Lucky White Rabbit

Lately when my mind drops me into the past, it is big and loud, like suddenly being slapped, sharp and stinging...too much in my body, too much hurt. I look around, and I remember the dream where I hide under the bed, shivering on the cold wood floor. A small white bunny hops under the bed to join me, and I’m no longer alone or scared. The end. Only it’s not the end, is it? It’s not a dream. I confuse waking and dreaming because that is how I survived, but even now it is blurry, past and present, real or illusion, hiding under the bed...

Artwork by Richard Jesse Watson

Wanting

Wanting

The physical pain comes first

before memory

before wanting

searing flame

consuming all image

imagined...

When it hurts 

inside

now 

wanting 

you

before you

pain 

without 

want

This wanting

is a different ache

throbbing

from the same place

Why is the womb filled with rot? 

Do you ever wonder

or simply believe 

what you are told? 

"You smell 

like the filth that you are."

Could you please

wrap your arms around me

even with this stench?

Shame is

asking

Shame is 

telling

Shame is

Still 

Here

Wanting...

Angela Minard 2016©

Artwork from randiclark.com

Walking Through Fear

I remember standing in line with the heat of the Texas sun flooding down, as I held my brothers small, sweaty hand. We were waiting to see "Grease," and the buttery smell of popcorn rushing out of the air conditioned theater each time someone opened or closed the door made me feel sick to my stomach. I was eleven, and I didn't understand the word "rape." I didn't have the vocabulary at the time for what had happened to me. The timeline in my head is confused, but it must have happened not long before this memory.  We stood in the heat, and I remember feeling lost and numb. As soon as we stepped inside the lobby, I vomited all over the ticket takers shoes. My brother began to cry. I took him into the bathroom, wiped his tears, and scrubbed the splattered bile from my tennis shoes with a useless paper towel. We weren't with an adult, but they let us in without question to see the movie. That probably wouldn't happen in 2016. I dropped into that film as if my life depended on it. I was every song, every line, and every laugh. It was then that I must have decided I no longer wanted to be me. I don't think of that time in my life very often anymore, but I still live with certain fears. A preview for that movie was on the television the other evening, which brought back that particular memory. I was also triggered at the yoga studio because I now teach a 7:00-8:15 p.m. class on Monday nights. I'm nervous to walk to my car in the dark when I close alone. We are located near a Pizza Hut, and often there are a couple of guys out there taking their smoke breaks. I fear groups of men even more than I fear a man who is alone because I was raped by two, and I'm almost certain that while I was being raped, there were other people who knew it was going on. I'm trying, but it causes a lot of anxiety for me. It also brings out some anger, because I'm tired of being afraid. I even thought about giving up that class because of it, and that is ridiculous. I do not want to allow fear to get in the way of living my life. I am not a little girl anymore. Wish me luck tonight as I walk through my fear.

"Though my soul may set in darkness, it will rise in perfect light; I have loved the stars too fondly to be fearful of the night." ~Sarah Williams

Artwork by~ Akageno Saru

Runaway Train

Runaway Train

I will tell you that sometimes

I'm the one who pulls the trigger

observing the destination

like a runaway train that I cannot save

Watching from a distance

I hear

"maybe this time"

"maybe this time"

chugging in my ears

Your mouth opens wide

but I do nothing

There is gravel embedded in your tiny knees

"crying and begging will get you nowhere"

I say

making funny faces until you finally giggle

We are nowhere

together

I learned the hard way

that pickle juice isn't for babies

but we were out of milk

and you were crying so hard

Forever can last months and months

until suddenly

you are in a different place

and the rumbling of the train in your sleep

jolts you

awake

Angela Minard 2015©

What If

I don't know why I have this compulsive need to go back to the scene of the crime. In my mind, I see the bedroom, with the mattress on the floor. The freshly painted walls were windowless, and bare. I have the childish thought that maybe if I return to the beginning, I can somehow change what happened. The beginning and ending are what I remember the most, and even now, the memories make me cover my hands over my eyes, although eventually, I'm compelled to look. Over and over again, I do this to myself. I play the "what if" game. What if I had screamed or put up more of a fight. I still feel such shame that I didn't fight back. I just let them do what they wanted to me. I have nightmares where I'm frozen with fear, and suffocating to death. At a certain point, I became numb to the pain and lost inside the eerie silence of my own mind. I look back, and there are fragments of memories that don't fit anywhere. I wonder why I keep taking it out and dissecting the whole thing. I want it all to fit into a nice, compact little compartment, with all of the pieces intact, and in order, and then, I think, maybe I will be able to put it away.

Surfacing

Surfacing

It always ends in the water
Sinking into the comforting
weightlessness
Drowning the shame
that boils beneath the
mirrored stillness
I see you
I know you
hiding in the depths
of your own deafening silence
A secret baptism
A whispered prayer
An unfinished memory
begging to return
to the beginning

Angela Minard 2009©

Did I Ever Tell You?...

Did I ever tell you that I was raped by two guys when I was eleven years old? See...it does get easier to say, but never easier to actually know, and feel. It is strange how the memories always come when I least expect them to. I will be having a perfectly fine day, and then WHAM, absolutely blindsided with the pain. Doing laundry, brushing my teeth, cooking dinner, and from out of nowhere it plays like a movie, or flashes like a photograph, and I am trapped once again. I think that it always surprises me that it doesn't go away. That they do not go away, and that my mind always has a way of making me remember. Now I have days of freedom, and I hope that those days will grow into weeks, months, years. I know that I will never forget, but I long for the memories to become cohesive, not bits and pieces that continue to creep out of the shadows of my mind. Yesterday was particularly hard, and I finally just lay down in a chair and fell asleep to escape. Dave asked me how I was a few times, but I still have the hardest time verbalizing what I'm going through. Mostly I'm afraid that it will make the tears come, and I do not want to cry over this anymore.

Misplaced Memories

Remember how I kept locking my keys in the car?
Waiting for you to come and rescue me.
I'm doing it again.
Maybe I think that eventually
you will tire of scolding me.
Abandoned in an empty parking lot
trying to look as if I belong
Leaving things
misplaced keys, phone, an earring
All replaceable
like me
because you tell me
never to leave my keys in the car
Why don't I listen?
My mind is so loud
that I can't hear a thing
So loud
tripping over my own feet
while walking in the park
Did someone see me?
It hurts
but no one can know
No one can know
that I hurt

Angela Minard 2008

My Six Word Memoir

I tend to be easily intimidated, so my immediate reaction when I found out that I had been tagged to write a six word memoir was, "No way!" I also have a problem with saying "No!" I actually love reading memoirs, which also explains my addiction to reading blogs, so I thought that I would give it a shot.

Characteristics of the memoir form: by Dr. Beth Burch, a professor of education at Binghamton University. It is from her book, Writing For Your Portfolio (Boston: Allyn and Bacon, 1999).

... explores an event or series of related events that remain lodged in memory

... describes the events and then shows, either directly or indirectly, why they are significant
-- or in short, why you continue to remember them

... is focused in time; doesn't cover a great span of years (that would be an autobiography)

...centers on a problem or focuses on a conflict and its resolution
and on the understanding of why and how the resolution is significant in your life.



~ My Six Word Memoir ~
by Angela Minard

Worried child growing weary finds strength.

Dreamer has tagged me.

Here are your instructions:

1) Write your own six word memoir
2) Post it on your blog; include a visual illustration if you’d like
3) Link to the person that tagged you in your post, and to the original post if possible
4) Tag at least five more blogs with links
5) Leave a comment on the tagged blogs with an invitation to play!

" My Chosen Ones "

1. Jessieh from jessiehspeaks
2. Jenny at artconstellation
3. Lumina over at lovespeakes
4. Marcella at abyss2hope
5. Jeanne over at diggingmeup

I Remember

I Remember

I remember the small, white purse
that I carried with me
as I boarded the plane
Dr. Pepper flavored Lip Smacker
tucked inside

I don't remember coming home
forever changed
Did I sit by the window?
Were there tears in my eyes?

I can still remember the bedroom
A dirty mattress on the floor
Running and running
from windowless walls
into my darkest
of August nights

I don't remember why it was
I took on all of their shame
I don't remember turning twelve
Was I somehow to blame?

I do remember
this one thought...

Did they even know my name?

Angela Minard 2008

Precipice

I

stand

on

this

cliff.

Flooded with feelings.

Hidden away.

Fears that are new.

Not sure where they fit.

Where do I put them?

Or are they all mine?...

Are they imagined?...

Fragments of dreams?...

They feel just like memories...

Taking up space.

Always returning.

Too wrong to be real.

All of the times

that I close my eyes.

Oh, so tight...

I try not to see.

I don't want to see.

All that is ugly.

All that is me.

Standing alone.

On

the

edge

of

a

precipice.

Set

me

free.