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slow piecing
05/25/2013 01:01 p.m.
prettiest eyes. he showed me to his cousin. i remember their faces looking over the seat. i remember being anxious that he would be on the bus, but i wanted him to be there too. why? the attention? i dont know. i called him my boyfriend. but i was in first grade? kindergarten? at least before second grade. he tickled me. i didnt want him to tickle me. but i did. but i didnt. i dont know. it was confusing. then there was that one day. i dont remember anything but being startled. i remember the yelp now. and the bus driver coming down the aisle. i remember feeling i was in trouble. did the driver make him move up front, or me? i stepped off the bus...or was that a memory from another day. i dont think so. i stood in the hallway of the elementary school. i stopped and looked towards the principals office. why? i dont know. i dont remember if i went this way or that....but i have always felt the pressure of doing what i am told, so i can only assume i went straight to class.
of that specific moment, i only remember the shock, maybe a shock of pain, and a yelp. that got the attention of the bus driver.
and i remember wondering for weeks where the boy went, and it was a long time till i realized he wasnt coming back. did he graduate? was he suspended? was he moved away? was he put in jail?
i was talked to by a psychiatrist...i thought it was because of my grades. was it? why didnt i know what was going on with me. my memory has always been intensely good. i have always been quite aware. but was i really aware? how dare i not understand. i am angered by not understanding. i have always understood. or thought i understood. but i am starting to understand now, that once i was a young girl, that maybe didnt understand.
how can i go all my life with those memories, but not really. how can i have the signs and know i had the signs but still not put all that together until now?
the only person i can ask is my mother. i think she knew. so many things make sense now, but now they make even less sense. and i cant ask her. i feel mortified. i wish i could talk to someone about this and have them help me make sense of it. i cant make it make sense. i dont like how its all in pieces. i want a coherent thought of it, but there isnt any.
frustrated.

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I need a favor from my pathetic.org friends (please read)
04/13/2012 12:56 p.m.
i've been given the opportunity to have 3 of my best poems matted and presented at an art show at ccbc's art show in Monaca Pa. needless to say im having difficulty figuring out which ones i want to use..i have come up with a list of some of my considerations---i would love it if someone would offer me a suggestion for which of mine are YOUR favorites from my library. I would be so thankful for a bit of guidance...Gabriel Richards, Mo couts, George Horner, Jon Kary....i wish i could tag you like facebook lets you because i respect your poetry and your opinions very much...as well as others that i cant think of at the moment since im running on no sleep at the moment. lol. If you have a favorite poem of mine that you think would be a good submission could you please leave me a comment or a message? an eternally greatful vikki would send you all kinds of good karma and love in return....
btw: here is my list of some of my considerations...what do you think?
broken iris
crypt
just your everyday nobody
kinesthetic amorous *
metropolis
middle name mayhem
no thin woman, she
omaha beach
the angels look down
the tongue does not know...
this grave becomes respite
this is my only gift
this is no place for saints *
welterweight anniversary
when my heart broke
gheist
jezebel thrown
likewise lavinia *
irrevocable (little death)
politely snowed
changing seasons

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the temple
01/28/2012 11:56 p.m.
i grew up southern baptist with a mother who can only be described as one of the monsters in my life. i was baptized twice, being swept up twice in religious ferver in 2 different churches. i did believe wholly that god was there, and it was my single-handed actions and inactions that both destroyed and saved my family and home from everything. as a child the word of god, distorted and skewed through my mothers teachings was both fearsome and real...praying with sweaty palms for every sin i felt i'd committed, begging, chanting prayers at night that the house would not burn down just so that i could sleep. daily, hourly, by the minute praying that my mother was not angry that day..and that i wouldnt cause her fury to rage at any point.
sex is wrong unless you are with your 'right man' or 'right woman'. masturbation is evil..just as evil as beastiality and homosexuality, and sinful thoughts are as good as real sins. nature abhors a vaccume..and a lack of god in your life is a vaccume that will allow demons and sin into your mind and body and life. these are actual teachings that i was taught from a very early age. your body is a temple to god, tattoos, peircings, masturbation, gluttony, harming yourself...all defilements to the temple and to god.
by the time i was 18 i had tattoos, peircings, a weight problem/eating disorder, i was a self injurer and covered in scars, promiscuous after having been violated at 16...and god no longer mattered to me. we were not on speaking terms, if i believed at all.
my mother was neglectful and depressive, rageful..a hoarder. our home conditions were atrocious. my mother was overweight, vindictive, abusive physically and emotionally...and by 20 she and i were so distant i couldnt remember the last time i even touched her, let alone hugged her. i had moved out, and she was just a monster from my past, that i called from time to time to find out about how the rest of my family was doing.
i have had an eating disorder since i was 15. i am 30 now. today it is under control, tomorrow it may not be. today i have a problem with substance abuse, tho i've never spoken those words out loud. 3 years ago, in what can only be described as the ultimate act of control and self abuse, i had myself sterilized so that i cannot have children. now i am with someone who DOES want children and that act has come back to haunt me. the scars that cover my arms and legs and stomach and ankles and any other body part easily accessible and hideable..they too haunt me..even as everyday answers for coping that i STILL have not learned to do.
a couple of months ago, desperate for money, i got a gig as a nude model for college art classes. im ok with taking my clothes off in front of people..and have been since my 20's. why? because i am hyper-sexualized and see sexuality as a strong point of mine. and tho this wasnt sexual in nature, in a way it was...and so i felt comfortable doing it. it was a positive experience. perhaps the very first in my life. seeing how other people truly saw me...and the art that was made from MY body, curves and all...there was a beauty to it, regardless of the fact that the past had covered me with scars and filled me with hate for my own skin and bones.
i dont know why im writing this, as i cant tie it up neatly and even make an narrative out of it. these are but a few of the facts of my life...and only one observation...that the body IS a temple, but its a temple to me. it is MY home on this planet...whatever decorations i have put on it, what ever abuses have done to it, whatever MAY become of it...maybe it will bear children one day and give them life...maybe it wont. maybe i will be skinny, or maybe i wont...but it is not inherently evil, nor good. it is only mine...

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he wants me to have his baby
10/22/2011 09:32 p.m.
three years have passed. i was a wreck, then i slowly got less wrecked. my husband left me. kicked me out of the house, moved someone else in 2 weeks later. 4 weeks after i'd had myself sterilized. 6 weeks after dozer died. 5 years after we'd gotten married. 8 years after we'd met and fell 'in love'. or whatever that horror story of a relationship was.
i spent a numb year finding myself. or trying to. its hard to find yourself when you are trapped in ice, and nothing and no one really moves you. i enjoyed being single, doing lots of drugs, drinking as my sole source of nutrition. i slept around...i liked the fact that i could live on my own, but still find a bed to be in somewhere else whenever i needed to. it was alot about control. i cried and cried for what i'd lost. then i got angry. i think you can only cry so long before you have to switch over to anger or completely lose your mind.
after that year, i met by chance, D. he found me online...i figured he'd be fun. he was older than anyone i'd dated...far removed from my usual type. i told him straight up i didnt want to get involved with anyone..but hey, we can have fun.
nearly 2 years later, he's somehow caught my heart. made me feel something again, tho the feelings come slow and guarded and cynical. im waiting for the other shoe to drop, tho he swears it wont. ...he wants to marry me. i think i want to marry him...tho all i can see is that particular plane crash happening again. and how it will murder me for good.
he wants a future with me. he promises me he loves me, tho promises mean very little to me these days. he wants to make a family with me. he wants me to have a reversal of the sterilization. ...what am i to make of that? when i think about that i hit a wall. a wall of 'nothing last forever, especially love.'. i've heard promises before. ...there is that niggling womanly part of me that says ...well..maybe. but there is that hardened, angry, burned part that says i turned that option off, and why would i turn it back on for you? who says that YOU are different from every other fuck who said they loved me, but didnt mean it, in the end.
nothing last forever, especially love.
but he believes in marriage the way that i do, at my core. at least he says he does. when my husband left me, he raped me of that. took from me the sanctity of marriage..the vows, the promises..the ability trust. i had told him 'if we do this, its forever' he said, of course. and then later he said 'vikki, people change'.
people change, vikki.
so whats the right decision here? what makes sense? whats logical? im tired of following my heart, and following blindly a trust in something i cant see. love is just a word that falls out of mouths so easily. promise is too. as is forever. but babies are forever. i would have his child, for him. because i do love him. and i would love to do that. ...
theres so much at hand here, i cant even begin to unravel it.

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Drama Drama Drama
02/27/2009 12:34 a.m.
after reading the general forums post about chris romano....all i can say is this: i have been an active memeber of pathetic continuously, without any problems since 1999. i think i may have had ONE instance, when circles were first added to the site, that i was warned very nicely about the terms and conditions, and what was appropriate in forums and all that. i have never had a problem 'following the rules' and i have NEVER felt censored. but then, maybe i just dont get too controversial as a rule....
in my opinion, there is not a single administrator here that i would consider outlandish in their personalities or with their punishments. i dont get into all the drama of 'who said what' and who was offended or anything like that, but the admins are all upstanding human beings, who are not off the rockers with power trips, and if someone on here does something that gets them kicked off, i am likely to think, without even hearing the story (or what the grapevine says the story is) that they probably deserved it, because the admins just arent crazy delete button pushing maniacs with vendettas against certian people.
i think its very dramatic to the extent that i rolled my eyes when others started posting all those maudlin and downright incendiary poems in the open forum as a kind of overt/covert jab at the powers that be. its just too much....and yes, while i might like to know (or actually, i could care less, but others might like to know) what went on to cause their friends to be deleted....in the end, its none of their business....and if that person wants to message them through other outlets and tell their story of injustice, then let them...but the admins dont need to make big news flashes and say 'heres the juicy gossip!' first off that would be unfair to the terminated person to have the admins tell their own side, and not be able to defend it.....even assuming that this was like a court of law. in the end, its nobodies business but the admins and that person, and the fact that they even give reason in the public record of terminations shows how willing to be open they are.
this is not some big conspiracy, the admins are not the nazis, the admins are not even big bad ultraconservative boogymen, they simply have to make decisions based on the good of the community, and personally i think they have done a good job.
while i dont think that what i HEAR chris said was all that inflammatory, it WAS pretty inflammatory to send a personal message on a public forum, and im sure there was long standing issues between the powers that be and chris that caused this sort of punishment to be rained down upon him. and in the end, its not all final, he'll probably be back, and i seriously doubt he even lost any poetry, considering im sure there was a final backup sent.
and just for the record, i happened to like chris, though he wasnt a friend....and im sad to see that he is gone for the moment. but PLEASE people. if you want to be allowed to be contemptuous and inflammatory and do whatever you please, then go and make your own poetry website and say whatever you want. if you like THIS one, then follow the few rules that are set and dont be a baby about it if things like this happen.

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my valentine
02/20/2009 08:17 p.m.
last saturday, valentines day, two days after his birthday, my little pet rabbit dozer died. this last bout of illness was just too much for him to trooper through, and...
i never thought, in my wildest dreams, that there could be a pain like this. that little guy meant more to me than every other person/thing on this planet beside my husband. he taught me more than i could ever have thanked him for in a million years. his whole existence was completely to love and be loved. thats all he wanted, all he asked for, all he gave. the love i had, and have, for him is the purest love i have ever felt, and my heart is crushed at losing him.
grief makes me useless. i am nothing but a sopping mess, and have been for this entire week. i feel like it will hurt forever.


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Shutting systems down
02/11/2009 03:00 p.m.
In june, my brothers and his wife will have a baby boy. next month i will be undergoing laproscopic surgery to have myself sterilized. its an odd juxtaposition.
im 27. i do not want kids, i never have, never will. my husband and i joke about children being 'seed'....in a derisive way..its funny. as long as i dont say it outloud around someone who already had 'seed' inside them. luckily i havent made that mistake yet...but i assume, just given the odds of it, it will happen at some time in my life. and then later, i will laugh about it.
so, i've made this decision and im happy with it...the only weird feeling that i have is this...odd...niggling at my brain about shutting down, permanently a body system. i imagine the little clips inside that will cause a part of my body to die and then be taken away by the workings of my immune system rendering my ovaries and uterus completely disconnected an unable to communicate in that eternal way.
sometimes i wonder about the fact that it goes so against the grain of nature and the human desire to propagate...the basest instinct....i mean, where did my wiring get twisted to make me never want to continue my own blood? it just makes me wonder.
but i dont wonder about whether i want to do it or not.
right now, i wonder how im going to tell my in-laws who have bought highchairs and such for the future.....luckily, they have another son.

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Emotional Rollercoaster
01/22/2009 04:57 p.m.
the past few months, years. the last few weeks. have been very strange. things between jayson and i have been strange. scratch that. strangled. he's working through issues...i am lonely lonely lonely. i am angry, and hurt and confused. yet productive, even creative, producing more in the last two or three weeks than i have in the last ten years. things just pour out of my hands, pour out of my mouth....tears too, pour out of my eyes. i miss him. he's right there, but gone.
yesterday was better. we fought over AIM which is always the best way to fight, because both parties get heard. except that he was at work, and so we couldnt kiss and make up, if he had been inclined to. i sobbed and sobbed. i told him everything, he told me some, and when he came home, he Tried. which was all i was asking for.
it felt good to feel his body again, it felt sad because i doubt it will last. im trying to be hopeful, but patterns are patterns.
writing randomly has kept me afloat. writing concertedly has been messages in a bottle for him...but i dont think he has received them, or if he has, he has sent no bottles back. thats pretty typical, if not infuriating.
the house has gone to shit, and im not motivated to clean. all im motivated to do is talk, write, and create.
i feel happy at the creativity, but i would give it up for stability of emotion..and a fix to whatever is bothering him. i wish that fix was me.

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this is how it works
11/15/2008 04:39 p.m.
this is how it works:
you're young until your not
you love until you dont
you try until you cant
you laugh until you cry
you cry until you laugh
and everyone must breathe
until their dying breath

no this is how it works:
you peer inside yourself
you take the things you like
and try to love the things you took
and then take that love you made
and stick it into some..
someone elses heart
pumping someone elses blood
and walking arm in arm
you hope it dont get harmed
but even if it does
you just do it all again...
--regina spektor


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in plaster
05/02/2008 06:29 p.m.
In Plaster by sylvia plath

I shall never get out of this! There are two of me now:
This new absolutely white person and the old yellow one,
And the white person is certainly the superior one.
She doesn't need food, she is one of the real saints.
At the beginning I hated her, she had no personality --
She lay in bed with me like a dead body
And I was scared, because she was shaped just the way I was

Only much whiter and unbreakable and with no complaints.
I couldn't sleep for a week, she was so cold.
I blamed her for everything, but she didn't answer.
I couldn't understand her stupid behavior!
When I hit her she held still, like a true pacifist.
Then I realized what she wanted was for me to love her:
She began to warm up, and I saw her advantages.

Without me, she wouldn't exist, so of course she was grateful.
I gave her a soul, I blomed out of her as a rose
Blooms out of a vase of not very valuable porcelain,
And it was I who attracted everybody's attention,
Not her whiteness and beauty, as I had at first supposed.
I patronized her a little, and she lapped it up --
You could tell almost at once she had a slave mentality.

I didn't mind her waiting on me, and she adored it.
In the morning she woke me early, reflecting the sun
From her amazingly white torso, and I couldn't help but notice
Her tidiness and her calmness and her patience:
She humored my weakness like the best of nurses,
Holding my bones in place so they would mend properly.
In time our relationship grew more intense.

She stopped fitting me so closely and seemed offish.
I felt her criticizing me in spite of herself,
As if my habits offended her in some way.
She let in the drafts and became more and more absent-minded.
And my skin itched and flaked away in soft pieces
Simply because she looked after me so badly.
Then I saw what the trouble was: she thought she was immortal.

She wanted to leave me, she thought she was superior,
And I'd been keeping her in the dark, and she was resentful --
Wasting her days waiting on a half-corpse!
And secretly she began to hope I'd die.
Then she could cover my mouth and eyes, cover me entirely,
And wear my painted face the way a mummy-case
Wears the face of a pharaoh, though it's made of mud and water.

I wasn't in any position to get rid of her.
She'd supported me for so long I was quite limp --
I had forgotten how to walk or sit,
So I was careful not to upset her in any way
Or brag ahead of time how I'd avenge myself.
Living with her was like living with my own coffin:
Yet I still depended on her, though I did it regretfully.

I used to think we might make a go of it together --
After all, it was a kind of marriage, being so close.
Now I see it must be one or the other of us.
She may be a saint, and I may be ugly and hairy,
But she'll soon find out that that doesn't matter a bit.
I'm collecting my strength; one day I shall manage without her,
And she'll perish with emptiness then, and begin to miss me.


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