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I have long since learned the therapeutic nature of poetry. If I was in a good mood, I wrote stories. If I was hurt or upset or angry, I would write poetry. Poetry helped to express the feelings in a way that didn’t hurt anyone. Teenage angst equals lots and lots of poetry. If I tried to write stories while in a bad mood, I usually ended up hurting a key character and would have to go back to the editing stage (read that as “chopping block”) just to salvage whatever disaster I had created in the midst of my grumpiness. Poetry did better when fueled by hurt. Go figure. Many times, my poetry was inspired by my overactive imagination that refused to sleep when I did, aka dreams and nightmares.

The poem “Bloodline” is from a nightmare that left me sobbing and unable to breathe when I awoke. Like many of my dreams around that time, it was relevant to the events in my life. My rich imagination had quite a lot to work with, I assure you. When I was 21 and my son was only two weeks old, I was pulled into court for three days to testify against the crimes of my father. I told of my experiences in truth, and as a result, my father disowned me when he took the stand. However I doubt the legal binding of what he said, his public renouncement of me was particularly brutal, especially because I had no choice but to testify.

After the trial had ended and my father’s fate was sealed, the dreams that plagued me were not of the trial itself, nor of the crimes that placed him there. Instead, they were of him trying by every means possible and impossible to separate us so completely that there would never be any hope of reconciliation. For many years and with many people he formed the bars behind which he sat for a very long time. No matter how deeply I wish that things could be different, this is yet another set of circumstances that do not happen to fall within the realm of my control.

Bloodline

Many a night
I’ve laid awake in thought
Of you;
In your squalid solitude.
I can see in my mind’s eye
The vampires you place
To face me
In your attempt
To let them suck your blood
From mine.
However picky they may be,
My veins contain the mixture
That poisons them
And swells their tongues,
And they defer their task
For want of sweeter wine.

I envision you
Heaving and hacking
At the threads that connect us
With your axe
Built from hurt,
But I sense nonetheless
That your outward actions
Are not the reflections
Of what lies within.
I see you madly cut by day
And weep in the cover of night
Over what you sought to destroy.
You are the father
Of the daughter
Who faces you now.
You called me liar,
I can forgive;
You disowned me,
I can forget;
Because no filter
Can be fashioned
Whose face is so fine
As to sift your blood
From mine.

I did not create your vice;
I do not condone it,
But you join us
On your list of victims.
Truth to tell,
You were the first of us,
And the chance is better
Than remote
That you will be the last.

The visions disturb me.
I see you pensive,
A myriad of emotions
From day to day,
Pent in your mind
Like caged rats
Gnawing on the bars
Of the edges
Of your mind.
A day of vengeance vows,
Another of disparity,
Yet another of remorse,
And no soul on the outside of your mind
Would ever know.

The day they took you,
I could not stop the tears.
The others hugged and smiled,
Justice had been done, says they.
But in justice,
We placed judgment,
And for a man with
Unbelief in fate,
We chose it for you
And made it stick.
It is not guilt
That made me cry,
For it was only in truth I spoke.
It was not for power of control,
Nor by regret or fear
That caused my grief,
But the thought of so long,
My entire lifetime away,
Before your fate
Could be returned
To your hands.
The sorrow still clings.
Your grandson will not know you
Until he is of age
To make a great-grandfather
Out of the man you are right now.

I am unable
To strain you from my life.
The heart that pumps in me
Does not discriminate
On the basis of whose life
Contributed to my own.
I am the continuation,
And the blood I bear
Is more significant
Than the words you speak.
It may as well be steel
Against dust—
Irrevocable, even in death.
You are the father
Of the daughter
Who faces you now.

 

Years ago, my family lived in a house nestled beside a river called Fighting Town Creek. The house was surrounded by forest that did nothing if not fill my head with the most daring adventures that a little kid could dream up. I fought dragons in those woods. What else was a young princess to do? I had to protect my castle, after all. No need for knights – I had everything under control. I carved my own sword from wood and spent long days traipsing between the trees and rocks. I knew every hill and dip in the earth. I could feel the pulse of the land with every step I took.

Every space between trees became a fort and I could swing on kudzu vines like Tarzan. I caught fish with my bare hands and feared nothing. I knew which plants were edible and could easily live in the woods if the need arose. I was a truly wild child. Not an out of control kind of wild, but a child of the land. I was never more at home than when I was not at home. The river was a source of fun and food. Drinking from mountain springs seemed to feed my connection with the land and river and forest. This little corner of the world was my whole life.

Being so in touch sometimes brought pain, too. Pine beetles invaded and men came with chainsaws and trucks. As a wild child, I was more hurt by what the reckless men with machines did to my forest than by the worst damage the beetles could ever do. Those men carved up my world and left it in broken branches and sawdust. Little did I understand that there were things that were so much worse than either one.

It was a rainy January. It seemed to rain more days than not, but that was okay. As long as there was no lightning, I could still be out in my beloved forest. Dragons don’t care if it’s raining, you know. This princess braved the wind and rain and carried on defending the realm. The rain only made it feel more real.

After weeks of rain, though, even I had to admit it was getting old. The river was red with mud and swollen, but that was normal after a rain. I’d just have to be careful where I stepped when wading in case it had washed rocks down in the current. It was a rare day that the rain was still holding in the clouds and I could go for a walk without getting drenched. I never made it past the end of the gravel driveway.

I walked over the sleeping dragon’s stomach.

Our driveway was packed down with gravel and dirt so hard that it made a smooth surface that I could walk over barefoot. This time, though, the ground moved under my feet. It wasn’t that gravel shifted or mud slid… no, the ground actually moved. The gravel and dirt layer stayed together and formed a thick skin over… something? It felt like walking over scales that covered the hide of a dragon. There was something soft beneath that tough skin. So I did what any wild child would do. I got a sharp stick and poked it. The rocky skin held. I drilled the point down between the rocks. After a short way in, the membrane broke and the stick plunged downward, pitching me forward. The stick broke off in the hole, leaving a jagged end splintered towards the sky. I righted myself and pulled the stick out. It left a perfect hole the diameter of the stick; no mud or rock shifted to fill it in. I knelt down with my hands on either side of the hole and squinted down into it. As I leaned forward, water bubbled up from it as if from a wound. When I leaned back to release the pressure from around the hole, the bubbling stopped. I repeated this several times because I had never seen anything like it before in all my wanderings. It was raining again by the time I got back home to tell my parents about the wound in the sleeping dragon’s stomach.

It rained some more. Lots more. It rained sixteen more inches that night. In. One. Night. My father woke us up at four o’clock that morning in a rush. Get up and come quietly, he said. The river had escaped its banks and was lapping the steps to the back porch. It had never escaped before. The dragon was waking up. There was nowhere for all that rain to go. The ground was already super-saturated, so all the rain just pooled and ran and raged. We had to get out. If there was a surge, we might not have time. We grabbed a few things and piled in the car, which was already parked at the top of the driveway because of the ruts the previous weeks of rain had carved into the driveway. As we drove away into the darkness, our two dogs chased the car as far as they could run. My father assured us they would find high ground. I never understood why we couldn’t have taken them with us, but I was in no position to argue at the time. I was terrified.

Thankfully, we had somewhere safe to go, but we had to drive through horror to get there. Muddy water gurgled up through sewer covers. Flash rivers were where roads used to be. Bridges were washed out. The water authorities were trying to release water from the lake so that the dam didn’t break, but it was too much. The dam gave way and covered two nearby towns completely. Only rooftops were visible over the red clay waters. As day dawned, the water only deepened. As the water rose, we sunk deeper into despair.

The water crested early that afternoon. It was February 16th. The Hundred-year Flood, they were calling it. We went back home to see if there was a home to go back to. It was still standing, but in bad shape. The water had breached the house. It had ripped the shed from its foundation, held in place only by a basketball pole. The rushing torrent topped the rabbit hutch. My poor little bunny Daffodil never stood a chance. We couldn’t even see if her hutch still stood. The dogs, Daisy and Tidbit, were happy to see us but still shaking with shock and fright, underfoot for fear of being left again. My cat, Skipper, was on the roof. We laid down a board and he shakily crossed it to where I snatched him up. I refused to put him down as solidly as he refused to be put down.

There are no words adequate to describe the myriad of emotions that come raging harder and faster than the river. It was my friend and source of life. It was my solace and the music that sang me to sleep every night. Watching as it swept away our worldly possessions, I felt betrayed by it. How could it do this? My love for the river never completely recovered. It was still there, but tinged with fear. There was no princess strong enough to stand before that sleeping dragon when it woke.

The falling rain
Still pattering on my face,
My unbelieving eyes still seeing
The rampaging river run,
In all its glorious fury,
Through my living room.
From the roof,
We’d rescued the cat,
Who clung to my pajama fur
As I clung to his,
And the scent of mud and rain
Clung to us both.

I watched as my world
Taught me the word:
Disintegration.

My mother’s voice
Harmonizing with the torrent:
We will rebuild, we will rebuild.
And he stood there on a hill
Just behind the house—our home,
The trespassing water stealing our possessions…

I watched my father cry.

We did rebuild. We had to destroy and burn and let go of so many things, but we built it back better than it had been. Things were never the same, though. I had always been all in. I lived in those woods and they were mine right up until then. After the flood, I knew fear. I knew loss. I knew betrayal. I knew a piece of myself washed down the river that day and I would never get it back. The dragon had a new form now and I didn’t trust it.

We moved some time later. It wasn’t a bad thing. The flood was a catalyst for many things that happened in the years following. In all of this, it is important for the princess to understand that sometimes it is best to leave the dragon where it sleeps and find a new realm to roam.

I wrote this little story poem for my daughters. They made me read it so often at bedtimes that I know it by heart. I hope you enjoy it as much as they did.

Ollie the otter
Was afraid of the water.
Oh, how he wished he could swim!
If he could just freeze
The shakes in his knees,
Oh, then he would just jump right in!

One day by the shore
A fish called Lenore
Said “Hey Ollie, the water is fine!
You don’t have to hide,
Come join me inside
And you’ll have a wonderful time!”

“I can’t,” said the otter
“Go into the water,
For I see quite clear what I lack.
I haven’t got fins
Or gills in my skin
Or a strong, scaly tail at my back.”

From across the way,
Sid the duck quacked away,
“Hey, Ollie, the water is nice!
There’s no need to fuss.
Just come play with us,
You won’t even have to think twice!”

“But I’ll sink like a stone,”
Ollie said with a groan,
“I’ve not grown webbed feet like you,
No feathers or fluff
That would be enough
To keep me afloat like you do.”

Ollie frowned and was sad.
He felt really bad
For the help they were trying to give,
But he wasn’t like them
And couldn’t depend
On gills or feathers to live.

Then he saw his mother
And sisters and brother
Making their way to the shore.
They all slipped right in
With nary a feather or fin
But Ollie was scared all the more.

As they gamboled and played
In the bright, sunny day,
They called to poor Ollie in glee,
“You don’t need gills
Or feathery frills
To play in the water, you see?”

“You are an otter
And are made for the water,
So you’ll find all that you’ll need to do
Is forget feathers and fins
And jump right on in
‘Cause you only need to be you!”

“Could it be?” Ollie thought,
“Should I try it or not?”
And decided to give it a go.
First he felt with a claw,
Then the fur on his paw.
“There’s only one way to know!”

He slipped in the waters
Just like the otters
And felt the fine thrill of the swim.
Then before he knew,
He’d done loopty-loos
And no one could keep up with him!

“Whoo hoo!” Cried Lenore
As he looped from the shore.
She cheered as she watched him swim by.
“Way to go!” Yelled Sid.
“Just look what you did!
And you only needed to try!”

As Ollie swam hither
And dove down thither,
He smiled at what he could be:
“I don’t have to wish
To be a duck or a fish
When I’m special just being me!”

“It’s how I’m made
To play on the waves
And do all that an otter can do!”
So be like Ollie and see
Who you’re meant to be
And be brave to be specially you!

This is not really the beginning. Chronological order doesn’t add meaning to anything here. What means something here is truth. The real beginning was when I was three years old and dictating a story about a family of mice to my mother, who diligently wrote my little girl words into a little girl book of folded construction paper. Later that day, I illustrated it. That was the moment; I remember it with crystalline detail. I can still see those pages in my minds eye, and that is the day that started my life as a writer. Happy? Write about it. Sad? Write about it. Bored? Angry? Depressed? In love? You guessed it… Write about it. That’s what means something.

Call me KC. Of course, that’s a nomme de plume and you’ll learn waaaaaay more about me than my name as we go, but for now, KC will have to do. There are a few guidelines for reading what is published on this blog. It’s probably best that we have an understanding from the get go, so here goes:

1.  All life falls within the artist’s scope. Having said that, I’m not going to embarrass anyone or use this as a vent. This is not a place for hurling insults in any direction. Conversation is good. Picking fights is bad. Play nice in the sandbox.
2. Many of the topics here will envoke powerful emotions. Remember that the past is the past. If I made a decision that you would have made differently and you choose to take it as a personal affront, all I can say is: don’t. If this is not clear, see item 1.
3. I will warn you if a post contains graphic content. Some of them will. I’ve lived through some pretty crazy stuff, but like I said, truth is what means something. I won’t lie to you. Just understand now that my life (and everyone else’s that I’ve ever encountered) is filled with such a wondrous variety of humor and tears; chaos and peace; light and darkness. We’re human. It comes with the territory.

I have so much to tell you, and there are so many more interesting places to start than from the beginning…