Textbooks say that thirteen

is the age when one

wrestles with identity.

Am I weak or strong

   loved or rejected

   female or male

   capable or inept?

Who am I, the child-adult wonders.

I wondered too.

I stood before the screen door

looking at the countryside

from Grandpa's house in summer.

I was blank inside

   lonely

   bored

   wondering.

I was struggling

   wrestling

not just with identity

   but with what you said about me

   by what you did.

I was weak --

   and you always won.

I was rejected --

   you went away angry.

I was female --

   and hated it.

I was not capable

   because I could not change my life.

Young, tender, frightened

I was a textbook case of the struggle

and doomed to lose.

A blank empty life

   looking out the screen door.

Aloof

A man told me

I was aloof.

No doubt I was --

   stiff gestures

   demure presence

   cautious smiles

   and serious.

I had to keep my defenses up

especially around him.

He couldn't know

why I needed affectations

of distance

in order to feel safe

around men

especially those I liked.

Counseling

I need to be held.

Someone hold me

   rock me

   nurture me

in a safe place

where I can trust

and not be used.

I come again to one

who understands my need

and respects my body

and my soul.

I am held

with integrity and caring.

I learn

that it is possible

to be loved.

Sometimes a record does it.

The music touches

a deep emptiness in me.

I acknowledge that I've never known

the love of a father.

Less an orphan

more an abandoned baby

I am a chipped vessel

from which the water of spirit flows,

diminishing me.

Empty,

I am left only tears

until the grief passes.

Point of View

A grown woman

realizes what she did for years

to appease

   and please her father.

Even though she's been told

   and knows in her mind

that she had no choice

from early childhood on --

she feels responsible

   somehow at fault

   or perhaps deserving.

Weak, disgraced, ashamed

her only hope is --

once she realizes and weeps,

she can start to recognize

it wasn't she who failed at all.

she is the victim,

not the criminal.

My Body

I don't really dare

have a body.

I try not to think about it

or picture how it looks.

I don't really appreciate it,

care for it in tender ways.

I hide my body

in nonseductive clothes

or nonseductive clothes

or sloping shoulders,

proper behavior

and in my reluctance

to go to a public beach.

Don't look!

Please, don't see.

This body belongs to me

and I'm afraid to show it

because I'm afraid to lose it.

It doesn't help much

to say that I look nice.

I'm ashamed

of what this body has done

and afraid to have it happen again.

I'm holding onto myself.

No one will have me

Unless I let them.

I've lost too many times before.

I'm afraid to have a body.

I awakened this morning uneasy --

unable or afraid to recall a dream.

I went about my day

but I knew he had returned.

Was I eight

   or seventeen?

I wasn't sure.

I only knew

from the wavering feeling

   in my stomach

   and my hands

there was more to recollect.

Another dismal

   or frightening moment

was ready to unfold.

I took a breath

and called for an appointment.

I would face it soon in therapy

and put it behind me.

My sigh reveals I tire of the need

to face the truth

   again

     and again.

Cause and Effect

Somewhere inside you

there must be a chasm --

   an ache

   rejection

   abuse

a feeling of being inadequate.

Your empty hollow waited

probably for years --

   twenty, twenty-seven,

until I came.

Then, rather than relieving

   your ache

by welcoming my life --

   a new start

   a baby

   a joy

you chose to take away my Self,

cruelly stuff my hope

   into your septic hollow --

   rejection

   abuse

   contamination.

I am left with your burden

and my despair.