Poetry.

I'm post-happy today, sitting, playing about on my computer, thinking, and reading poetry.

When one of my friends died, I went back to my childhood church for the funeral. I couldn't put my grief into anything--it was a big, black sky in my belly, all thundery and rumbly. Add to that nausea my post-traumatic reactions that I had from being so close to where I was raped and nearby a pastor who hurt me by belittling myself and my experiences when I went to him for help...I was a mess.

I tried so hard that day to go out of myself and to not be so self-centered when I was in the church for my childhood friend and his family. I'm not sure I succeeded. I spent half the time in my basement hidey-hole, clutching my old cove of stale candy for comfort, my red top stuffed in my mouth to cork the screaming. Whatever sanity I exhibited that day was divine, not handmade.

And the poetry I was reading: Jan Kochanowski, a Polish renaissance man, who wrote "Treny" or Laments in a keen for his dead daughter. I placed my forehead on the hard wood of the pew in front of me, back arched forward as if in kneeling, but still sitting, refusing to kneel in protest to the horrid spot to the right of the coffin, in protest to the closed coffin. All respect, but I wanted to scream that sermon out of my head (which, truly, was beautifully and with heart given, it was just where I was and am).

There is an incredible translation of Laments by Czeslaw Milosz and Seamus Heaney, but that has piles of copyrights on it by the two inimitable translators, so we internet English-readers are left with the coded Polish verse, centuries old, to hack at with our Polish-English dictionaries.

Wszytki płacze, wszytki łzy Heraklitowe
I lamenty, i skargi Symonidowe,
Wszytki troski na świecie, wszytki wzdychania
I żale, i frasunki, i rąk łamania,
Wszytki a wszytki za raz w dom się mój noście,
A mnie płakać mej wdzięcznej dziewki pomożcie,
Z którą mię niebożna śmierć rozdzieliła
I wszytkich moich pociech nagle zbawiła.
Tak więc smok, upatrzywszy gniazdko kryjome,
Słowiczki liche zbiera, a swe łakome
Gardło pasie; tymczasem matka szczebiece
Uboga, a na zbójcę coraz się miece,
Próżno! bo i na samę okrutnik zmierza,
A ta nieboga ledwe umyka pierza.
“Prózno płakać" - podobno drudzy rzeczecie.
Cóż, prze Bóg żywy, nie jest prózno na świecie ?
Wszytko prózno! Macamy gdzie miękcej w rzeczy,
A ono wszędy ciśnie ! Błąd - wiek człowieczy !
Nie wiem, co lżej: czy w smutku jawnie żałować,
Czyli się z przyrodzeniem gwałtem mocować?

It gives comfort, it does.

This is my favorite clip from Dead Like Me.

When I Was Six: A Sestina or Falling Down

Thrice, when I was small I tripped and fell to the floor.
First it was an ouch, a burn, a bleed; a hole
in the knee of my oldest pants.
They were the never the same again, even with patches
ironed on with my mother pressing hard, steam
dripping to the corners of the board until the patch was glued.

After, they wore funny on the crotch and legs as I glued
Valentine's Day cards (the shaking glitter fluttering to the floor).
It was winter with the outside cold and the inside hot, the confused glass between filmed in steam,
and watching that I'd rip, rip, rip wide in the paper card, a paper hole
which I'd stab my finger through and wiggle, then with glitter I'd patch
it up. Then I'd wiggle my bored bum--I wore funny, uncomfortable hanging pants.

I'd walk bow-legged when I wore them: my funny hanging pants.
I'd walk as if the inside of my knees were glued,
or hurt. I'd wobble and pither and patch
until I'd fall again, thudding and punting to the floor.
Sometimes my mother wouldn't be there to iron the hole,
she wouldn't be there to straighten and seam and steam.

In the summer season, when the cement steamed
I'd wear my knobby-knees bare and open with no funny hanging pants
and I'd run, run, run twist and this time I'd sink from a hole,
watch my blood melt, drip from my hands, so sticky, like glue,
spread out on the grassy, suburban sunshine floor,
I'd lay there twisted and watching myself spill into a pretty plotted patch.

It was that fall that I watched the weird off-colour patch
on the wall in my bedroom as if it were sick, and ignored the psychotic steam
rising, the feel of rug burn with my face to the flabbergasted floor
and the wishing for and then the washing of my funny-hanging pants.
I'd heard Johnny Jewkes say that you could get high from glue,
maybe because it had dead horse bits (but he ate worms, and) all the glue just fell right through the hole.

Nothing filled that gawping, yawning, stretching, awful hole.
My mother didn't know what to do and applied her useless patches
she glittered, she glued
she stewed and steamed
to no avail but a silent girl with listless red-stained pants
sitting a cross-legged anticipating silent on the floor.

On and on the years went, my face to the floor, and my heart a gaping hole
'Till one day I outgrew those pants and the awkward butterfly patch.
I traded in for a new pair: starched and steamed. I learned to skip and not trip and I wrapped my heart in rubber glue



Note: This poem takes license and veers from what really happened. I was never raped in my bedroom. I did have a pair of jeans with a butterfly patch but that was in junior high and meant to be "cool". I did, as all kids with cerebral palsy, trip an awful lot. All the limping from getting raped was attributed to the already present limp from my cerebral palsy.

Funny Thing About Banks

In the past few months I've recieved at least five offers from various banks that say "Open an account with us and we'll give you $100.00."

Now there are restrictions to that offer, for instance I usually have to make a purchase every now and then and have to keep the account open for 6 months. But I could do that. I have 600 to put in limbo for 6 months.

I think I'm going to do it. That's a month's rent, after all! A doubling of profit is NOT a bad return.

This reminds me when I was incredibly poor in Portland, Oregon. US Bank had an offer that if a customer waited in line for longer than 5 minutes they would be given $5.00 if they asked. The MLK branch, nearest my old home, ALWAYS had a wait period of at least ten minutes at lunch time. So I'd race down there when I was hungry for some lunch and wait in line, add a few dollars to my account or take a few dollars out, and get the $5.00. I did it so many times I think the branch stoppped doing it. Maybe there were some others doing it, but they must have lost nearly $200.00 on me in the space of six months. I did it about once or twice a week.

Sometimes I don't know how banks turn a profit, and then I remember that too many people use credit like alcoholics use the drink. And then it all makes a terrific amount of sense.

PS This also reminds me of my friend who'd sell blood every week for $20.00 per draw. I tried to do it but I had anemia so that didn't work.

Two things to Add:

One, I’ve not knowingly told a single lie here. The Adventist church needs to look deeply at itself and put the protection of children first and foremost. They need to start reaching out to rape victims within their own communities, not just the victims in Africa.

Two, in my concrete opinion, the Adventist church is absolutely 100% NOT an evil entity. They do not deserve to be treated like a cult. When anyone encourages cruelty towards Adventist people, they’re encouraging cruelty towards people. People I love and am fighting for. It’s not right to be mean to them, and it isn’t what the majority of us victims want. Many victims are STILL Adventist. To prey on specifically eschatological Adventist fears would not be something I condone in any way, shape, or form. This is not a fear fest or witch hunt. My ends do not morally support all means. I’ll follow that old canon-thumper Paul here, when he said, “Be angry, but do not sin.” I want closure, I want these things to stop. I don’t want to destroy the Adventist church. I’m VERY angry and prejudiced, I’ve made that extremely clear. Now I’d like to make more clear the dichotomy of belief and emotion within myself.

Finally, I want to reiterate to the Adventist church, its lawyers, and insurers, that however much I may or may want to get fear in my heart and shut up, clearly, constitutionally, that’s not going to work. I don’t even think I’m capable of shutting up unless I think everyone is safe. I’m autistic like that. It’d work for maybe a year, and then I’d start jabbering truth again.

It isn’t very good or kind to threaten young raped autistic women with libel lawsuits. Bear with me, talk with me, or at least talk through letters screened through yours and my lawyer, help me to understand your side in ethical kind ways and I will listen.

To my Adventist friends and relatives who may have stumbled onto this in horror: It’s a lot to digest. I love you, and I’m pretty darn confused, too. There are no easy answers.

Finally: I’m in a tremendous amount of pain. I’m working on a book right now and throwing myself into it body and soul. It’s fantasy, silly, really, along the lines of the books I used to clutch as a little girl when Scott raped me. I’d dive into them as escape. That’s me. I’m an escape artist, but maybe out where I am, I’ll find a bridge back to all of you whom I love, I’ll find a bridge to my voice. I’ll escape out of wherever I am and back to you.