For me, there are times when I want a certain type of punctuation mark heralding the finality of a chapter in my life, and, in the ciphers of my heart, sometimes only a poem can suffice. In choosing to share this particular poem, I make no claims that it is the best I have written, only that it gives voice to the unbridled joy in finding a moment of inner healing through placing one of those marks. As a voice, it is a hinting shadow. But it is still my voice, and as this is a poem I am choosing to place anywhere publicly accessible, I did register a copyright on it…so no poaching! Unless of course, you want to get spanked down in a court of law…in which case, proceed at your own risk 😀

Rising Free

The bereft filed in, shrouding in white so proper
veils for trampled scenes, 
mocking stolen dreams
with piety that never cried.

You mourned me there-
I mourned you where?
On the cracked parched pitch of your scene.
When you clutched deep your unknowing. 
As you snipped and clipped, just past for the trash.

Are the seats lined with miss me nots-
or forget me plots?
A eulogy of falling,
a funeral for what could not be seen.

Who wrote those invites?
That casket never held me,
dancing, singing, winging, rising-
alive and free, no burial rot to fleece.

Some Commentary

My whole life, people have been telling me what they wanted to see in my behavior and lifestyle- what they expected me to do with my one and only life. I am sure each of you can relate in some way. I have come to feel that in far too many of these external pressures, the expectations people were seeking to supplant my wishes with in a desire to validate their own views were a considerable overreach. My life. My body. My education. My relationships. My sexuality. My career. Mine…Not anybody else’s. And I gave people authority over my life and my decisions that they never should have had. And that part is on me.

Realizing that I can take that power back, that I can block out all of those pressures and say to someone “hey, that’s great if that’s what you want for you, but it’s not what I want for me,” and just move on with what I want to do for me within my own value system was one of the most healing moments I have ever experienced. And it is a moment of deep gratitude and joy to arrive at.

And I think that’s a place Tony has dwelt in since birth. I had to laugh this morning, for example, when he was saying “hi” to the newest member of our therapy team. I have been telling him for months now that he doesn’t need to ask what someone’s name is if he already knows it. I told him that the first time he used that button with someone he already knew, and he seems to have decided that my expectations he conform with this communication norm are an overreach. He throws that question in every time he greets someone ever since I first tried to clarify what I consider the appropriate use. I have even moved that option to a different page, and he will navigate through is device until he finds it, catch my eye with a faintly visible smirk as he’s asking a person’s name, and then move on to asking how they are and then greeting them by the name he already knows.

Of course, many people wouldn’t consider expecting Tony to use the accepted wording and usage of language to be an overreach. But then, nobody who seeks to influence another ever does, and distinguishing what actually is undue influence and what isn’t can be a challenge and is often defined by the social views of the community. I think about this often when I am deciding which therapy goals to focus on for Tony…how much of what I want is necessary to function as part of the community group, and how much is just an overreach where I’m telling him he should do things in a way I would personally feel more comfortable?

Because as it is for me, so it is for him: this is his one and only life. And I don’t want him to need to find the gratitude of healing as he shifts through the embers of resentment that can char a soul constantly being heated in the forge of what others want.

• 

•