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The mysterious dance.
lucid dreams
in ephemeral night
luminous visions
fading in twilight
it’s all a stage
with balletic grace
fake danseur nobles
adorning masks on face
pull back the curtain
rouse from sleep
you’ll soon divine
the dance runs deep
lucid dreams
in the glimmering
night
the world’s a stage
pirouetting
in daylight.
Stronger
what if we never had English together
and you never got seated next to me
what if I never wrote with sharpie on your arm
or forced you to climb up that tree
I would have never loved so hard
that the world itself seemed to fade away
yet my heart would still be strung together
rather than it's current state of disarray
what if you never asked me to love you
and I didn't willfully comply
would I now know what it is to trust someone
instead of to always assume they lie
I would never have hated so much
that it consumed me for so long
yet not knowing you would mean not knowing me
and how the hurt has made me strong
The Spirit that Only Martha Knows
Martha Evans sat at the new table in the strange house after church had finished. Her stomach was rattling, empty, like the collection bowl after Colin Martins, that old balding man, had dropped his near-empty envelope. He never donated enough, and even worse he tried to hide that problem. Martha would never do that. Her coins would clatter proudly into the plate, even her breakfast money for which she now nurtured a martyred spark of regret.
Today was different because she had left church early. The seats next to her were emptier than usual, especially the one to her immediate right that her husband, Jacob, having been dead for two months now, would sit. Pneumonia was the diagnosis, according to the last of the doctors, that one who spoke to her for fifteen minutes between glances at his computer. But Martha knew he wanted her to accept an easy explanation. How she missed Jacob!
And now she was here, at a table in Julia King’s house, lured by the strange promise she could see Jacob today. This was the first time Martha had accepted an invite to Julia’s glamorous house, with all its deep oak furniture and curious fuzzy wall hangings. Martha could see why Julia lived alone.
Throughout their polite conversation, Julia did not call the ceremony a seance, which was just as well because Martha did not believe in such things. But she missed Jacob - like no-one else ever could! - so here she was, still the dutiful wife, doing something new for her old Jacob, who would never try anything new anyway.
The ceremony did not start on time. Julia was still busy flicking her long brown hair and pontificating about the sermon today, although she did mention how Colin Martin’s android phone had buzzed at least twice during the third prayer session. That’s typical Colin, Martha thought, looking at Julia’s watch.
10:04am.
The second hand jolted a few times before Martha realised her eyes had dropped to the cloth table, its colour an off-white fade, something indicative of a poorly run household. Jacob would never have stood for that, Martha would be sure. The dirty cloth drifted across the table, huge in its unkemptness, a vast careless plain. As her vision focused a few moments more, the cloth seemed to stretch out to an impossible horizon, a place where the air became scratchy and cold. Or was it? The room around her seemed to be beyond temperature now, her vision filled by bone-white layer now distant beneath her feet, the horizon an utter black ceiling.
She floated with her slow footsteps over the plain, noticing a mass of rocks in the distance. She strode towards them. Like the pulsating egg sacs of a tropical spider, the white rocks breathed. She began to pass ancient trees, green fingers stabbing knives towards the air. Closer to the rocks she saw swathes of dark move in unison, a strange stew of noise and stink floating with them. They gathered like the huddled bodies of naked people. Dots of white jostled occasionally. She could only see a vision of conflicted nothingness.
Amongst the rabble she senses Jacob. She drifted downwards into the misty mass towards the coalescing figure of her dead husband, her eyes gazing through the space beneath where her feet should be. Her clarity of vision, her sight of the open ground, belied the absence of her nose, or any part of her body, something she does not realise (unlike you as you become aware of your nose always blocking your peripheral vision). Jacob is here! Julia was right!
The figure of Jacob doesn’t see Martha, and is instead surrounded by tiny shapes. It is a series of stray church cats, purring against him with comfortable affection. She calls to him. He does not answer. An invisible dome of loneliness surrounds him. Instead the cats jostle into one figure, growing mass, a torso, breasts, mouth and lips, and finally long brown hair. He smiles. To Martha’s horror, Jacob kisses the familiar figure with the pretty smile and deep body. She laughs. Jacob runs his fingers through her long brown hair and joins her in laughter. The sound stung like disinfectant, a perceptible ozone rising from their mouths. The misty stench becomes too potent and Martha jolts away.
Her eyes snap open.
She has clearly slept yet was strangely unslumped. She sees Julia’s watch.
10:05am.
Julia had finished talking about the sermon that day, and was ready to start the seance.
Martha, being the good Christian she is, refuses to take part, finding an easy excuse to leave. She leaves fifty dollars in three neatly folded notes on the table and stands up. She feels terrified. At what she does not know. But she knows there is no point staying. Julia cannot talk to the spirit of Jacob that only Martha knows.
Dear Mee,
All the days you live in fear, you will forget. I know at times it will feel like that is every day, and at that time, you think you will never be able to forget the fear. The face of it, the smell of it, the ache of it. But you will. The days you remember are the ones in which you live.
You know those moments. You know those moments. When your heart feels as if will burst through your chest but not from anxiety, from happiness! At first, there aren't a lot of moments like that. And you will struggle a lot to find and keep the happy in your life. Time and again you will push away the blissful moments, those who bring you involuntary smiles, laughter and peace because you don't believe you deserve these things.
It will be more than a decade that you struggle but life will have its way with you, because you're just not meant to despair forever. You will walk a path of healing, of growth, self-discovery and love. You will hold hands, gaze into the souls of and exchange hearts with so many beautiful people. You will write your truth, and it will save your life.
You will become more beautiful than you ever thought you could be. There will be amazing people who cycle in and out of your life, and someday, I believe, you will find someone who will cycle in and not want to cycle back out. Someone who will be a permanent hand to hold, soul to dance with and keeper of your heart. Hopefully ten years from now, I can write me all about him.
For now though, I can tell you the future is a beautiful place. You created a life of struggle for yourself, being you, and that's okay. Because beautiful does not mean easy. But 90% of your beauty comes from your strength. So go ahead and get knocked down, you will be so much stronger when you get back up.
Oh, and you are so very loved.
Always,
Mee
My Mother Runs
My mother runs. Every morning, she wakes up at five, clothes herself, finds her phone and earphones, and goes for a run. One mile every day. One mile before work. I get tired just thinking of running like she does. But every morning, my mother runs.
My mother runs. Every time I ask about my father. Everytime I asked about my birthday. Everytime I look at the pictures. She’s afraid I’d notice. Notice the picture of my brown eyed father and his brown eyed mother. Notice the photo of my brown eyed mother and her blue eyed sister. My mother runs every time. My mother runs from the truths she hides from me.
My mother runs. Soon, I follow in her footsteps. She runs in the morning. I run at night. We cannot bear to look at one another. Only appearing when the other one is gone.
My mother runs. Now I run too. I run hard. I run fast. I run like the wind barks at my feet and the sidewalk falls away behind me. My mother runs from the monster at her heels. I run to find it. The monster runs with my mother. Is what my mother says. The monster holds fast, my mother says, and will never let her go.
My mother runs. But today she hasn’t left when I come down. My mother runs. But today she hold a picture. The picture of herself and her blue eyed sister. I sit. She sighs, no more running. Her brown eyes shimmer and my blue eyes already know.
My mother runs from the truth she couldn’t bear. That her blue eyed sister runs. Runs away from everything. Her sister runs from responsibility. Her sister runs from the future. Her sister runs from me. Her blue eyed sister runs away from everything.
My mother runs from her blue eyed sister. Whom she cannot bare to see. Her blues look just like mine and my mother will not let it be. She says her blue eyed sister runs. Runs for the past. Runs for her memories. Runs for a time before me. Her blue eyed sister runs because she blames her daughter. Her blue eyed sister runs because she is a monster.
My mother runs. To shield me. Hoping I would never see this blue eyed sister.
My mother runs after me. I run hard. I run fast. I run like my mother is behind me. I run until I spot her. Until I recognize her. Gym. Treadmill. Outside the glass. Blue eyes to blue eyes.
I freeze.
My mother runs.
#mother #running #family #daughter #familyissues
I Run From The L Word
Head wrapped in thorns and flowers
'cause selfishly, I’m all I want.
I swear to the heavens and the hells
that my heart is blind to sentiments.
I run from the vulnerability and commitment
that most crave.
Death of my own kind
I do not tear,
but collapse into pot holes
stuffed to the brim with sigh and shrug.
At birth
most are dealt the Queen of hearts
and attach
themselves to the symbolistic face value.
To them, love is a card.
I flip it over and shuffle
to regain composure.
The only time I pick up a deck
is at parties, in which I remain nameless,
where my mind runs on empty.
Easy escape.
One touch
and I'm off to the races
with a torch in my hand
and thorns in my hair.
A Very Many People Inside Me
It’s quiet, Dear
And you can’t hear
All those people inside me
Voices scramble
Thoughts are ramble
Due to the pantheon inside me
Corner of my eye
I see them smile
These people and people inside me
You want to know
How can I show?
Faces hidden inside me
Oh, I try to count
Yet there’s such
An army of persons inside me
We’re a whole
Inseparable
A very many people inside me
~Cotton Candy
A poem inspired by dissociative identity disorder.