Nanakorobi Yaoki

Artists are creators;

Creators, well, create.

But

I can’t bring myself to

Lift my guitar

For more than an idle tuning

Or a quick play through a song

I’ve been playing the same way for 15 years;

I can’t bring myself to

Put pen to paper

My favorite inks and pulps

Dry up, gather dust, in boxes untouched

From five moves;

I can barely type even this;

The pixels somehow kinder

In their more ephemeral nature,

So easily wiped away with a single keystroke.

I am too busy,

I tell myself.

I am too tired,

I lie.

My soul whispers:

You are too afraid.

Art has always been so inextricable from my pain,

But this last decade

I have lived to obscure my pain,

To ignore my pain;

To push it away and down.

Your pain, their pain

I welcome,

I soothe;

I take it within me and hug it close

Until it is gone,

Absorbed within my own.

My pain slows me down

And so I go faster

And faster

Terrified to sit in it,

Fearful to stop,

Lest I never start again.

Art

 Is

Stillness.

I feel like Prince Rupert’s drop:

As long as I hurtle

Headlong

My fragility is protected

By my stress and tension;

Creating would be grabbing the tail

And risking explosively shattering into dust.

The absence of art

Is a dull ache,

A keening pain;

Pushed down and away

With all of the rest...

I am a creator who won’t create

Hello, All!

It has been pointed out to me that, especially for this type of blog, I should have an introduction post.  I’m still pretty green at this whole tumblr thing!  

Anyway, I suppose I’ll start by introducing myself.  As of this post, I’m 32, live in the greater L.A. area, and live with two cats and my male cis/het/allo partner, whom I married last year.  I’m some sort of ace, but still figuring out what label fits best.  I prefer ace or asexual for ease of use, but right now I’m leaning towards cupiosexual panromantic in the specific?  Sexual and romantic attraction are a bit difficult to figure out in retrospect; I’ve been with my current partner for almost 12 years now.  I came out to him almost immediately and we had a talk about if we wanted to continue together and what that would look like before we got married.

As for what this blog is about and what you’ll find here: this blog is about abuse, how it affects the abused, and recovery.  It’s mostly going to be original content text posts of poetry and essays.  There will be a reblog here or there, but it will relate to the theme of this blog.  The specific themes within abuse that will be addressed are child molestation, familial & emotional abuse, rape, gaslighting, PTSD, self-harm, suicide & suicidal ideation, and how all of that interacts with my depression, ADD, and queerness.

This will mostly be unpleasant to read.  What I write here is going to be raw, and it’s not going to be posts that most will want to stumble across in their main dash.  That’s okay; this isn’t for that person or their comfort.  I write for me and my recovery.  I post because a very dear friend of mine works in psychology and believes my words can help others.  I can only hope that she is right; if even one person can gain a small flicker of camaraderie or understanding from my pain and my process, I will write and post and lay myself bare.  

Feel free to send me asks or message me here on tumblr; though I will not, at this point, be sharing my main blog, as I’d like to keep my identity a bit anonymous for now.

Nanakorobi yaoki, darlings.

I don’t know how to be angry

It consumes

It seethes

And it is worst when all is quiet

Because it turns out it’s always been there

But my life had never been quiet enough to hear it

My mind had never had a chance to be still

I’d never allowed my soul to breathe

You filled my days with noise

You filled my head with your voices

My bruised and battered mind filled my nights with terror

I filled the rest with distractions

And now I can’t stand the quiet

I don’t know how to do something badly

Quietly

And I’m so bad at anger

I’ve never known it

Not personally

In others, sure:

My partner is a short, loud burst of inarticulate noise, white knuckles in hair, then terrifying, fragile silence

My friend is a kettle; slow and unchanging, then temple veins and screaming and screaming until removed from the heat

My father is a bark of not-laughter and a brittle smile, words too casual, apostrophes everywhere

My mother is a slap and words squeezed through pressed lips and clenched teeth and wet cheeks

My best girl is a pot of water; boiling, shaking, fast small noises and when it’s too much, water spills over

My soulmate is fingernails in tabletops, crisp words, and hard hugs hiding fulminating violence

But my own anger?

Is a stranger

I think it might be talking too fast

White knuckles and fingernails in palms

Grinding teeth

Counterclockwise head tics & twitches

Throwing things at walls

Sitting still

Pacing

Breathing too fast

Holding my breath

And I’m sure many others unremembered, undiscovered

I

Don’t

Know

This

Stranger,

And now for something a little different: this is the letter I wrote on the evening of January 24, 2005. It was in my large and rather illegible cursive: blue ballpoint pen on wide-ruled paper torn, meticulously at the perforations of course, from my friend’s notebook. Because stilted poetry has always been my most favored coping mechanism. 

At a very emo 19 years old, this is how I tried to tell my parents about what had been happening in their home, to their daughter, at the hands of their friend.

(Please note that the one name mentioned was changed.)

It's not your fault; what happened to me.

If nothing else, that I want you to see.

How to phrase this wrecking ball

And tell you of a dear friend's fall.

For quite some time, how long I can't tell,

I've been losing my mind, thanks to one you know well.

This truth is too wrong for me to say

So I must tell you another way.

I've been betrayed by one we trust

Who became a victim to his own lust.

And I'm the one he chose as prey

Turned my world upside-down, caused my conscience to fray.

When this I discovered, the pain was so deep;

Even now it is haunting my sleep.

I hate so much to hurt you so,

But it can't be helped; you had to know.

Words as weapons, words as tools,

Words will often make us fools.

He told me that it wasn't wrong,

That's why I've held it inside for so long.

Mentor, relative, confidante, friend,

The role of "molester" brings the list to an end.

Yet I cannot hate him, for all that he's done;

I'm only disgusted by what he's begun.

My heart cries for his wife and son, Ron;

If they ever learn of just what went on

Behind the doorknob without any lock,

Between the words of every "talk."

I wish the words I write untrue;

I wish they were not written to

The ones I've struggled so long to save

It's a funny thing, memory. I saw you only a few hours ago, and while couldn't remember your face, I knew instantly that it was you. I can't remember your face now, hell, I couldn't remember your face even a few minutes after you had passed by. I remember terror. I remember pain. I remember distant fury. I remember reaching for my friend's hand, and the longer I felt your presence, the tighter my grip became, begging him to understand what I couldn't say. I remember sunglasses, red complexion, a bike. But mostly fear. Paralyzing, all-consuming fear.

It's been 13 years, and change, since you last had actual power over me. And still, I feel that I am a trespasser on that beach. Still, I feel like my world is about to end. Still, your mere presence makes me want to scream and cry and run and fight, but all I do is freeze.

For a moment, after we had walked the beach, then started the drive home and were miles away in a restaurant having lunch, I could feel you hand gripping my braid, pulling, and I wanted to cut it off.

It all now feels like it happened years ago, and in a few more hours I'll have trouble recalling more than flashes of the couple of hours my friend and I spent wandering my ancestral shore.

I'm making a conscious effort to stop protecting you. A big step in that today was going back. Being in your space. Reclaiming it, just a little; reminding myself that this stretch of land is my home, too. And showing someone who cares about me where you are, and your face. It will take me a very, very long time to undo the compulsive shame projected onto me by my parents, but slowly, bit by bit, person by person, you WILL be pulled into the light.

It's a few hours later, now. Seeing you unlocked quite a bit of the anger and rage I've been keeping so separate from me. By the time we got back after our little excursion, I was light headed, my stomach was churning, and my blood was on fire. I was so exhausted I fell asleep on my friend's couch for two hours before he and my husband woke me up. I'm bone tired, still, hours later, and had to talk to a friend and vent. The whole time, my speech was a little too crisp, my breaths too sharp, or missing, every phoneme pronounced, every trace of accent or personal speech patterns wiped away; even my vocal tone and timbre were changed by my wrath and pain. It took almost an hour of emotional vomiting for me to return to even a little “presentable” rather than just seething, vitriolic rage.

I don't know if you recognized me. I tried to obscure myself behind a head scarf and sunglasses, like a safety blanket, but I hope you did. I hope you tasted just a molecule of my fear. I hope you understand that I’m slowly freeing myself from the shackles you caused. I hope you realize this is the beginning of the end.