Permafrost

There is a lot going on in my life. The letter I sent to my mother has put a lance to the infection that has plagued my family. I am working miracles to not revert to the mental pattern of hating myself because honestly the odds are against me. I don’t think the that trauma that my family has had to endure is well understood by the medical community at large. I don’t think it’s well understood by the people who experience it, even. My mother had a dream that she shared with me with an intensity that set my life course. She doesn’t even realize how much she has impacted my life or my life choices. She wanted to do better than her parents and prevent her children from being sexually abused or harmed in general. She tried. She tried very hard in her way to prevent this. She asked me if anyone had ever touched me in my “bathing suit” areas and told me with an intensity that I was intimidated by, to tell her if anyone ever did this. None of this prevention education worked. I was sexually abused by my father and by her friends.

The father piece was a painful secret that I lived with for decades completely unsure if it was beneficial to my family if I told them. You see, my way of dealing with this was to gaslight myself. I told myself that I was crazy and I would hurt myself to discredit and punish myself for thinking negatively about my father. I deepest sympathy for my father as I do for my mother. I can see their whole lives play out with such great intentions but yet falling short of ending the cycles of violence. And I too started out with such great intentions. But I could see my failure when I was hiding at the end of my bed, clutching the down comforter so hard that the feathers put tiny blood marks on my hands- watching my male partner- who was supposed to be so different - full on rage scream in the face at my dimpled three year old child for an infraction so small I can’t even remember it. And I couldn’t even lift myself off the floor to defend him.

fail.

you failed.

you are a failure.

mother fail.

FAIL

I had no idea how to escape.

I was blind

The Helen Keller of love.

It was three more years before I was able to escape. but I did it. I escaped.

But my mother never did. She is still locked in her head. Alone and not knowing how people work. Her great dreams dashed. She thinks that I am the problem. I choose to be sad. To be a tortured artist. Rather than a great artist. I can only hope that I have done better for my son. but only time will tell.

Remember this: The answer is love, the answer is kindness. but that is a lot more complicated than we think it is and also much simpler.

I soothe myself with art. with violent words. Maybe no one hears me but the silent screaming helps.

Permafrost (The Ballad of Constance Part 1)

(…she is not going to read this anyway

so there is nothing to lose…)

Die quietly

Don’t bleed on the rug

Cross stitched on the wall

Taxidermy’d polar bear stretching vast across the thin wood panel in the basement

Black skin and fur like winding blades of glass grass

White and colonial drunk.

Granddaddy’s hands are hard

And there is a loaded shot gun behind the door

In ‘case of bears.

*

No tears

They will just freeze

The cold crept into their hearts

Preserved with gallons of whiskey.

Pipelines and stolen children.

The safety in whiteness

But only from the government.

None from the privateer demons

Infecting the invaders.

This is the mother landscape

The quiet effect of generational trauma.

And she escaped

You can take the girl off of the permafrost

But you can’t take it out of her heart.

She has cold burnt edges in there

From her parents.

*

Die quietly

Don’t bleed on the rug

Even when your uncle rapes you

But what is your Aunti going to do?

She has five kids.

A woman can’t do it alone.

She needs her husband

You liked it didn’t you?

It was just sex after all

It can’t really hurt you

Walk it off.

Get on with it.

Stop making such a lather

We won’t let him babysit anymore.

*

She escaped on a boat.

Full of sailors.

Not quite pirates.

I was born blond strange and pale

Too much thought.

Fragile and sweet.

But she was infected

Too late for me

But I won’t go gentle into that good night

But rage rage…