A vignetted extract
from my personal journal.
Complete with encrypted notes
RE: my family history.
When my birth mother died:
-as a byproduct of cervical cancer;
-Primary COD being cardiac arrest,
-alternative Dx translation: Broken Heart
I hated her more than ever.
My perception:
-I was abandoned,
-left alone, AGAIN.
-this time with the burden of the knowledge and responsibility to tell the stories of our oppression.
-with her permanently gone;
another potential voice against the absurdity of misogyny lost.
VANISHED into the abyss of “our unspoken-untold-tabooed” ancestral history.
Now, with nearly two decades devoted and well spent from my “allotted budget of time”,
Mistakes and all,
...Experiences “experienced”,
I will forever-
Love her more than ever.
She was a rebel,
my biological mother.
Unknowingly sent rogue by those trusted most;
who did not know...for they were just as lost.
All her life,
She was without an army.
All of my life,
I am building one.
***
How do I do it?
By religiously choosing to embrace, within my very own existence
-the broken parts of her, undeniably also mine.
Tandem, I choose to witness and speak about;
the just & excusable root causes that are chain-linked to
Our reputation.
Our legacy.
I offer Mercy.
-in the sense of “to forgive” but not to overlook
-to vocalize, not in a resentment inwardly toward myself,
nor externally toward her.
No. instead, it is to be echoed further.
Beyond the cavernous walls that closed in on our grandmothers,
as well as their mothers’ - mothers’…
To be heard by those who did It.
Or are still, doing It.
***
Why?
Because the quality of the fragments
that my birth mother brought into this life, deposited & left,
To me;
Although not as immediately obvious, balanced or plentiful as they could have been;
had she not inherited and consequently passed “It” along to me...
These fragments of courage,
strength,
of truth,
found in the substrates of joy,
Mixed perfectly,
shaded in such a way that at times,
seems almost pre-planned,
Are ultimately what makes the vision of my internal kaleidoscope
regarding self-acceptance
so damn exquisite,
feasible,
and worth the work.
Despite the drama and pain of it all.
***
Over the years of my working in the field,
one of the numerous ways that I and my clients achieved
Self-Acceptance – or Self-Love
Was through “writing and play acting”,
always with the closing act emphasized on healing.
In most cases,
this resulted,
naturally, through a series of cascading events;
via innate creativity,
captured while in flow.
Alchemized with unapologetic expression of self,
through making moves within the “arts of our hearts”.
***
My poem.
It is rated R.
Explicit in nature for those who are prepared to understand;
and if not,
perhaps stirring curiosity;
suggesting that one look into rooms that have yet to be peered upon.
With that said:
“Explicitus est liber!”
Today, I set down the past of my mother.
I set it down right here for all to see.
I grew up in the shadows of her shame.
The charcoaled burdens that were not even her own.
Nor the women before her.
Standing on foundations of cracks
Along with what felt like ice cold souls. --- If I WORE THIS with a certain kind of glasses, And wandered through the gardens, I would be considered an accomplished woman. But what if I WORE this with a certain kind of pantyhose, Or tattoos to boot?
What if I WORE it standing on the wrong side of the street, The one leading to my assumed past… Or my mother’s said history for that?
What then, would I be called for stepping out and never stepping back in?
What if, I followed my gut and ran so fucking far away from it all; Sucking myself in.
Away from it all. Only to come back and face it in society’s thrall?
And then AGAIN, CHOSE to take the bridge that others were afraid might fall?
Would I be considered a rebel; Perhaps A feminist in her delight?
Or.
Would I still be considered something that ‘just’ looks fun for the night?
Well cover your ears if my truth’s not your thing;
Years upon years of wrestling.
Raw, naked and wild. YES, OH YES!
Tugging and pulling
on the demons of my past;
Ahhhh, Unrelenting – no rest.
Hustling to combat Hers too;
The woman who handed it all down to me, Albeit unintentionally.
---
What I was able to see while I was so deeply down and inside there…
What I saw was me,
Finally feeling released and free!
Now’s the time to speak what I know…
IF.
IF.
IF,
Misogyny had her way,
I would feel shame and fear, Probably, For ever even being here.
But today and all days moving forward, Not only for her- but also for me,
I REFUSE to give Misogyny --- Her way.
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