I asked myself what if
I stopped leading and instead waited
For you to come to me organically and fully unbaited?
…I’m still waiting
Tag: family
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Still waiting
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Already a goner
I’m sick of apologizing for your behavior,
the way you walk up to strangers,
masking within you the danger
of a raper and his enabler.Stop approaching my friends
or the folks you think could lend
compassion or hope for amends
with the daughter you condemnin your insistent denial –
deafening silence for miles upon miles;
the way you won’t refute
or accept well-earned rebukefor the things he did under your nose,
believing now the lies he’s composed,
simply because you don’t dare
to admit you never really caredthat your daughters weren’t safe
from the same terrors you braved.
Rather, your first priority
remains to him – all your loyalty –because unfortunately for you
and for her and me too,
you are one of the ones
who failed to plungeinto your own depths of pain
before repeating the past again.
Instead, trusting not in instinct, but false promise
that he’s not interested in incest.But, you know what I know
in that place down below –
the raper inside him made you ask
because he reminded you of your past.Yes, we both know that our sixth sense,
refined by years surviving violence,
tells us when we’re too close
to thosecapable of ravaging small
bodies. After all,
we know better than most
that rapers take their time to encroach.I’m convinced you only begged
for what should be able to remain unsaid
because you knew he was just like
the men who made surviving your plight.So I’m asking- No! To you, I’m telling:
it would be more compelling
to believe that you miss your daughter
if you stopped protecting her father –the man you so regrettably chose
to stay with despite all of the blows
he landed on your body and mine;
Damage that withstands test of time.See, I’m done asking and requesting;
in my family of origin, no longer investing;
because after more than forty years,
I’m done crying wasted tearson a mother who at the end of every day
lies next to my raper, and in this way,
chooses denial over integrity and honor.
Before I was born, I was already a goner,having you as my mother, who at the end
refuses to believe or condemn
that she was complicit
in my elicit
upbringing of incest.csa, family, fiction, flashbacks, incest, life, love, mental-health, poetry, ptsd, rape, recovery, sexual assault, trauma, writing
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I didn’t forget
Can you really forget the feeling of safety
when dad was the first man to rape me?
They say my body forgot and now must relearn –
like it’s as simple as choosing the upturn,
like it’s just in my head, the embodied feeling of dread.
As simple as riding a bike,
insisting bodies can’t NOT know what it’s like
to live more than just under fire;
my activated nervous system was simply acquired.But I beg to differ,
seeing as how I remain undelivered
after all the remedies known to date
proven to erase from complex bodies the word rape.
No, it’s only your judgmental mouths
that are most likely bound
to remember what it felt like “before;”
only they can live out the meaning of “restored.”But when you’re like me, a child
by my daddy defiled,
turned belly down,
taught not to make a sound –
easier when into my eyes
he didn’t have to deny;
but he did in fact try
to drown out all my cries.
So, tell me WHEN you claim safe entered?
Because all I remember
is a body dismembered
by the ones who were meant
to such a little body protect.Tell me when was THE moment
my sense of safety left the present?
Because sense only comes from first feeling
love unconditional and unyielding.
But all I know is the white flag
of my mother, and the drag
of my father’s hands, bending into submission
the daughter – only loved on condition
of my silence
about unfathomable violence
perpetrated by dad
and mom denying it was really that bad.
Tell me WHERE safe disappeared
off to in the rear
view mirror of my timeline?
As benign
as lost keys to a car –
the kind that could’ve taken me far
away from the two bedroom apartment
where they laughed off all my sister’s and my torment.
Tell me again HOW I’ve forgotten
what it was like before all the rotten
tastes and smells of my dad on top
of me, telling him to stop
to no avail.
SHOW me now how my body failed
to hold onto this MYTH of safe?
When there was no safe before rape.csa, family, flashbacks, incest, life, love, mental-health, poetry, ptsd, rape, recovery, sexual assault, trauma, writing
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To the ones who should also be on trial
When I can’t figure out what to say
I try to put pen to paper anyway.
Because the truth of the matter is that
my silence only protects the man I used to call dad.No, these days we’re too grown to keep quiet
memorials buried inside me like a riot
that failed to ever organize and rise
up out of the tormenting lies;the ones he told me and so did my mother.
Family loyalty above all else and others!
It’s what keeps the immigrant family afloat;
we’re taught to never speak up or rock the boat.And on some level I get it to this day –
I’ll never know what it’s like to runaway
from a terrorist government right into familial obligation
to make something more of yourself than impoverished stagnation.That’s the story of the women who birthed me;
the one of the man who raped me is also key
because I’ll never know what it’s like to live under
my grandfather whose anger boomed like thunder.But I do know what it’s like to survive
violent attacks from the ones tasked at keeping me alive
and being told to hold dear all the terror.
Being youngest, made me especially the bearerof dark secrets turned pretty by all my compliance.
You see, my sister chose young the path of defiance,
but that only made her a perfect target.
We were fucked, no matter how you sliced it.I was too pretty, too docile and put together
for teachers, doctors, caretakers to bother
ever wondering if there was truth in my timid confessions.
They each chose instead to leave the learning of hard lessonsto the classroom of the violent home I could never escape –
the place where I learned that there’s no love like rape.
You see, it’s much easier when you hold all power
as an adult, hoard it up and completely devourinnocent brown bodies of forgotten children,
than step in and risk your neck to protect them.
That’s what they did to my little brown body
when they said bruises and fear weren’t inflicted by daddy.It’s such a chilling thing to think
that you could be so close, so just on the brink
of being saved from the stuff of pure nightmare,
escaping what most would never dareto imagine outliving, outlasting.
The most dreadful casting,
my family of origin, darker than I’ll ever bring to light
because nobody in this room could survive such a fright.But I did, and I’m fully enraged
by the ones who will leave here unfazed
thinking my story is unlike that of kids today-
after all, only demons could go so astray!But I’m here to call out your denial,
because the ones who should also be on trial
are not just the ones who birthed and raised me, their daughter,
but the ones who to help me just couldn’t be bothered.Take it from me, the pedophiles who could do
such unspeakable acts to my children and yours, too,
are the friends, family, acquaintances you collectively refuse
to without question destroy and remove.Instead, you place greater value
on keeping face and keeping dark what is true.
You remember the needs of the raper
before you ever believe children who cry danger!I cried a lot; I’ll be honest I knew from an early age
I’d die alone in that family, take our secrets to the grave.
So, I’m not sure now what’s more shocking –
that I’m alive or that I’m even up here talking.Because the truth is for most of us called survivor,
we often live on in the shadows of our traitors.
If we’re lucky enough to live past
the rape and bloody wounding we learned to outlastwe learn also that our bodies and words
are not worth protecting or believing anymore.
So, we stay silent; sometimes even caring for
the ones who gave us our unwanted violent lore.So, as unbelievable as it is,
I’m speaking now to tear down the myth
that terrors you’d rather not confront
if I may be so blunt
cause scars for which you are also at fault
there’s many ways to indirectly perpetrate assault.Because what happens when your refuse to say rape,
when you walk away from this stage in utter dismay
that a bitch so foul mouthed and enraged
would dare to so directly put on displayyour apathy, your inability to stand up,
to call abuse and violence in the name of love
exactly what it really is: no more
than the stuff of the rapists the came beforeyou, and me, and our grandparents;
the ones who gave us our legacies of violence,
the ones we pass on if we’re unwilling to look
into our own dirty mirrors and ask what tookus so long to see
that rapers like my father are no different than you and me
if we don’t unlearn that having power
is no excuse for causing those in our care to in fear cower.That’s right, if you walk around using intimidation,
leave your entitlement left unchecked cause of your station,
yours are the hands that help stow and carry
a darkness into the future we should bury.And if you’re one the few left still sitting here
refusing accountability, let me make it real clear,
the violence you let out lives on like an echo
every time you tell a hurting victim to just let it go.Maybe what we should start offering in its stead
are questions that with curiosity are led,
so that we learn how to help victims shoulder;
let the pain of others to us be the molderof a better version of our integrity;
let that be what guides our sense of community,
so that we stop building buldings that look so lavish.
Caring more for appearance is so fucking tragicwhen we’re called by creator and nature
to build futures free of unspeakable torture –
the kind that lies hidden beneath the facade
of all you’re primed to praise and applaud.You’ve lost your way if you think my plea is irrelevant.
We’re all guilty of excusing the violent
ways we put each other down;
it’s written all over this god forsaken southern town.My point in all this going on and on is to call
you forward with all the gall
I can muster on my first open mic night
and ask you simply to do what is right.Stop leaving the voiceless alone in their fight;
bring your own darkness into the light.
Lean into accountability
to walk and speak gently,especially to those in our care;
remove violence from all we revere.
Save retribution and unspeakable acts
for the fuckers who would rather redactthe flashbacks of those, who like me, made it out
despite turned backs and adults in power who doubt
that a child so tiny and pure
could be telling the truth of all they endure.Don’t be like them, so blind to your own blindness.
Seek above all else, parenting with kindness.
Leave bruises and fear for other makers,
lest like a raper you also be takerof what isn’t yours just because you carry the burden
of feeding and clothing small bodies called children.
Being mom or dad will never give you the right
to metaphoric or literally beat them into the desires of your sight.And if you’re childless still like I am,
you’re still called to be as defiant
and stand up to the terror of a culture that would
leave tiny victims to clean up their own blood.The way you help us stop repeating
a past filled with emotional and physical beatings
is vowing to be the one who separates –
no longer letting violence and love collaborate.I’m afraid I’m known for being long-winded –
character flaw gifted by blows from my kindred.
But I promise I’m almost done.
Let me boil it all down to onefine point.
Like oil, let me anoint
this simple and smart
query onto your heart…Ask yourself…
In what ways can I soften and slow
And in this way let real love out of me flow?
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Like flip-flopping
You and I,
we are like mirrors.
Your pain and mine –
a comedy of errors.But neither of us are laughing,
yet- you still find joy,
like flip-flopping –
so puppy like and coy –when we knew less of
Abandonment & Suffering.
You were there thru the push, shove
and crying my way to discoveryabout life. This is what your
steady presence has taught me –
how to freely flow, pure
and unafraid to leave.You waited what felt
like a lifetime to see me finally
fully Exhale.
All my late night pleas,you’ve kept hidden in
your quiet knowing –
lick teardrops from my chin –
always ready for my going.And gone we have been.
Here and there;
I’m afraid you have seen
more than your fair shareof violence this world
hides behind
cold walls- bodies curled
up tightly. I’d rewindback to the start
when I first called you mine
despite broken heart;
you returned love in kind.For, now I know that you
knew
I’d eventually choose
you, too.But that’s not even
the point of this rhyme.
For, I know heaven
is saying it is time.I’m not ready, I have cried
and I’ll cry ’til you die
and long after
Ive laid your body to rest.Because I’m the first to admit
you’re the reason I didn’t quit
many times over the past
decade of bullshit.You’re the reason I turned
tears and deep wounds,
set down things I could no longer carry,
into space and discern-
meant between “Not Now, But Soon.”
It’s why I’ll never be ready to buryyou into the ground
even if I know that
Hope Never Really Dies.
No, I know you’ll stay alive,
including our connection that
I’m just starting to realizeis one you initiated, not I,
when you took on the task
of being my witness and friend.I’d go on for forever if
it meant I could stall
the inevitable call
I’ve left unanswered.I would leave them on read
if it meant you never had to go-
but I see how you’ve gotten too slow
for this world despite meds.So, I’ll wrap it up
just for now
because I still mean to disrupt
with a howlof insistent protest. In prayer,
make you whole and eternal,
with me everywhere
not just in a journal.Surely heaven is bound to reply
with a resounding yes!
Forever stay by my side
because without you I’ll be lessapt to brave it alone;
missing your headbutts and sighs,
farts and loud groans-
promise me you’ll never die!Still, it’s the end,
here we are.
My all-time greatest friend.
I have one last request:
be honest, but please say yes –
instead of goodbye, see you soon –
as we depart
can we vow to call this
just the start?
Parker Stillwater 