someone against my skin.
Someone to love me
and let me in.
Someone to work with.
Someone to hold.
Please tell me you are out there.
And where I should go.
I’m done with being confused,
lonely, and scared.
I’m in desperate need to find you.
I need you here.
(Another one from my past, but sometimes I find some mistakes and/or I add on and finish up some poems from my past. Which is what I did for this one. It is great to see more clearly now. Not as clear as I would want to, of course, but clearer than when I was younger. Just have to keep sifting through our minds and figuring things out until life is precious to us again. Diving into these poems in my past feels like greeting and getting to re-know the past me. Sometimes it is dark and scary, but it helps to know that I did and have pulled through, and if I ever get encountered by darkness as black and vivid as what I have encountered in the past, that it is more than possible to pull through it again. :))
Regaining Lost Aspects: Mind and Soul 