The Greatest Storyteller

Rolling out of bed with crusty eyelids,
beginning to traverse the darkened midnight halls.
I head to the bathroom,
going to take a piss at god knows when.
The roof creaks and cracks against the harsh winds among these old walls.
I turn on the light and my eyes start burning too tired to notice the shadow behind me lurking.
it lingers reaching out for me.
"I don't have time for this," I say
and swat it away.
Head back to bed and rest as I'm brain dead.
leaving the shadow behind to contemplate its faults.
I am now just another disappointment in this somethings eye.
The tall dark figure that stretched up the walls in the shitter is now just a shadowy quitter.
Heading home to a cooked supper,
announcing it just left its job,
to chase his passion of being a painter.
All because I was too tired to be fainter.
My bed is more important than a fear of being a shadows dinner.
So next time you see a specter in the mirror, just shrug it off without terror so it can go home and make life-changing decisions over dinner.

Goliath, the paranoid dyslexic ephelant
Was stomping through the forest one day,
Taking a stroll down the trail in the woods,
Minding his business going about his way.
But in that spaced out peanut brain of his,
He did not notice an anthill in the road,
He stepped on it not becoming aware of,
The destruction he had just bestowed.
An army of ants came out of the flattened hill,
Mad as hell screaming "let’s go to war”
He'd destroyed their home and didn’t notice it,
It’s time for payback like never before.
So the next morning all the ants,
Climbed up the branches in the trees,
Waiting for Goliath to walk down the path,
To jump him and bring him down to his knees.
And sure enough Goliath came strolling,
Unaware of the danger waiting ahead,
An army of homeless angry ants,
Was about to drop an elephant dead.
And so they all jumped on his back,
Flying through the air like the 101st division,
Punching and kicking with all they had,
Sure that they would accomplish their mission.
But Goliath started wiping them off,
With his trunk like he didn’t care,
And all the little ants started falling off,
Plunging to the ground falling in despair.
And the ants knew they were defeated,
Lying down beaten on the forest ground,
Suddenly they all noticed one little ant,
Hanging on to Goliath’s neck still not down.
And they all noticed, it was David,
The smallest puniest ant in the hill,
Almost unconscious, holding on for dear life,
And it gave them all hope and chills.
And the ants started screaming “choke him,
Squeeze him with all your might,
We believe in you David, you can do it,
Wake up and don’t give up the fight.”
And David rose to the occasion,
Summoning all the strength he could,
Strangling the giant with his hands,
Believing that he could (and he would).
Goliath started to feel a little jab,
Somewhere on his neck he couldn’t reach,
And started panicking running now,
It was David stuck to him like a leech.
In his panic Goliath kept looking back,
Not noticing a tree branch ahead,
Running now as fast he could,
Not paying attention he hit his head.
He got dazed and dizzy knocking himself out,
Out cold falling to the ground,
It didn’t matter how, but he did it,
David had brought the giant down.

I am the one they feverishly hide.
​A disgrace of respected loins,
behind fashioned walls inside.
​Born with limbs that withered in
​the womb of shame, birthed uneven legs
​that limps and lames. My mother
shown pity and hints of care, but
her face as she looks away... in obvious
​regret and all things unfair.
The higher born of old families rooted in
​Victorian mansions as I.... is where
​you can find little rooms as these well hidden
​where we, the unknown lived and most often died.

A small window facing a wall was my only view,
​along with tree tops of pines as they hopefully grew,
​but never outside, a wish of non sense I sagaciously knew.

The mute maid, with head bowed would service
my chamber pot but once a day. My ankles swollen
from bed irons that chain me to these
wooden floors where my dirty bed roll lay.
As a child I recall the chains being much heavier than I,
perhaps more than the burden my parents
endured in their everyday lie.
The bricks that forced me in, also allowed me faint
pleasures of my family I'd hear, but not I and why?
​because I am grotesquely ugly,
in admittance I sigh....
​I don't believe my siblings knew of me at all.
​Could they love me as I love them, if in their
​innocence they saw?.... no... in sibling love,
let them keep their unknown names and perfect
​faces distant beyond my darkened hall.

Father rarely visited my imprisoned and stench
stained room. When he did, it was always in routine
of drunken rage. My back bared obediently awaiting
its doom. Accompanied by whips and sticks of wood,
I'd crawl into my mind where I was at my prettiest
and took his hate as best I could.
​When inebriation played its tired part...on my
floor he'd sometimes lie in sleep. Beside my father
I coiled and softly place his arm around me, without
sounding a single peep. Beneath hateful hands of pretend,
I'd fall in thankful feels of weep.

​I had no fantasies or dreams to escape to in the
contorts of my mind. Impossible...how could I?..
if not seen or known of anything beyond my room
to remember or rewind. Insanity played its cruelty
on me from time to time, but it was a welcomed
friend aside from the roaches and rats that
accepted me in my filth and grime.

​The awaited day is here that I no more fear.
Alas, father speaks a kind word and breathes...
" The snow is falling do you see it forming on the
​branches of tree?"..... "yes father"...
a first kiss on my head, when his angered reflection in
​my window I see... as he swung his merciful
hammer to end his disappointment in me.

“Use the darkness of your past to propel you to a brighter future.”          
~ Donata Joseph          
     
I         
The pepper box sits in the garden  
corner with marigolds and baby breath;      
its contents are empty—    
like we are of Life            
when Death comes for tea.    
     
It was once full of seeds      
that grew to burn our tongue      
when eaten;      
but, there was a satisfaction in the heat—      
an accomplishment, growth      
from the inevitable harvest.   
     
That's life: a big bang of experience    
burning from emptiness.            
           
II    
The first time I remember him      
beating her senseless    
was the second that fear          
unpacked its suitcase in my mind;    
     
it demanded silence—      
and, because of its enormity      
I allowed it to take my voice;      
I hid instead, feigning sleep    
despite her screams.      
     
The night he almost drowned her      
I became a banshee; a screech owl      
in the hallway  
outside their bedroom door—    
            
He locked her out, and himself in    
with me—I was 12.      
   
III.    
Trust is a fragile thing    
when betrayed by a god;      
we shrink      
into someone we're not—      
and a lie becomes more important      
than lives truth will destroy.      
     
We grow    
from circumstantial belief—            
are patterned by environment      
face bitter choices      
or acts of forgiveness.      
     
The silence took me;    
but, I chose to be submissive    
because of embarrassment.      
   
It wasn't me  
who eventually delivered her      
from his fists and feet.            
   
IV    
Death had enough;    
sent his emissary to inflict    
five years of suffering upon her—      
bone decay that gnawed    
through her body    
as a beetle on a basil leaf.      
     
In his eyes, every new tumor    
and destroyed nerve ending            
became a bruise he had inflicted—      
until she was nothing      
but a mangled mass of guilt-stained sheets.             
           
V.    
Guilt is a funny thing,    
but not really;      
his life became Vodka    
over rocks, wasting away—    
he played reel-to-reel tapes      
sent to him in Vietnam;    
her voice sharing what she cooked    
and how we were doing. . .    
over. . .          
and, over again.      
     
VI    
My teens mimicked her life—    
four years of fists, dominance      
and psychological control    
by my first boyfriend;      
it was all I knew—    
the repetitious pattern;    
a circumstantial silence of truth.            
           
He almost killed me    
a few times;         
friends intervened once—         
he tried to beat them too.      
     
I don't know where the courage          
to stab the silence came from;      
to scream and claw          
when life is being choked      
from your throat.      
     
Maybe it was a deeply instilled belief—    
the same that never allowed            
me to succumb to alcohol, drugs     
or sex when homeless.            
           
VII    
Years later    
when I was a wife and mother,    
I would ask myself            
if the reason I had submitted      
to such horrendous behavior          
was because I loved him so much;      
or hated myself worse.    
   
It's always the latter—    
we accept what we feel we deserve    
until we've had enough.      
     
It's a good question    
for each individual woman    
who is silent about abuse    
to ask themselves.      
         
VIII    
I was strong,  
chose forgiveness      
so that I could live    
without the pattern    
desecrating my children.      
     
But, sometimes. . .    
     
I like to think it was even more      
than strength—maybe magic;            
like the butterfly    
that landed on my finger    
in the garden today.          
     
I still flinch from time to time      
as though an abused animal      
that's been adopted by the Universe—    
maybe from a shadow, sound;            
or, unexpected touch to my skin.      
     
Abuse washes over your body          
before you ever see it in your face—      
and isn't over until you call it by name.    
   
I wanted the memory-bite    
lest I forget—    
so planted my seeds    
before they died in the box.        
        
There's a burn  
regardless of our past   
if we empty our contents;    
 
its name is Love.    
~