Speak for Yourself
I didn’t want to write this—honestly. I mean, I always aim to be honest in my writing, but I didn’t want to write this. I didn’t even want to think about it. This past week, I’ve been more than prompted to, but I have also been avoiding it. I just wanted to keep pretending that all I think are happy, wholesome, loving thoughts and that, as a result, those are the thoughts I write about. How dishonest is that? Well, it’s not so much dishonest to those who read this as much as it is lying to myself—the person writing this. In any event, what do I have to prove? And what is any thought, really, if one is not able to express it within the proofs of honesty? Because feelings are honest, but within expressing them, a person must decide whether to keep them alive that way, or kill them with lies.
And that’s the whole thing about writing, isn’t it? It’s about being honest and spilling your guts and trying to make some sorting sense of it all… all of life… all of the ramblings within one’s head… all of the real shit that is really going on… all that we can’t or don’t say. Oh, we can say them, but we sometimes choose not to. Why? I’ll tell you why, because we’re all liars; myself included, and we all like to find the most eloquent of ways to lie. We use pretty words as descriptions of how we supposedly feel. Then, we cover up the truth and call it beauty, so that it’s not quite a lie any longer, but more of a redecorated lie that looks possibly true. Well hell, that’s art! Isn’t it? Well, isn’t it? No, that’s bull! Like I said, I didn’t want to write this—but I needed to. I pretty much had it pre-formed in my mind, and yet I still haven’t any inkling as to how it’s going to come out. I’m hardly prepared for that kind of honest, but I’m going to write it anyway.
While it’s true, some things can prove to be difficult to speak on, let alone write about. For me, and touchingly enough, the difficult to speak/write thing has been Mother’s Day. I have generally avoided it with an amply kind word here or there, and by saying what I think is expected of me. I have jotted out delicate pieces of poetry that say what I think people want to hear. Usually, the Mother’s Day poem I end up writing is about myself… about how thankful I am to be a mother (and God knows, I honestly am) and so on and so forth. I never write poems about my mother. If I do, I say something polite. We’re taught that, right? “If you can’t say something nice…” (Well, you know the rest).
Honestly? I don’t write about my mother because I would like others to believe that she and I have this fabulous relationship—even within my knowledge that others don’t know us at all, or anything we’ve been through. Anyway, what do they care? They have their own mothers to write about. I avoid talking or writing about her, because I would prefer that people think the good stuff. But who am I fooling, besides myself? The truth is, I don’t have a great relationship with my mother. I even go days without speaking to her, because I don’t like what I hear on the other line; and yes, I’ll leave that out because what’s usually on the other line isn’t so nice so, I'll just pretend that I’m happy by never mentioning it. Afterall, who would hang their dirty drawers on the line?—and some things are just plain out personal, right?
The real truth is, I can’t keep pretending… can’t keep lying… and it all ‘comes out in the wash' anyway, right? I mean, forty-two years of soap cycled emotion will eventually bubble over and spill out all over the place in one arrangement or another. So, why am I even writing this? And for whom? And why would I write this the day before Mother’s Day of all days? Above all, why am I sharing personal shit with the world? Why not just write the normal, happy, wholesome, loving shit I usually write? Surely, that would ease many minds, (mainly mine) and no one really reads my shit anyway, so who will it offend; my mother? Shit, she’ll never read it. Shit, shit, shit!
We tend to do this, don’t we? Say what we should say, as opposed to stirring up the very emotions we’ve conveniently imagined as dormant within our so-called discovery of loving thoughts. Emotions we’ve avoided overtime, hoping they would disappear so that we can just be… happy. This is what we pose before the world. “See, I’m happy!” and we smile. And we are. It is our greatest triumph—to seem happy, content, and (oh yeah…) relieved that we don’t have to bring up the stuff that really bothers us deep, deep inside. Speak for yourself… Did you just say that, or did I just say it for you—or me? See there? A person’s own thoughts are tripped-out at times… Okay, most of the time… Okay, ALL the time. Now, who said that? See what I mean?
What I really mean is, deep, deep inside, where the real fear, the real doubt about all the (in)convenient imaginings we say aloud for other ears (or eyes, in this case) are our proof of happiness, contentment, and relief. But have we actually proven to the world (or to ourselves even) how happy our lives and thoughts truthfully are. Okay, maybe I’ve lost it—but I haven’t really. I’m actually finding shit… yeah, shit… and trying my damnedest to clean it up, to stop it from stinking up my mind.
Ever stepped on a pile of (okay... poop) and tried to clean it from your shoe, only to find the scent still funky and lingering? Not a James Brown kind of funky we like to groove to periodically, but the real-life funk that permeates the sparkling, spotlessness of who we exhibit to the world in most instances. When we’re not performing before others, we’ve got some funky poop on the real inside. I guess this is my attempt to clean clear my mind of the stinking thoughts that stick to my shoes daily. These are some of the moving thoughts that stop me in my tracks, so that I am unable to walk my walk (whatever that is) or to take the next step(s) I need to take in life. Is all this necessary? In my mind, it’s as necessary as getting poop off my shoes. And you can’t walk around with poop on your shoes every day, well you can, but you’d have to suffer through smelling it, as well as the embarrassment of everyone holding their noses as you seemingly, nonchalantly walk on by, and not to mention smearing the stench everywhere you walk.
My funky poop, as it hinders me right now, is that I’ve always tried to be perfect. My initial attempts at perfection lied in the many performances I acted out for my mother. These performances have somehow managed to eke their way into my adult life. Habits, if you will. But they began as a way to please my mother; to please her would be my greatest accomplishment in life, if I could accomplish it. I honestly want to stop writing, because it’s hurting… As a child, I would tap-dance my way through straight “A” report cards and all the things I wished would make her happy. Things like, picking her fresh flowers on my way home from school, and I usually ended up putting the flowers in a home-made vase (which was probably a jelly jar from the kitchen cupboard) and smiling at my perfect attempts to see her smile—for me. Or to buy her a bag of her favorite banana-flavored chewy candies with the money I saved… Or to clean her room extra nice for her, so she wouldn’t have to do it… Or to play one of her favorite songs, until she returned home from a two week binge of wherever she went those days. The song? Oh... It was Bill Withers’ “Ain’t No Sunshine” and true, there was no sunshine in her absence. She was my sun and my shine.
I would wait and play that record over and over for days, sometimes weeks, sometimes months… or until the needle finally broke. The metaphorical songs of good weather ceased to exist within the gloom of bright-lit remnants I so desperately needed in my life at that (or this) time—I needed a mother—my mother; not the one's I created for myself to feel like I had her. They helped, but didn't fully do, I think... Well, in some ways… maybe. Have my issues of abandonment fucked me up? Or should I ask, what good am I able to re-create from those issues? Would I be who I am today, without all of it…? I wonder—but shit (yeah, back to 'shit'), I honestly don’t know. Am I good because of it…? Now, there’s a happy thought.
Honestly, I cannot, any more today than I could when I was a child, make my mother be the kind of mother I wanted—or needed. I can sit here and whine and blame and pluck out all the shits I want on this keyboard about how awful my childhood was, or about how not-so-great my relationship with my mother is currently. Some would even say, “Speak for yourself…at least you still have a mother.” And that thought alone makes me feel guilty beyond guilt, because I genuinely feel awful for those who’ve lost their loving mothers. But what I really want to say is what really fucks some people up, are fucked up mothers. And my mother was fucked up in many ways, but she’s still my mother. And who fucked her up? And who fucked up whoever fucked her up? See? These are the revolving doors of fucked-up-ness… Because nobody is just fucked up just because. How do we disrupt that kind of orbit? We either fuck it up worse, or try to fix it so that it recycles the way we think it should. But how fucked-up have all of our ‘think it should’s’ been? No… Don’t answer that. Or we really, actually fix it.
Out of all the mother’s in the world, my mother is the only mother I get to have (and I swear she’s calling on the phone right now, and I won’t even stop writing this to pick up the phone). How fucked up is that? Will I ever get over this shit? Do I want to get over it? Have I tried? It might please you if I say that I have (tried, I mean). Have I tried hard enough? Well, that’s a question, I feel, that can only answer itself when I succeed... I think. Succeed in what… and at what? Why does the shit always fall back on me? I hate that! Why do I feel I have to be the one responsible for what does or does not happen in my mother’s and my relationship? But it’s so true… I am responsible.
Why must I fight to be honest about honoring my mother on Mother’s Day? Well, why do I even feel I deserve to be honored? Am I better than her? Honestly, Am I any better than her!?? Whether I want to admit it now, or never, she is my mother. Is that a real reason? Maybe and maybe not… But regardless of all the shit I feel was fucked up in my life—she is still my mother; she will always be my mother. And I will always love her—as I am reminded of something a wise and good friend often says—“… no matter what.” She is my mother. She is the woman who gave me birth, and even though she’s told me on countless occasions that she wished I hadn’t been born, I will courageously celebrate my birth by honoring her. (Ain’t that some perfectly irresponsible, egocentric, speaking-for-self, fucked-up shit to say?) On this day and every day I breathe to love, live, and write honestly is proof that I wasn’t a mistake. Do I honor her because she deserves it? Yes. Do I honestly feel this way? Yes… I do. And how I let myself feel is, indeed, my responsibility.
So, what do I do? For one, I keep speaking for myself, even from what seems to be dark, hurting places. And I speak in search of the healing light. I continue to create honest and beautiful poetry out of all of the fucked up shit that continues to exist in the world. And I call it art. I do it, because it's somewhat of a respite from my own madness... a way to quell my inner-fiend… and as a way to exit the insanity. I return my mother’s call, and I do it with a smile on my face. And in that smile, she hears all my “I forgive you's” and she hears me mean them with honesty. During the call, we make ordinary conversation, and I invite her to the Mother’s Day dinner that I plan to prepare especially for tomorrow. Tomorrow on Mother’s Day, I treat my mother like the Queen she is and has always been to me. I don't pretend, but I accept that everything is just as it should be, and for, even if just one day, I get out of the way to go out of my way to have a great relationship with my mother, until I figure out a how to do it every day. And I write her a poem, knowing that she may never read it.
Resemblances
We are never more beyond belief
constantly seeing ourselves
in various pieces of ourselves
Daily, I smile into the reflection that is you
and discover the epitome of beauty
I have not always acknowledged
I would love to tell you
so every day I know I should
but I…
been too busy making excuses
and licking our wounds
I wish we were able to revisit
yesterday and take away the cold
words and icy dispositions
Heaven knows, we’ve tried to
Escape our thoughts
—they might reveal too much
torment
In pastimes, I have feared
we’ve touched a too near pinnacle
yes, that one
where we gaze up at every new thought
that threatens the soul
Within each infringement
we ever found burdensome
every advance that would take
a first step toward our revolution
we found new thoughts
Some that might have completely
declined us to move at all
for fear of getting knocked off balance
from our discoveries of us
The vision really does startle me
perhaps, I may finally become so
absorbed in Love
removed from all my instant
inclinations of happiness
to revel in more than my own prospects
of what a happy should entail
And what of our progenies?
will they evaporate
into what I think I like better
to compliantly shadow such a progression
of fate?
Much rather we create
all that we find essential
to reset our sights rightly
Notably,
~Nissi
