The Other Man...

I can already tell that I have been avoiding talking about this...one of the topics that I don't discuss...too many ruffled feathers...anger....disappointment...and this is from other people.  I've known what I would say...and I've tried to edit...shift and censor...and I can't...I have to be truthful...to myself and to anyone who knows me...so here it goes...

I was eight when I first shook my fists at him and spit angry words from my red faced lips.  I would never be like her and why had he done this to me...what did I do to him...that he would punish me...I hate you...I was ten when I was kicked out of class for debating with my teacher about his existence...Where does he live?...Why does he live there?....Why does he care about that?...If he really cared, why would he let innocent people be murdered and beaten?...Why children?...Why old people?...And at the ripe age of 11...I issued my first challenge...If you care, you'll appear...in front of me and explain....See...I told you so...you don't care...just like everyone else...

At age 12, came indifference....Sure, I'll play the game...whatever...you play games too...everyone is your puppet...just look at me...15 years came the promise...When I am out on my own, I will never go to your house again...17 carried a scream to the heavens...as I begged the other person to stop...and when I discovered that my body was so damaged that I would never be all the things a woman has the right to be...another scream escaped...much more primal...with only two words...Through all of this...he was silent...and for one decade I was too finally...

Then one day...I wrote this....

My Prayer

God-

Help me remember

To bend locked knees for the lives I have lost,

And press together white knuckled hands

To beg for what I needed...

Dear-

God-

Teach me humility,

Bowing in a wake of all consuming desires,

Kissing me to suck out my soul's breath

And leave me weeping in the night...

Oh Jesus-

Christ-

Forgive my clenched teeth,

Locked jaw, dammed truth, drowned escape,

My parched, blistered throat unable to scream,

Lips sealed for your eternity.

Oh God-

Damn-

Clouds that trap words,

And muffle pleading cries meant for you,

To endless days that bind racing nights,

To splintering bones that crackle like a trinity of dried leaves.

I ask this humbly...in my name.

Amen

I'm not sure if he knows who I am...if he has ever heard me...but sometimes in the eyes of those I help...at the moment of their greatest despair...I am sure I catch a glimpse of him.  Or when my cats are gently purring and stretched over my body...I imagine that I hear his voice...And if he spoke to me...he might tell me that he knew I would survive...that I might be great one day...in my voice and deeds...and that his sorrow is deeper than the ocean and vaster than the continents for my short childhood...and all the things that I know because of it.  That he knows innocence cannot help others and knowledge protects the innocence that could be lost....

And...maybe I would forgive him...for now...in my life...he is still the other man...