Damaged Beauty

4am
phone is ringing
I feel the pain before I see it
she’s got her disease
dripping from her eyes
and I’m nothing more
distraction
but I get it.

more than we can say
of the men who warm our beds
we know.
and she’s talking of pills
running home
back to the only thing that can calm a restless angel
oh hearts like ours
intertwined
around 18 years of broken pieces

she’s so damn perfect
her tears are falling
begging me to come home
women like us
can’t help but break
and once we start

my heart is racing
does she know?
I’ve got nobody else
but I’d understand
if she can’t do it any more.

I can’t do anything
from this far away
she knows everything I’ve said.
all the pieces of glass
I’ve picked up and glued back together
time and time
again.

we’re shattering
in complete solidarity
in our loneliness
and this fucking disease
insanely mesmerizing
another night another bottle,
another morning
please,
just stay
for one more morning.

LittleMissIndependent

I must have been about ten the first time I realized independence was a necessity.  I had been crying to my mother about something or another.  I did a lot of that in those days – I was disturbed even at a young age, a symptom of preadolescent depression.  I was screaming at no one in particular.  I looked at my mother, “DON’T YOU UNDERSTAND ME?!?!?!”  My poor mother had no idea what to say to her oldest and most difficult child.  Finally she sighed, “No. I don’t get it.  But I do love you.”  Tonight after a long, emotional, drawn out conversation with my parents, that evening came back to me. A decade later, they still don’t understand. But they say they love me still.
I think that evening must have been a pivotal one in the history of my life.  Her words cut me.  I sought, and still seek, my mother’s approval, a side effect of being one parent’s favorite but not the other’s.  She didn’t think I needed her as much as the little ones, what with this independence I had.  She worked a lot of night shifts.  It was around that time I must have accepted that I’d be misunderstood, because I stopped explaining.  I stopped sharing.  I learned how to deal with the curve balls life threw at me.  I dealt with my disease on my own. I never told my family.  I had beautiful friends who kept me from jumping off the edge. The things my parents never knew…  I had a rough time.
If only she had known what was coming. Of her four children, at least three of us have long battled symptoms of depression.  I myself still tend to silently eat my issues, and I’ve worked hard to overcome my own addictive tendencies.  My brother hasn’t had quite as much luck, and our mother loves us no matter what.  My sister’s depression, at it’s worst, manifested itself as an eating disorder.
My brother started getting bad just as I was getting better, Mama quit her job – it got her, too, and then it was my sister’s turn.  The two of them needed Mama most. I understood. I stepped aside.  I went off to university, and things were better for a while.
Suddenly, I had my mother back. As a friend, no less! I could not have been more thrilled.  My brother was still struggling.  Mama went back to work. I started my second year of university overseas.  My mother and I didn’t talk much, what with the time difference and her full time job and her full time son.  I came back. And every phone call was about someone else.  “Well, your friends never fought like hers do.” “How often did your classmates smoke weed?”  Our conversations were consumed with my siblings.  Eventually, she only rang when she had a problem.  Dad did the same. And now I’m back. And my sister is away at school.
But I’ve been on my own since I was ten.  My parents are sitting across the kitchen tables with questions about why am I so closed off, and why am I not trying harder to find a job? Why do I keep refusing help I haven’t asked for, what is wrong with me, why do I want to be by myself – I was never like this before?  On and on.  I can see the life they’re imagining for me in the reflection, and the stares filled with pity.  NOW THEY’RE WORRIED?! NOW THEY CARE?  Now, when I’ve finally got myself together and really don’t want their interference?  Oh, the irony!  I want to tell them that they’re not allowed to worry.  That they sound paranoid.  That they’re cutting me down again because they have no trust and no faith in me, and they’re not the ones I should have to prove wrong, anyway! They’re not listening.  I’m trying to explain without offending that I don’t do hugs, and that, quite frankly, they’ve missed out on 10 years of me, and that I’m not who I used to be.  That change is good and relevant, and important.  And I’ve only ever felt this misunderstood once before.  And the way they’re looking at me is why I keep hopes and dreams to myself.  How can they just dump the bucket all at once? A younger me would have been angry.  Angry because they don’t take me seriously, don’t respect me as an adult, don’t trust me to make my mistakes.  But I’m just tired and crying and glad for my secrets, filled with belief in myself, and laughing at how we got this way.

Election Day!

Election day in my family is a holiday whose importance is rivaled only by Thanksgiving.
Today, my sister voted for the first time.  In a swing state, no less.  She cried as she cast her ballot.  In a race as close as this one, she can honestly that her first vote made a difference. 100 years ago, not only would she not be able to vote, her vote for Obama would have been inconceivable.
My parents and grandparents waited 14 years to become citizens and vote, all the while watching the fate of their lives being twirled in the hands of their neighbors.  So when my 20 year-old brother, let’s call him Potentially Fatal (because he could be, if he tried), did not register to vote, it was blasphemous. His anarchist, atheist, apathetic views make me proud of him for being his own person, but oooh, boy does the rest of the family not get it.  But that’s neither here nor there.  The point is this:
My generation, let’s say those of us who can remember the 90s as a part of our youth – Gen Y, the Millennials as we have been called, is incredibly exciting to me.  I cannot wait for what the future holds.
The first time I voted, I helped elect the first African-American to ever hold the office of the President.
Now, today, I voted for him again.  Not only that, but I, like many of my peers, also voted to pass a marriage equality law into existence.  THAT. IS. INCREDIBLE.
When I look at the faces on my television, I’m struck by the tears of joy, the raw emotion I see in the eyes of the crowd gathered.  Because this fight is not just an election.  It’s a change.  This country is on the brink of  new era in politics and culture. To these people, this election is not just about politics, it’s about a way of life.  It’s about freedom, and equality, and justice. How can we afford to lose that? We can’t. It is unacceptable. That’s why I danced around the house as the ballots referendums came out, and teared up as I pushed that button of the ballot box.
It’s easy to get bogged down by all of the systemic oppression in the US, by the anti-women, anti-gay rhetoric filled with the evil  ‘isms’.  It’s easy to say that we’ve still got a long way to go, and we do. But look at what we did today! The legalization of marijuana in two states, and marriage equality in four, the DREAM act, and so much more!  It’s incredible!  I cannot wait until we ourselves run for office!  Maybe next term, the environment will be the most contested issue. And maybe drone strikes won’t be, because we won’t be at war.  Maybe, someday, we’ll move away from a two-party democracy!
The media tried to paint us as apathetic, and sometimes, I agree.  I get worried that too many of us youth don’t care.  But we cared today.  I’m flying high right now. Today, the dreamers and the idealists are still out there, working for a better future.