My life
12/27/2008 05:04 a.m.
has taken an unsuspected turn for the worse. Poetry is incidental at this point. I will be evicted at the end of the month in NYC and it is not as easy as one would think to be homeless in NYC. I've uprouted my life because I lost my life. I lost a child, two parents and my sense of self in the span of two months and one day. I am the true example of what it means to not take care of yourself. My life was always about everyone else and now that it is only about me... I fail to care. I haven't written in so long even as my experience related to what I have to say has grown by leaps and bounds. I will fall silent and as a result, my poetry will fade away. I've never considered myself a poet, instead, I write plays. Conversation only as I will it to be. I know that there is something I have to say but there is not much that I think the majority, minority or the obscure is willing to hear. The only hope that remains is the hope that there is some mark I'm left to make on the world and that it will happen because it is meant to be heard.
I am currently Indifferent
I am listening to Joshua Kobak

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Where the heck have I been?
10/17/2006 09:41 p.m.
I received one of those friendly, so you still wanna be on this site? emails. So,I thought about it. So easy to just let it go, just don't log on and soon the words will dissappear into oblivion like the inspiration to write left me a long time ago. I haven't put to page or clicked a computer key with any artistry since long before I stopped posting here. People are still reading this and for that I'm grateful. I would have thought that taking down my poems was a little more than redundant at this point, but people have read. I'll have to read them too and with a little distance, maybe it will sort my own mind out for me.

I've been repeatedly kicked, to the point where I didn't think I could get up again. So much more happened to this Florida girl than I'd ever dare to share publically. And the truth is its a miracle I survived. Wait, did I just call myself a Florida girl? But now, just maybe, with four years of distance, I can emerge again with some kind of new grace. Maybe inspiration will come back. Maybe.

So, take that pathetic.org administrator man, I did more than you asked. I did more than log in. I'm not willing to let go of anymore of myself. So, what does this mean?, I haven't a freaking clue!
I am currently Pathetic
I am listening to Wicked- OBC

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Wilma has got me down
11/01/2005 10:29 p.m.
I{m probably going to be down for a while until I move the heck out of South Florida. I{m living in a hotel as they try to find some temporary housing for me and about ten thousand other people. I{m thinking North Carolina. I just wanted to put this entry in so that I don{t get suspended for non activity, but I have no idea when things will be back to normal. One good thing is that I have plenty to write about again, once I get some electric and a house with a roof.

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I've started a thousand times and... nothing.
09/19/2005 08:01 a.m.
I’ve had the worst case of writer’s block for forever. I feel as though the sadness I’ve felt over the loss of my parents and the subsequent stress over the loss of my job and every bit of self esteem I had has made me actually numb. I exist now. It’s a very difficult place to write from. I used to believe that people were basically good and they made mistakes occasionally but were mostly kind and decent. I have been through so much lately and I realize that people will use any vulnerability to cause suffering even when there is absolutely nothing to gain. People don’t want to read about how much they suck and that’s the only emotion I’m tapped into lately. I used to love to write but now I’m questioning if it’s actually worth it.

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Blah, and double blah.
07/07/2005 03:12 a.m.
I’m starting to fade, to lose resolve in what has become my life. My surly determination gives out on my every so often and I’m left in pieces. My passions are failing me and leaving as unhappy as my problems. I ponder the fact that, although I love this, I may not be very good at it. I’m left with the feeling that, despite my hopes and dreams, I may not be good at anything. I used to think that I was me for a reason and that reason had to be for something great. I look at great people, like Martin Luther King, JFK, Lincoln, Pope John Paul and my Father and I wonder how to live up to their example.

I’ve started writing the story of my father’s life and I realize that I missed out on the truth of his greatness. My father was a hero, I know that. He saved lives and he did so without credit. He will never be studied in books or mentioned in the history of the world, because he did everything anonymously. In a way, I was cheated for listening to him when I did. I’ve lived my life honestly and I’ve been screwed too many times for it not to affect me. I was taught from the start to take the next right step and it seems that I am punished more harshly then most for the occasional misstep I take.

My mother used to say that I would start studying in the summer because I thought that I couldn’t handle the next grade. She said that I would get A’s on everything then get one C and wind up with a B. My brother would get C’s and D’s all semester and get one A and also get a B. It’s true that I always put too much pressure on myself. I had two duodenal ulcers at age 8. I was the kid who worried about nuclear war and cried when the other reindeers made fun of Rudolph. I’m getting off my pity party now and I’m going to post what I’ve written so far. Not much, but it’s the beginning. Maybe the end. I have to find my strength again.



Anonymous- by Alicia Vann

Chapter 1- The Funeral

I sat on an elegant sofa in the sanctuary of the Madison Chapel Funeral Home. My Father lay in a rented casket. He looked peaceful, about ten years younger than he had when he passed away. One could say that the cancer had taken its toll, but the truth is that my father was an old man at twenty. His gray hairs were starting to grow again after chemotherapy in the same thin ring around the back of his head. The walls were draped in exquisite fabrics that my Father would have thought were too ostentatious for the occasion and authentic southern oil paintings with pictures of people who looked far too alive to be in a funeral home. The color scheme was bland, compassionate greens and blues. There was not a bright cheery color anywhere in the place. What the couch had in elegance, it lacked in comfort. It seemed odd to me because the theme of the room appeared to be comfort. Emotional times like these demand an utterly calm ambience. I sat alone.

My brother, Charles Jr., paced in uncomfortable circles as he occasionally spouted wholly inappropriate comments. He didn’t know what to say, none of us did. We were an extremely nuclear family, partially by choice and partially not. We were all we had and our leader was gone. On October 14, 2002, my brother took his last drink. He did it in style and with a bit of dry sarcasm, as only a full-blooded Erickson can. He wound up in a mental hospital in West Palm Beach, Florida after threatening to kill himself and everyone else he could. The police were able to talk him into entering the hospital voluntarily. Although I lived only one county away, I had already crossed the border into tough love. I advised that I would only help him if he remained sober and in treatment. Although, I had resigned myself to the fact that I would never see him again, Charles had made that magical switch that cannot be explained or forced, he became sober on October 15, 2002, exactly 44 years to the day of my Father’s anniversary date.

I understand the anger my sister had for him, to a certain extent. Kathryn was in rare form, dressed in black but with a pink flowery sweater and her freshly died red hair, anything to draw the attention to herself. She was crying too hard not to have tears strolling down her cheeks, but alas, there were none. I guess she thought no one else would remember that she hadn’t even gone to see my father since he entered the hospital on Thanksgiving Day. I silently remembered. It’s not important. I am an American, I believe that everyone has the right to believe in whatever they chose, as long as they don’t interfere with the rights of others to believe in their own convictions. This is where my sister went wrong. She made her comments about my brother being there. She still did not believe he was sober, but he was. More sober than she was. My sister was ranting her feelings about whether or not I should have brought him as she was taking the leftover Dilaudid from my father’s cancer stash. That is my sister and she will never change.

As distant as we seemed sitting in our own corners of the parlor, we were all united in the attempt to get my mother to attend the funeral. She had not left the house in a very long time, as she was left crippled from severe arthritis and Lupus. We had almost gone the route of forcing her into submission, but we relented as she cried that she was in too much pain to go. In less than two months, I would discover that the pain she was referring to was not the physical kind that she was used to battling, as she succumbed to her grief at the loss of my father. She later told me that she felt that if she went to the funeral, she feared that she would fall apart and never recover, a future that was fortold it seems whether she knew it or not. My father was her rock. He cared for her in a way that none of us could. I had always thought that my mother and I were soul mates and her fate was inexorably tied to mine, but it was my father. She could not go.

More intriguing that the absences and quirky family demographic playing out was the number of people who showed up. A few were my mother’s friends, who probably thought that Charlie wouldn’t have anyone there if they didn’t show up, a thought I shared. My father was not the most pleasant of characters, although he possessed a keenly dry wit and a certain endearing charm, he also was impatient and seemingly uninterested in people. There were about fifty surprises though. People who never stated their names and never signed the guest book. Those who did signed only first names with little notes like: “Thanks for saving my life,” “I’ll never forget what you did for me and my family,” and “Peace to a loving angel.” I would have wondered if these people had wondered into the wrong funeral, but for the AA rhetoric that also covered the pages of his book. Some people even signed “Anonymous.”

As I walked through the parlor and listened to the small groups of three or four people talking about how my father’s life had effected them, I was amazed by the stories I heard. Was this the same man I knew? Coarse and grumpy on his better days, my father demanded a new level to the word anger. Even his final moments, he let us know that he didn’t want to be bothered. My brother and I arrived at the hospital after a twelve-hour drive from Florida. We were told that my father was already passing. He might be able to hear us, but he couldn’t respond. We entered the room. I was sad and babbling. “Everything’s O.K., Dad. You be at peace now. Mom is going to be fine. O.K. And we’re all here, O.K. Charles is here and he’s sober. You’d be so proud. Kathryn’s here. I’m here, and we’re all going to take care of Mom. Don’t worry. O.K. Everything is going to be fine, O.K. She coming to Florida to live with me, O.K. Don’t worry. O.K.” My father lifted his head slightly and said, “O.K.” It was just a little stern. I know that if he had the energy, he would have said, “Shut the fuck up. Can’t you see I’m trying to sleep.”

It was always good not to bet against my father. People have done it for years. Whether fueled by spite or what he explained to be the fact that no other human being should ever have control over your life, my father was not one to give up on other people’s terms. When he was first diagnosed with esophageal cancer, my father was given four to six weeks to live, at best. My father lived ten months, partially just to piss them off. Here they were again. “He won’t be able to respond.” My father’s, “O.K.” was his last “fuck you” to the medical community that had told him he was finished in his early twenties.

I was alerted by the inappropriate sound of laughter coming from the crowd. My mind was racing back and forth between reality and memories. The intriguing crowd was growing in size and diversity. There was an elderly woman who looked better suited to be at a Republican fundraiser than at services for a died in the wool Democrat with liberal social tendencies. She was in a wool embroidered couture suit and she was accessorized in diamonds that were monetarily valued at more than my father earned in his entire lifetime. She spoke softly about the man who listened intently to everything she had to say and told her to look for value outside of material goods. He told her of the value of the soul. She talked about how she had stopped drinking and was extremely depressed at the fact that her life had not changed. As she was talking, I remembered having the same conversation with my Father.

I had just moved home from college after failing to obtain a job. My life had always been planned. I studied hard, made excellent grades, and most importantly, avoided drugs and alcohol. I never wanted to be a problem or a burden to my parents. I wanted to be “the good kid.” And I was, so good that I was unprepared for the realities of failure. I had spent the better part of my college career abiding by my childhood pledge to be the one who didn’t fall prey to the trappings of the party life. There was, of course, one notable exception. This moment of indiscretion would be the beginning of the end of the great divide between my father and myself, an Amnesty International letter writing party.

I went to the party at the secondary dorms of the University of Central Florida. Here the greatest liberal minds were meeting to decide what letters to write to release some political prisoner in some far off place that I had not heard of. It was not that I did not believe in what they were doing; I was just completely naïve as to what they were talking about. They were all babbling about things and I could not partake with any sense of intelligence. It was my college roommate, Julie’s, 21st birthday and they had alcohol. Vodka and lemonade, beer and some fruity wine coolers drowning in an ice filled bathtub were, for the first time in my life, very appealing. I remember the Vodka and lemonade tasting very much like lemonade. I drank it swiftly and with intent. Nothing. I felt nothing. The beers were gross and I had to follow them with wine cooler chasers. Three of each before I suddenly realized that I could not feel my arms.

I noticed this only because I was banging them against the wall. It was entertaining, but I started to realize that each cell of my body had some sort of force field around them that was preventing them from working in their proper fashion. My mind would tell my legs to move as if to walk and yet, they did not. Or they moved in a direction of their own choice rather than the one my body was going in. Things like walls, tables and beds were now the only obstacles to my hitting the floor when there was a lack of cooperation from my limbs. It was decided that I’d had enough when I started telling the liberal Amnesty Internationals what I really thought of them. Julie, who drove me that evening, was not too far behind me, although she appeared to have bit more self control, was not able to drive me home. I hitched a ride from Julie’s boyfriend’s younger brother who was visiting his older brother to see if he should go to school there. Most of that trip is blurry but I have a rather distinct memory of peeing in the street. I went home. I don’t think Adam’s younger brother ever came to school there.

I woke up the next afternoon, somehow wrapped in an unfamiliar blanket, with a bucket next to my head and a note that read, “Please see Resident Assistant 5025. Amanda” Its never good to get a note like this. I racked my brain to try to remember what had happened. Nothing. Some fuzzy blurbs about my key not working. Faces. Four of them, laughing. My bed, or so I thought, and there I was. It was later explained that I had got off the elevator on the wrong floor and the gentlemen in the room let me in after hearing me put the key in the door. Than they watched as I stripped to my grape underwear and laid in their bed. “Hm, I don’t really remember that,” I explained to Amanda. She knew me. I had never done anything like this before. That was probably the only reason that I was not kicked out of the dorms.

My one experience in tow, I called my parents and advised them of my exploits. They were surprisingly supportive. I had the talk with my father. “Is it possible to be an alcoholic after only one drinking episode?” He replied, “It’s an interesting question. If you believe that Alcoholism, as well as any other addiction, is a disease, then you have to say that you could be an addict without ever having taken a drink. The drink is the symptom, the mind, body and soul are the illness. Either way, the fact that you had your first black out the very first time you drank is a pretty good indicator that you should not drink.” I had some thoughts at that point like what is the difference? If the demons chase you no matter what then why bother holding them back? “Until the symptom is gone, there is no movement forward. The symptom holds the control and everything continues to weaken. It’s not rocket science but it also isn’t easy. You could never drink again and be as miserable as you are right now. It’s up to you.

I avoided alcohol for the rest of my college career and even became a Rehabilitation Technician for Project Detox. They only had a part time position. I guess, more than anything, I wanted to have something in common with the man I felt that I had failed to impress my whole life. It wasn’t for me. I just couldn’t help the fact that I wanted to slap all the residents of the treatment facility and tell them to stop.


I am currently Sad
I am listening to The poor excuse for an air conditioner.

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Random thoughts.
06/21/2005 05:53 a.m.
People are funny. I’ve become more and more perplexed as time goes by. I literally shake my head at the reality that people spew that has less to do with reality than with manipulations. I’m not talking about your basic perception versus reality, I’m talking delusional distortion of fact. People complicate everything with words like policy. If it’s legal, then it is so, whether it resembles truth or not. Money is man made, yet it is the center of our universe. Explain that to me.

I grew up without money. We moved 17 times in my youth, not because we were in the Army, but because we could not pay the rent. We wound up living in single motel room for a year and a half and living on this lady’s porch. The motel was not that bad and we were not the only family there, although it did take years of therapy to work through the sleeping arrangements (Me with my Mother and my brother with my Father.) The porch took much more therapy. Very bad times. But it was not money that made me who I am. I was raised to help people and to try to take the next right step. The one right in front of you. Make the right choices, though I know for a fact that my parents might be judged as failures for the situations we were in.

I don’t get it. I love the musical “Into the Woods” by Stephen Sondheim. The man is a wordsmith of the truest order. In the show, if you can make it through it, he talks about the truth and lies of the world. If you take each song individually, there is a beautiful message and a dissection of life truths. I’ve used these songs throughout my life to get me through. The evidence is out there in the form of artistic expression but it so lost in the reality of every day people. The truth is that you can speak truth in every word you say and distort the facts until you can not decipher the reality behind them.

I watched the movie “Mississippi Burning” this afternoon amidst all this Edgar Ray Killen nonsense. I mean, they are deadlocked after 3 hours. It doesn’t make any sense to me. We are not that far removed from this time in our history. My question is, is reality taught? Is it all perception, because I was apparently taught wrong. Nothing makes any sense at all. The legal system, our system of government, our morality as a nation seems so out of whack to me, it beyond irrational. I can’t wrap my brain around it.

I’m not making any sense tonight. Too much information in a wee little brain.

I am currently Disillusioned
I am listening to None

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Hello again, old friend.
06/14/2005 07:13 a.m.
I’ve come back from a short sabbatical. I love reading poetry. I love seeing other people’s words. It’s gives power to emotion and reminds me that I am not alone. I missed it while living my own personal pity party recently. The world may be crumbling and not making much sense, but there is always honesty here. My own personal truth is that I do not understand the reason for the state of the world. It’s like I’m looking through a kaleidoscope and I can’t make sense of the pieces. The reality of the truth is bent and broken and I don’t have the answers to make them fit.

My Mother was the puzzle queen. She knew how to give me enough of the picture to pull together a portion of sense. She could reach into my soul and calm it. She knew me better than I know myself. God, I miss her and I haven’t been able to deal with the BS since her passing. My brother says he still hears her, but I can’t. She was decent and honest. She had an impenetrable integrity that I admired and aspired to.

I’ve never had that kind of freedom with anyone but her, the kind of freedom where you don’t have to be writing a poem on the impersonal Internet to be brutally honest. I feel the pressures of time on my finding that again and I haven’t even come close in so long, I actually fear it. I’ve taken steps in dismantling the fake me. I’ve torn down the fake walls and abandoned the part of me that was weakened by stability. It’s all I’ve known. Do what you’ve got to do to keep the status quo because what it would actually take to be happy is so beyond the scope of my understanding at this time. I’ve had to lose the stability to stop living a routine and start living.

I’m so out of my comfort zone, I could use my Mother’s words to guide me. I wish that I could hear them. I wish that I could be fearless like she was. My Mother wanted to be an actress and she was. She worked on Broadway and for NBC when she was young. She could get up there and do it. Whatever it was. Even after she became a Wife and mother and fell into her life’s routine, she made time for her passion. I remember being in diapers in the backstage watching her rehearse. I’ve spent my life hiding my words from the fear that someone would say I was terrible at it. It shouldn’t matter.

Poetry has always been a spiritual guide. I know that there is a poem out there that could tell me what I need to hear. I know the words are there to inspire me the way my Mother has in the past and I know that my words have value, if only to me.

I am currently Better
I am listening to A softly purring kitty cat.

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Verbal incontinece and sleep deprivation.
12/03/2004 07:10 a.m.
I should go immediately to my bed, lay on it, and go to sleep, but I am restless tonight. I wish that I had magical powers that I could turn back time and erase mistakes. Know the future. A woman approached me. She said she was a psychic. She said that I was pretending to be happy but my eyes give away my secret. Um, no not really. She said she could help me but that I needed to pay her that night. She said that I needed to do this in order to establish trust with her. She needed to know that I felt her spirit and that I knew her aura was good. I knew only that this person saw a sucker in me from a mile away.

I know that when I get to heaven and am given all the knowledge that the Universe has to offer, or so I hope, God will show me the place where the words, “I’m a loser” are hidden on my body. I know they must be in plain sight because everyone seems to notice. I’ve looked for it. I can’t find it anywhere. Of course, the years of overindulgence I’ve allowed my self to partake in have left areas of myself that I just cannot see.

There are other things I want to know too. Who shot JFK? What is the appeal of mustard? Why am I so afraid of love and at the same time, so in need of it? Why did you take my Mother from me? Why did the blasted chicken really cross the road? Is there anyone who deserves to be trusted? Is there anyway to overcome the feelings of inadequacy that I have on a daily basis? Why so many obstacles? Why did Michelle Quan, the best skater ever, lose twice during the Olympics? What happened to my highschool Spanish teacher? Why can’t I just rest?

Well, on the last one, I guess I should give it a try. Nite.
I am currently Depressed

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Heck of a first Journal entry, but it's what is on my mind.
11/12/2004 02:52 a.m.
I’m am in a circumstance, caught between freedom and the time it takes to reach it. I made a vow that I cannot break, but I am done with this place. Therein lies the problem. With every day I stagger through the minutia of bureaucracy and being at the whim of those who have exceeded the level of their incompetence, I lose a bit of resolve and intelligence. My reality has become something to survive rather than something to savor, but I made a promise, and I will lose all faith in myself if I abandon that promise for my own sake.

It seems to be a bit of a problem within myself, I tend to fall apart at the end of the ball game, so to speak. I fall apart when what is distant becomes my immediate future and I struggle with the last days. I wish I could locate that strength my parents obviously had to hang on long after the final whistle has blown.

I am faced with another day tomorrow and it makes my skin crawl. I secretly wish for magical powers to make those unworthy of breathing oxygen disappear and I suffer an inordinate amount of pain in the fact that the desire goes against the very fiber of who I want to be.

I have another shortcoming as well that I’d like to get out into the realm of cyber space. I find it hard not to use my Father’s curse. He had the ability to use words to cut a person to their core without breaking a sweat. I also have that curse but you have to really piss me off to get me to that point. I am very near that point with my boss at work. I have the string of put downs that will flow from me like water from a fountain. Thus far, they have stayed internal but I struggle with the desire to tell him how little I think of him. He is such an easy target for his flaws are a numerous as stars in the sky, but it’s almost too easy. Do I really need to point out his insignificance? It is so obvious.

What is troubling is this unworthy consumer of valuable resources, like air, water and food, does have, at least temporarily, power over me. Power that he has recently exercised. It was a big step for him and I’m sure he longs for the day that he can return to playing Solitaire on his computer instead of actually making a difference in the world. This man is a former preacher. You know how they say that former smokers are the worst? Well, former preachers may have them beat, although I can only base my opinion on the one Godless man that I’ve had the displeasure of meeting. The only more vile thing I’ve come in contact with is the stuff that comes out of my sweet kitty’s anal glands.

The issue I have is not that he is insignificant, because I can’t control that. It’s that he is so low that I cannot stoop to his level. It’s not possible for me to lose my compassion and I will more likely than not, feel badly for telling him what I’m sure he already knows. It’s a dilemma and I will struggle to let go of the anger I have toward him and realize that’s it’s enough punishment that he will have to live the rest of his life without a purpose. I will do my best to leave behind my heritage on this one and respect the position he holds despite the lack of respect that I have for the man who holds it.
I am currently Frustrated

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