born into this mess
mm
So, new job has an internet cafe in the break room. Seems pretty not bad. Fluorescent lighting is awful, though. I'm seeing halos everywhere.
There's all these cute little punk rock kids here.
Good times.
|
Poem for Monday, August 30, 2004
Morning at the Window
by T. S. Eliot
They are rattling breakfast plates in basement kitchens,
And along the trampled edges of the street
I am aware of the damp souls of housemaids
Sprouting despondently at area gates.
The brown waves of fog toss up to me
Twisted faces from the bottom of the street,
And tear from a passer-by with muddy skirts
An aimless smile that hovers in the air
And vanishes along the level of the roofs.
Burke's Book Store
1719 Poplar Avenue
Memphis, TN 38104
(901) 278-7484
www.burkesbooks.com
|
rougher draft
On my way to see my brand-new therapist yesterday, my directions blew out the window. I got to her street but had no idea what house it was. I called but she only has voicemail and so I ended up sitting a block from her offce (it's in a house, I guess) on the curb, pissed-off, low blood sugar, bawling. These East Memphis rich ladies kept looking at me nervously down from their SUVs (oh dear, I hope she's ok, she DOES seem upset, but she has pink hair and tattoos). Finally I gave up and went home, after screaming at my windshield. She called over an hour later and we rescheduled for today. I'm hoping I'll get over being pissed off that she didn't think to check her voicemail when I was late.
I can't decide if it's my twisted head or what, but part of me just wants to see someone who'll charge me a hundred bucks an hour so I don't have to feel grateful for her charity.
Whatever. I start training at my new job as a telerelay operator Monday. I've got to break myself of my terrible typing habits and start touch typing again.
(still not satisfied but it's better than the first version:)
the oak's other fruit isn't really an apple;
inside its sand-foamed flesh
a wasp waits to hatch.
we walked through summer's parking lots,
kicking fallen twigs,
treading time-mangled oak apples cored by insects' escape.
today I watch you lie in bed
one hand clutching ice to your face.
your mute lips are white.
you are exhausted by pain.
I look up, away. my prayers
are aimless, flabby,
snarled among the blades of the ceiling fan.
something sharp-legged,
spike-winged,
is gnawing its way out of my heart.
|
black dog
I don't want this. And being uninsured, with 40 cents in my bank account, there's not a goddamn thing I can do about it.
swarm, dogs, swarm. pull me back under, clots of fur and blood flying, fangs and snarls, and please don't leave even a scrap of flesh or a splinter of bone.
|
Why, oh, why, have I never read DeLillo before?
or listened to Springsteen's
Nebraska?
I'm at my parents' house and I'm violently allergic to their cat litter. I feel like I've been doing lines of Fresh Step.
Hrrrgggh.
|
but I'll still never finish Gravity's Rainbow
somewhere after midnight we staggered back up to the deli and I ended up having this long-ass conversation with the rock star about
infinite jest. and self-referentiality and Derrida and I thought to myself:
oh,
this is why I went to grad school.
psssshhhhht.
|
get well soon
the wasp lays its egg towards the end of an oak's branch
and the larva surrounds itself with a ball of sand-colored foam
that, as children, we called oak apples
after the wasp hatches, the apple falls to the ground,
cored by the tunnel of the young insect's escape
watching you lying in bed,
one arm holding ice against your face
lips white, exhausted by pain
something sharp-legged, spike-winged
begins to gnaw its way from out of my heart
|
Poem for Monday, August 16, 2004
Encounter
By Czeslaw Milosz
We were riding through frozen fields in a wagon at dawn.
A red wing rose in the darkness.
And suddenly a hare ran across the road.
One of us pointed to it with his hand.
That was long ago. Today neither of them is alive,
Not the hare, nor the man who made the gesture.
O my love, where are they, where are they going
The flash of a hand, streak of movement, rustle of pebbles.
I ask not out of sorrow, but in wonder.
Burke's Book Store
1719 Poplar Avenue
Memphis, TN 38104
(901) 278-7484
www.burkesbooks.com
|
I love you, Dad
just a few years younger than me
my father spent the summer on a submarine.
I have no words for my horror of the deep
and so there is no air to fill my lungs
to tell you his story
a young man
wrestling with his own drowning,
fathoms removed from light
from air, from hope.
|
why go home?
right, so that was the first phase: no reading, no music, no tv, no going outside, no privacy, no phone, being led around by the back of the pants, someone else shadowing me at all times, shitting and shaving in front of my jailers. sweet.
when staff decides that a newcomer is really working on their drug problem and is able to be trusted, they get to move up to second phase. second phasers get to go home, to their parents' house, at night. when you earn second phase it's this really big production during Open Meeting, at the end. your parents stand up, ready to do their mic talk bit, but you get to scream "coming home" and run out and hug them. my parents lived in atlanta so I ran out and hugged my oldcomer's parents. I don't even remember who they were, I had been passed around so much.
anyway, when you go home for the first time, they usually send another oldcomer, usually someone on a higher phase, home with you as support (to keep an eye on you). typically second phasers weren't given newcomers unless the program was overcrowded, since they were supposed to be rebuilding their relationships with their family. my family moved up to Memphis when I was on fifth phase, but when they came up once a month for out of town parents' weekend we'd stay at a hotel or with my grandparents.
on second phase, even though you are off the beltloop and allowed to be alone in the bathroom, you still don't really have many priveleges. you're allowed to read the Bible and the AA Big Book, but you still can't read cereal boxes or go outside or watch TV or listen to music, and your parents still put an alarm on the door at night. this was a really big pain in the ass if you had brothers or sisters, because they really resented not being able to do these things when you were at home. not to mention that you had become a selfrighteous zombie plungerhead. however, you are totally on your own for following these rules. tons of kids (including myself) would break these rules all the time when no one was in the room. every night, there was a whole rap, rules rap, where we were expected to "bring out" the rules we had broken or narc each other out. we were also expected to recite all the hundred or so rules (we had to memorize their numbers, for some reason, too). since there were so many, you'd inevitably break one every day. for example, one rule stated, "no talking behind backs." this didn't mean no backstabbing gossip, but that we couldn't mention someone who couldn't hear us, even a person walking by on the street. so sometimes you'd be talking about someone only to realize that they had left the room. then you not only had to bring the rule out, but make amends to them.
I went into second chance the second week of ninth grade, I think maybe September 10th, and earned second phase the week before Thanksgiving. I had had virtually no contact with my parents and still hated them with a passion. When they came up for Thanksgiving, I begged staff not to send me to a hotel with them, but they insisted on sending me home with them, alone. they told me I could call someone if I needed to talk, since a bunch of other kids would be there in the same hotel. Just the few hours I spent with my parents were so bad that I decided that it would be worth it to risk running away from the hotel. I guess I thought I'd try to hitchhike to Atlanta, even though I was pretty sure I'd get picked up. Sure enough, it was so cold outside that I only walked a few miles before I ended up huddling next to an exhaust vent trying to get warm in a hospital parking lot. A security guard called the police and I was taken to Juvenile Court.
Juvenile Court wasn't that bad. I had my own room with its own toilet, and I was allowed to watch TV and talk to the other kids, who were impressed at how bad Second Chance sounded. the cop who picked me up and took me to JC actually teared up a bit when I described how miserable I was, and said she'd heard about the place.
my parents came and got me in the morning. I begged to be allowed to stay, looking around wildly for something to hold onto as they dragged me away. I yelled out for help to all the cops around me, but they just looked away.
my parents never once questioned why I ran away. they were told by staff that it was because I was desperate to use drugs.
I was so furious at being brought back that when I was started over on first phase, I refused to cooperate for a few months. I didn't talk at all for the entire month of December, even on my birthday, when I was made to stand up so the group could sing to me, after which I told them all to go fuck themselves. I started scrounging staples and paperclips from the carpet and carving on myself after my oldcomer fell asleep. During the day I would scratch the scabs off or dig my nails into my face until I looked like I had been attacked. After almost three weeks of complete silence, just staring off into space or singin to myself, I was taken into a one-on-one session with the only staff member who had medical training and told that staff and the staff psychiatrist had decided I was bipolar and that I was going to start taking Lithium and Imipramine. The medications made me sleepy, gave me heartburn, and made me see double.
I think the only thing that got me through this was a song by Pearl Jam, "why go?" which had been one of my favorites in 8th grade. I had no idea how appropriate it would become, back when I was 12.
She scratches a letter into a wall made of stone
Maybe someday another child won't feel as alone as she does
It's been two years, and counting, since they put her in this place
She's been diagnosed by some stupid fuck, and mommy agrees, yeah...
Why go home...
She seems to be stronger, but what they want her to be is weak
She could play pretend, she could join the game, boy
She could be another clone...
Why go home?
What you taught me...put me here...don't come visit...mother...
Sting me...
I remember sitting in the very last row, some time right before Christmas, singing that song over and over to myself, trying not to crawl under my chair and curl into a ball. Staff had discovered the cuts and eraser burns on my arms. A staff member or fifth phaser sat next to me at all times, holding my hand or my arms.
So, a recap. I ran away, begged to stay in JC, got heavily medicated even though I was told daily that I was a hopeless drug addict, and spent months staring at the back of a pew. I had just turned 14.
|
Second Chance, part 3
THE PHASES
the program was divided into five phases, each with a different focus and level of privileges. I guess the basic idea was to completely annihilate our sense of identity and graduallly replace it with a new, jesus-lovin, drug-free, societal-norm-followin conformist.
First-phasers were generally referred to as 'newcomers.' As we were constantly reminded, we were sneaky, lying druggie scum. We were liable at any moment to run away and sell our bodies for smack. Therefore, unless we were seated or in a room with the exit blocked by an 'oldcomer,' a client on a higher level phase, we were held onto by the back of our pants.
Imagine you want to get up out of the chair you're sitting in right now to go to the bathroom. Now lean forward and wait for the person sitting next to you to stick her hand down the back of your pants and grab ahold of your beltloop. If you try to stand up before she's got a good grasp, she'll shove you back down into your seat. Okay, now stand up. Start walking to the bathroom, but not too fast. If you walk too fast, you're liable to get tackled. These oldcomers have loads of aggression leftover from their stint as a newcomer and they're just itching to take it out on you. Now once you get to the bathroom, wait for her to lean against the door. Once she's let go of you, you can sit down on the toilet. You have to shit? Well, maybe she'll let you turn some water on. Maybe she'll look the other way. More than likely, she'll ask you what you're thinking about as you sit there straining to defecate in front of a stranger whom you likely as not hate with all your guts. She'll tell you to stay open to your negative thoughts. You know, basically everything going through your head- that song you've got stuck there, the memory of freedom, wishing you could go outside, missing your friends, wishing you were anywhere but here.
See, we were encouraged on all our phases to keep up a kind of running commentary on everything going through our head. Supposedly this is taking AA's 4th, 5th and 10th steps, the ones about Moral Inventory, to the next level. We were also only allowed to refer to our life before Second Chance as our 'druggie Past' and to our old friends as 'druggie friends.' We weren't allowed to listen to any secular music at all, and weren't allowed to listen to even christian or classical until 4th phase. we also weren't allowed to read, not even billboards or cereal boxes, or write anything that wasn't deemed as helping our sobriety. hoo boy, did I ever write a bunch of letters to god. for some reason, those were considered private. couse I had to rip them up after. we weren't allowed to go outside. we couldn't talk to other kids on 1st phase or to the boys without supervision. so what with all these DOs and DON'Ts, there wasn't much we
were allowed to think about. sort of like when the young King Arthur goes to visit an ant colony in
the Book of Merlyn, and there's this sign up that says "
Everything Not Forbidden is Compulsory."
So, for example, a typical car ride to or from the Program, let's say with two newcomers and two oldcomers (and the childlocks engaged on the passenger doors, of course), would consist of about 25 minutes of the following
Clockwork Orange-esque babble:
oldcomer 1:(staring out of window) negative song. druggie friend, past situation. working through it.
oldcomer 2:(riding bitch between two newcomers) thanks for sharing. (to her newcomer) what are YOU thinking about?
newcomer 1: um, nothing.
oldcomer 2: you need to get honest. you know, until you admit you're just a helpless druggie like the rest of us you're going to be stuck on your butt.
newcomer 2:(who is an obvious ass kisser) I'm having a negative thought about my druggie friends, you know, wondering where they are, and if they miss me. but I'm working my steps and turning it over to god.
o1: good for you. I can relate, I used to really miss my druggie friends, but then I realised that they are just a bunch of selfish druggies caught up in Using and that they don't miss me at all. I'm just glad I'm here so I can make new, healthy friends. I'm so grateful to my parents for taking me away from my Past and giving me another chance.
o2 to n1: stop reading that billboard.
n1: I can't help it. it's right there.
o2: don't talk back. just keep your eyes in the car.
n1: then I'll get carsick. you want me to throw up on you?
o2: you need to stop having an attitude with me. you need to stay open.
n1: okay, fine, I'm having a negative thought about murdering you in your sleep and then cutting out your kidneys, running away, and selling them on the black market for heroin.
o2: that does it. I'm calling Staff as soon as we get home.
n2, in a desperate attempt to fit BOTH oldcomers' entire ass in her mouth: why don't we sing a song? how about 'our god is an awesome god'?
Mom, who is driving: I don't care if you have negative thoughts or not, I want all four of you to stop picking on each other and keep quiet until we get home.
Good times.
|
Poem for Monday, August 9, 2004
from Haiku on 42nd Street
by Martin Burke
On the twelfth floor
a life's work holds open
the book reviewer's door.
Burke's Book Store
1719 Poplar Avenue
Memphis, TN 38104
(901) 278-7484
www.burkesbooks.com
|
Second Chance, Inc, part 2
OPEN MEETING
That night I sat through the first of what would be more than 60 humiliating Open Meetings.
Open Meeting took place every Friday night and was attended by all the local parents and siblings, and sometimes by grandparents or friends of the family. We started out the meeting by singing the Second Chance theme song, "Rainbow made of Children."
to the tune of "may the circle be unbroken," imagine about 80 humiliated teenagers crammed into a set of itchy, uncomfortable pews and singing as if, well, as if their very liberty depended on it:
I was raised on wholesome manners, saying yes, sir, to the man
when I found myself in trouble, I turned to drugs to ease the pain
we're a rainbow made of children
we're an army growing strong
there's no weapon that can stop us
our love is much too strong
I was taught that black was evil, I was taught that white was good
now that I became drug-free, every color's understood
we're a rainbow made of children, etc
Then we'd have some Introductions. See, the Group was up on the platform in the pews, facing the parents, who were sitting in rows of chairs, down on the floor. Between the girls and guys sat two staff members equipped with a cordless microphone.
Every newcomer to the program had to give at least two Introductions. So there you are, terrified, pissed off, horribly lonely, malnourished, unrested, standing up in front of not only your parents, but a sea of hundreds of strangers. They hand you the mic.
"um, hi, my name is Ashley, I'm 14, I've been using drugs for 2 years, the drugs I've used are nicotine, alchohol (she's had about 8 beers in her life), marijuana (she can COUNT the times she's gotten high- can you?), LSD (once), Xtasy (not really), crank (she doesn't even know what this is), cocaine (in a joint she had two hits off), crystal (this is just plain a lie to make the staff happy), prescriptions (she stole a codeine once for cramps), inhalants (on a dare she huffed rubber cement in seventh grade art class), and trash drugs (banana peels, 8th grade summer camp). I've been sober for two weeks.
I want to talk about a time I used crystal meth. I was 15, and I was at a party with my druggie boyfriend. I felt really nervous and desperate to fit in and so even though I was scared of the drug, I used it anyway. My heart was pounding out of control and I felt so messed up and lonely but I kept drinking and smoking marijuana because I was out of control. I see now that that was my disease talking, because even though I was miserable, I kept using. And that's the definition of insanity, you know, doing the same thing over and over and expecting differnt results? Um, but I know now that only Jesus can help me stay sober because I'm nothing but a druggie and I will be forever without God and the Twelve Steps."
You sit down, eyes blurry, wondering if you've pushed out enough tears, if the situation you've just made up (since you've never used crystal meth) was realistic enough. You hope so, or you're going to get reamed later.
And on and on, through maybe 15 of these. Then the Group sings some more songs, like "Our god is an awesome god," or "Zippity Doo Dah," or a watered down version of James Taylor's "You've got a friend."
Finally, it's time for Mic Talks. The staff hand the microphone over to the parents. The parents of the kids who've been there long enough to earn the "privelege" of going home at night merely say "love ya, kid." But the parents of the newcomers, the hopeless druggies who haven't yet decided to fight for sobriety, oh, they stand up and let you have it.
"Ashley, I've been going through your room. I've been reading your diary. You make me sick. You're a pathetic failure and you do nothing but disappoint me. I took such good care of you for 14 years and all you've done is throw it back in my face. I know you were sleeping with that worthless druggie boyfriend of yours. Well, guess what? You're never ever going to see him again. You've hurt me and your father so much with your defiant attitude. We don't want you to come home until you've turned your life around. You're in here for good, so work hard. We love you."
And then, after this, you have to look your parents in the eyes and tell them, "I love you too."
And this is all the contact you get with your family for sometimes months on end. No phone calls. No letters. If you've been a good little newcomer, and say the right words, after the whole ordeal is finished somebody will lead you by the beltloop over to where your parents are sitting so you can apologize for being a terrible kid and beg them to forgive you, since you have turned a new leaf and are Working your Steps. This is called earning Talk. If you've been REALLY good, you get T&R, talk and responsibilities, meaning that instead of being LED over to your parents, you are merely closely followed by some one with her hand out ready to grab you. You also get to clean the bathrooms.
So that was Open Meeting. Sometimes it lasted for 3 or 4 hours. And since dinner was right before, that's 3 hours of having to pee. And being desperately thirsty. And hot, and itchy, and sleepy, and depressed, and pissed-off, and BORED.
Which pretty much describes the whole Second Chance experience.
Coming up soon... the Phases.
|
Second Chance, Inc
It's time I started writing about this.
Starting pretty soon after my 13th birthday, I started running away. Smoking cigarettes. I smoked pot a couple of times. Broke windows, snuck out at night to go hang out at the park. Fought violently with my parents. Got detentions for mouthing off at my teachers.
I don't really remember what brought it all on. I know part of me was infuriated by the hypocrisy of the affluent suburban Atlanta Southern Baptist church my parents forced me to attend, and part of me was acting out against my brother's own violence against me. I'm bipolar, and it typically starts to show up around puberty, so I'm sure was feeling depressed and confused about why I was so miserable. I was a year younger than all the kids in my grade and was a year behind developing, so I was a skinny little punk who looked like a boy, with my shaved head, baggy jeans, and clunky black Doc Marten's. I remember sitting in my room, blowing cigarette smoke out the window in the dark, listening to Alice in Chains, Metallica and Nirvana as if the music was the only thing keeping me alive.
At the very end of 8th grade I'd spent a month in the christian youth program at one of the private mental hospitals, Charter or something like it, where I was put on Prozac. The Prozac didn't do much except make me hate myself even more, but right after I quit taking it (apparently sudden withdrawal causes erratic behaviour, I later found out) I decided I was going for a walk one day and didn't come back for a week. I camped in the woods at the park with some kids I knew until a friend of mine's sister ended up convincing me to go home. I started 9th grade a few weeks later.
My parents were making me see a shrink, and so when my mother told me to come right home after school for an appointment I didn't think anything of it. I missed my bus, though, and so when she came to pick me up iwth a suitcase in the back seat and we ended up back at the hospital, it started to make sense. I spent a week there waiting to be transferred to "long-term."
"Long-term" seemed kinda glamorous to me, since I hated living with my parents and felt violent urges just being in the room with them. So I went along docilely on the plane trip from Atlanta to Memphis. We drove through a scary part of town I had never seen on my visits to my grandparents, streets full of trash and warehouses. We finally turned into a warehouse complex and pulled up in front of a door labelled "Second Chance."
It's been 10 years, so it's kind of blurry. I remember being taken into a room with a few chairs and a desk, where an elderly Scottish lady, a young woman in her early 20s and an older teenaged girl in a dress sat me down. They told me that I was going to be admitted to the program for a 14-day evaluation for drug addiction. I smiled feebly and protested that I wasn't a drug addict. They told me that if I wasn't they'd release me. They asked me what drugs I had done, and deciding to lie a little, leaving out the mushrooms I took once and the pair of times I'd taken 5 or 6 Vivarins, I told them marijuana and nicotine (which they insisted was part of my drug problem). They then proceeded to read me the rules.
Some of these rules made no sense to me, and I wouldn't figure them out until much later: no cliquing, no talking behind backs, no glamorizing, no breaking anyone's anonymity, follow chain of command. But as they read on I realized that the very things that were most essential to what I considered myself to me, to who I was, the things that provided the most comfort to me, were going to be forbidden: no rock music, no make-up or jewelry, no t-shirts or shirts with writing, no reading (this included billboards and cereal boxes), no boots, no television, no going outside, no talking on the phone, no belts.
As the list of things I was not allowed to do grew and grew, I lost my temper. I started screaming at the woman and the girl, although I remained seated. I guess I was too much of a well-bred Southern girl to think about violence toward a stranger. As I screamed curses a white-haired red-faced Scottish man peeked into the door. He started yelling right back at me, I don't remember exactly what, but along the lines that I was a spoiled little druggie and that I was going to learn to get honest with myself. I remember screaming Fuck You over and over until I was taken, led by the back of my pants, to the girls bathroom.
The teenage girl searched through my suitcase while the young woman, who was on the staff, leaned against the door, blocking the way out. I was made to change into new clothing that fit me horribly: some hideous pleated khakis, a collared shirt, and GASP! a bra. By this point I was terrified and just sort of went along with everything.
After I was changed, I was led out of the bathroom. By led I mean that the teenaged girl put her hand down the back of of my pants, hooking her thumb through my beltloop, while reciting some mumbo-jumbo I'd later decipher as "This is the Hand of Friendship because I know it's hard for you to trust yourself right now."
I was pushed into a large, grey carpeted, florescently-lit room with a raised platform covered in pews at the far end. Closer to me, with their backs to the door, about fifty teenagers, looking to be anywhere from 13 to 19, sat crosslegged on the floor, boys on one side, girls on the other. Two or three girls in dresses guarded a fire door on the girls' side and a few boys in ties and white shirts stood watch over the boys. A young man, probably about 19 or 20, obviously a staff member, sat on a stool facing the group, leading some kind of discussion. For no reason I could discern, the kids broke out into frantic arm-flapping, as if they were having seizures or were trying to expel demons from their chests. Then, as the staff member who accompanied me signalled to the guy at the front, he stopped them with a "listen up, Group."
"Y'all, listen up." said the female staff member from next to me. Fifty pairs of strange eyes regarded me curiously, some with pity, some with anger, some just blankly turned my direction. "This is Sue. She's 13, she's from Atlanta, and she's used marijuana and nicotine. What do y'all have to say to her?"
Fifty kids I'd never seen before eyed me for a second, then chorused in unison:
LOVE YA, SUE!
|
it's only music...
well shit, it sure is a beautiful day. a lovely day to sleep til 9:38 and then be awakened by Tachi's headbuttings and then to doze in and out of finishing
Huck Finn while eating yellow corn grits and sweet potatos doused in Sriracha sitting on the porch gazing fondly at my cat as he sits on the edge of the porch, sort of kneeling on the railing as he surveys his hugemongous backyard domain, scowling at the border collies and trying to catch flies.
yes, and mad props to Harlan T Bobo, whom you may now hear on
NPR's Open Mic. go listen to this song and then go buy his album
here if you scroll down a bit.
holla.
|
the drugs don't work... and I know I'll see your face again
dear internet,
y'all are my witnesses, ok? promise me that if I die an untoward and unexpected death, you WON'T let my parents give me a decent christian burial.
I want to be cremated and scattered. my friends and family are invited to celebrate my life and its metamorphosis at that park with the big magnolias where Niki and I first hung out with a bunch of forties and a couple of tightly rolled fatties, and with some pho hoa binh, some fried chicken, pot roast, chocolate tofu pie, and veggie burgers.
cos I don't ever want to see another friend in an open casket while some stranger in an ill-fitting suit reads sickening Biblical platitudes that we all rejected back in our teens. that wasn't right. and yes, he wasn't there, and he doesn't care anymore, but as comforting as it may have been to his parents, it was equally saddening to his friends, especially those who were so offended that they spent their last chance to say goodbye trying not to erupt with anger.
and that's all I have to say about the last week.
love
Sue
|
