Come With Me, Sweet Julie (Carry On Tuesday)

spinning top (Photo credit: Creativity103)

i’m julie and i’m 14, my world is turning around and i feel like im slipping into crazy like a snap of my fingers. im a spinning top, out of control, like all my colors mixed together: the colors green, yellow, red, orange, so fast yet i can see the the colors like the threads in my brain have gotten twisted and i can’t untwist them. i stopped speaking a few weeks ago, mom and dad been beating me, they were drinking all the time and throwing glasses across the room that shattered like angry chimes, i’ve been pretty much taking care are of myself for a long time now.

i ran away a few days ago and im not sure they even know i’m missing. i brought only my secret box that i’ve had since i was a child. i keep my favorite top, a letter from my brother, brian, a seashell, red fish candy, and my flashlight that makes me feel safe.

mom and dad once let me play with their bright colored pills like they were marbles on the old, scratched wooden dining room table. i got smacked real bad when they saw i scratched my name and brian’s and a heart on the table. i had big red welts all over my body. cops came and brian and i were sent away for a few days but then we had to go home. i miss my older brother brian but he went to college a long time ago, wherever that neighborhood is. i still write him a lot but he doesn’t answer me.i thought he loved me for real like i loved him.

nobody knows this secret room, except brian. we found it many years ago but we didn’t tell anyone. my stomach makes noise and i eat a graham cracker and suck on it slowly and i have a bottle of water. daddy hits both mama and me a lot, he hits me with a belt and i’m never sure why. it hurts too much.

i fell asleep, cuz my head was hurting so bad, i thought i heard voices coming towards me so i hid extra special deep. ever since mama burned my hand on purpose on the stove the nice lady visited, she said she was finding me a new home but not if she couldn’t find me.  i was shaking so hard i couldn’t stop. she left but some hours later i heard footsteps again but not hers, unless she changed her clickety -clack shoes.

it was late and someone walked right next to my exact hiding place. i got ice cold with fear. i heard breathing,  right down low where the secret lock was and i heard someone say my name, i was terrified, what if it was daddy again?  “Julie, honey, it’s Brian, your brother, no one else is here, just me. I promise. Please come out.” i wasn’t sure if it was a trick so i stayed. He softened his voice, barely a whisper and said “Julie,  it’s Brian, I swear. Please come out Julie I came here as soon as I found out, I’ve been looking for you for years. I’m so sorry sweet Julie, I just got your letters because I moved a few times, but the second I got them, I flew down here and called the police on mom and dad. I swear Juls, I have never lied to you before, have I?

“Julie, he whispered, I’m going to prove it to you with a letter, ok? Read it, tell me what you think”he slipped the letter by the one opening that was very narrow. i looked at the letter and it was some legal paper that said i was going to stay with brian and his wife deborah. brian had gotten married? and he was my legal guardian now. is it true? i asked brian. “Yes, it’s true, you goofball, now get out of there, come with me and give me a big hug.” So I crawled out and Brian picked me up and we hugged for a long time. We were both crying too and he said he had to fatten me up. He told me to pack my things, we were never going to come back here. our old mom and dad were in jail. Tonight we were staying in a hotel (a real hotel) and i asked him if I could jump on the bed. Tomorrow we were flying to my new home, Deborah would be my new mom but I could call her Debbie if i wanted to and the best news yet, I was going to be a big sister!

i thought i should tell brian that i was feeling crazy before, real crazy and he laughed, he said he felt the same way when he was with mom and dad, they were bad people and did bad things. he promised if i still felt crazy he would take me to a doctor but as soon as he said it, i looked up at him and grinned. the next thing he said was, “Darn, I’m hungry, let’s go somewhere to eat, sis.” and wasn’t that the nicest thing in the world to hear.

Haiku Heights – MASK

Nō mask (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I withdraw within

You can’t see me, I’m not here

Pain turned me to steel

*****

Ballet dancer hides

Behind make-up and feathers

It’s all illusion

******

Green eyes dance and smile

Hiding a scared child

Always uncertain.

If I Saw Someone Stealing…

Image via Wikipedia

To Steal OR Not To Steal……

I have grappled with the answer for many years. The answer: it depends. If the person looked poor and was stealing a banana or a can of baked beans, of course I would NOT tell. If it was just a quick glimpse and I wasn’t sure, I wouldn’t say a thing. I would have to be very, very sure that the person INDEED was stealing. If I witnessed someone steal something expensive (I am not talking about a jelly bean or a piece of candy from those huge bins because even I have done that) I probably would report the person. I would also want to hide afterwards because while I am happy to right a wrong, I also don’t want to be punched in the face. I myself stole a small tube of Elmer’s Glue from the neighborhood 5 and 10 store when I was very little and my mom marched me back in there the next day to apologize and return it. Truly, it’s not worth the humiliation. At any age.

The Somewhere Tree

Image by Shamanic Shift via Flickr

I don’t exist, at least in the same way I have existed before. You won’t recognize me; I’m hiding out. I am a thick, sturdy, massive tree and maybe I am folding someone deep inside me or around me, or in my sturdy limbs high up into the rich, blue sky. I won’t tell you. I have disappeared because this is where I want to be. I don’t know if I will come out of hiding sometime or will stay behind these thick brown roped off curtains I made myself that contain me; comfort me. If I am hidden no one will steal my heart or break it into shards of mirror glass and take advantage of me.

Maybe my silhouette or the swing of my wiry tree hair show as the wind passes by my burlap sap and brown cloak. I intend to blend in with others, or maybe hide behind them for as long as I choose; for as long as I need. I felt a lot of things that I don’t feel anymore.

It’s as if I am out of my body looking in, trying to remember who I was and why I was that way. My heart was way too open, and too big for my body. My emotions were on overdrive, my thoughts obsessed with sympathy and kindness. I sat up once, curled into myself, sobbing. This was not my fault, these were conflicts I should not have been allowed to witness. This was NOT something I did; I am innocent. Something, somebody should have been there to protect me, to draw me back out of the wind, to rescue me but no one did. This attack felt like a tsunami or a tornado.

My eyes peek out behind the outline of my shadow. They dart back and forth, to the left, to the right and then they close.  It is all black and rosy and peaceful when my eyes are closed. I choose not to see anybody. I am now a tree that has stood proud and tall with missing branches from the high winds; limbs cut off, dangling in the middle between life and death. Too many people in this world judge others, that’s not how life is supposed to be. Sit with me on the grass and listen.

Life is hard, we all know that. At my age I have experienced hardship as well. There is no age limitation on pain, physical and emotional chronic pain. Back off, please don’t try to touch me; I can almost feel you near me and I don’t want to. I will shrink and cringe if you approach me. I will go inside out.

I have helped you from my heart but that same heart is no longer here. It cracked into bits and never put away. It was not like a picture puzzle; the pieces don’t fit in the right place anymore, and they won’t. Once you have lost your heart, or it has cracked, your heart will never beat in the same way again. You will skip a beat or you will have an extra irregular beat but it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t take away the love that was in your heart; I am protecting my heart.  You can also feel that you are being hit, again and again, until you gasp with pain and have trouble taking a breath. I am a tree in a blizzard, fighting to stand strong, my limbs are moving, my bark is now unattached, flying into the air, everywhere but home to me.  You can still see the tree but it is not the same. I tried to show you who I was but you left, not noticing that the tree you once loved was now completely different. You walked away.

The Zoo Keeper

I plunk my chubby body down into an outdoor green steel chair that is covered with grime. It doesn’t matter that I have lost 20 lbs, I think of myself as chubby, probably always will. I see the portable telephone out of the corner of my eye, my eyeglasses, a crumpled Living Simple magazine bent over.  I am trying to sit in the sun for a few moments, not because I want to but because people tell me I should. I finally got dressed out of my night-time Tee shirt into an old blue shirt and black track pants. I had even put on sneakers as if I was really going to walk somewhere but I knew it was all a mind game.

My dog came out with me, she didn’t want to play either, and she sat by my side as I ran my nails through her thick black, white and tan fur. She knows better than anyone that I really don’t want visitors, don’t need visitors, when I am not feeling well. With the exception of my dog, who stays comfortably at my side, I really think I prefer to be in the zoo without people looking at me, or making small-talk or asking me how I am. I am not well, but it doesn’t mean I want people to come over and wave excitedly like they do to the seals, I am not asking people to throw crackers at me. Basically, if I had a choice, I would burrow under the covers, accompanied by only the light of day and nothing more.

I would like to wait out whatever illness or bruise or breathing problem I have until it is better and then I will go embrace the public; then I will drive the car and be social and say “hello” pleasantly to people I generally don’t care about; but not now. Now I am raw, raw honey and I want to close my eyes and think of nothing, feel nothing, say nothing. I would like to rejoin reality at my pace, in my time; when that is, is anyone’s guess but it is not now, the time has not arrived yet. I hope to know when it does arrive but maybe I won’t.

I will know when I want to share a skinny vanilla latte with my friend Sarah, I will know when I want to see my sister to share a tuna-salad sandwich at the Thornwood Diner. Now, what I want to do is sleep, and have the time go by so that the day is shorter and that when I try to sleep on my back, with a white rubbery binder around my ribs, that I will sleep through to the morning. Then, again, I will try to get out of my shell and start the day the same way until the days get better, feel better and not a second before.