i wish i could tell them all off
to just say, "you can blow me." would be liberating.
i have had bad dreams for the last two nights.Funky mixed up dreams.
i was isolated from everyone who loves and accepts me as i am
and i was surrounded by only those who think i'm a huge disaster and failure.
The people who don't like me.
The ones who love to point out every little mistake i make
and keep a ledger of all the past ones so they can point them out, too.
i was so beat down i didn't care anymore
i couldn't cry.
i was beyond missing those i loved
because to think of them would be too painful
i could no longer think on that which i couldn't have.
i was tired and depressed.
my daughter was all grown up
she was leaving me
but she thought i was dumb, too.
my heart was raw and bleeding all the time
but still no tears
my soul was too dehydrated to cry.
the funny thing was that everything i am not satisfied with about my life was fixed.
i had a really good job with great pay,
i was the perfect size with perfect breasts
i had bought a small three bedroom, two bath house
i kept my home neat and tidy
i had money in the bank.
i was healthy and fit.
by all accounts i seemed successful
but it was never enough for anyone but me,
and they would never let me forget how disappointed they were.
i had sank as low as one could sink and pushed through to the other side of depression
i lived in the cold, numb, gray drawn, half life of a zombie.
i was living death.
i never even listened to music anymore.
i don't want this to happen
but how do you tell your own family that you can't like them anymore?how do you say,
"mom, dad, siblings . . . i can't deal with your censure of everything i do and think.
i would like to take this moment to say i am not the failure you think i am.
i am a person, an individual, and your values are not mine.
your idea of success is not mine.
fuck off."
when really you want to kick them and yell,
"you're not the boss of me!
you are just big stupid meanies and very bad people!
they should send you to a federal pound-me-in-the-ass prison!"
and then throw them out of your house?
how do you walk away from all you owe them?
harder still, how do you even the field and walk away without guilt?
i hate the game they are playing
and i'm tired of the grubby fingers pushing me around the board.
i am not a pawn.
i hate the smug looks i get when i do what they wanted me to.
i despise the whispers behind my back.
i am weary of hearing about how i screw everything up.
i don't see my life as a series of screw-ups.
i moved out too soon with a loser and partied all the time
i got pregnant at nineteen
i got married at twenty-one
it ended in divorce
i killed three cars in very bad ways.
well, the loser was not the worst mistake i ever made
as i have a wonderful daughter and a lot of experience of what not to ever do again from him.
i'd repeat that child every time i could be given to live it all over.
there is nothing that could replace her.
the cars were cheap, old, rigged and run-down pieces of shit when i got them.
there were things i probably could have done better
there were thing i should not have done to begin with
there were things i should have done.
i don't know anyone who could deny those three statements of them selves.
does my honesty in this make me more disappointing
as they would never admit anything but being a hair shy of perfection?
i never was good at keeping my mouth shut . . .