Compensation

Since I'm posting so rarely, I thought I'd let you in on what I'm doing, a little. Sooooooo I'm going to post some of the poetry I've been writing. I'm going through it in our seminars, but I'm still iffy on how good it is, so let me know. I'll post some of my drawings when I get John to fix the scanner, and I still haven't gotten a chance to download my pictures, but they're coming, too.

Labels. Part II.

don't you dare think you know me,

not when I cannot know myself.

Ask me, I dare you, how I feel about the plastic coffin
innocently waiting on the counter
mocking me that I cannot control myself without its contents.
Tell me that it's all genetics, that it's just a disease, or that,
"You're still yourself, despite everything."
Don't lump me in with the rest
I hate that I hate myself for this
And love the good
even as the bad
tears me apart.

"Cycles," you call it.
I will be who I WANT to be, cycles be damned.

Identity

"I understand," you say.
I've heard that before.
You who stare from behind sterile desks
framed by inconsequential scraps of vacant gothic print
proclaiming that you understand me.

A word
or a list of them,
more like.
That's what I've been reduced to.
Give me my identity back
Allow me my own words
And I'll tell you what I think of your clean cut
form letter
"diagnosis"

All in.

I
Rachael
sarcastic
snide
desperate
Rachael
talking
asking
never telling
Rachael
have a secret.

I wonder
sometimes
if the people around me
classmates
quirky
open
loving
classmates
given a magnifying glass to my soul
walked through those scenes which gnaw at my insecurities
like a hyena gorging on a meatless bone
Delighting in my pain,
If I were to point them out
could you see what I am hiding
or why I fear
I've already let it out?

Doctor out the door.

Confused.
That's how she feels.
walking out the office
stamped with the label she expected
wanted, even.
Maybe she thought she'd feel better,
being different.
But what if being different
comes with a name that proclaims you're the same as somebody else?

Labels. Part III.

Twenty-two people combine
To one single image
A compilation,
if you will,
composite puzzle pieces
[fit poorly together
as a landscape, painted
by one who has never set foot outside]
that is how they see her
...or so she believes.
But how to distinguish reality
from a fabricated projection onto already richly colored canvases
So hard to find the truth when the mind
convincing in its terrified insistence
screams that the people around her
cannot be trusted,
that they judge, even as they kiss and soothe.

I don't know what to think.

I judge you.
It is the way of all humans, isn't it?
So maybe,
perhaps,
just a little bit,
it is not so strange
outlandish
or even,
dare I say it,
paranoid
to think that
if I tell you
one by one
that this gaping flaw is more than skin deep
you won't love me anymore?

Butterfly panic.

too much
too soon
too little
too late
wrong place?
wrong time?
hug unwelcome
restrained hoped-for kiss
not that word
not that tone
running, rerunning
fix this
change that
why didn't she?
why couldn't he?
flowing and abrupt
apologies, uttered or wished
please don't hate me.