1. [My] addict, though beautiful, kind, tender, thoughtful, divinely sexy, will always, as long as he is using, put his drugs and alcohol first: Before me, before my kids, before his kid, before his own selfcare. His addiction will always be there and will always resent anything and everything that gets in its way.
   
2. I do not need to support financially, transportation-wise, meal-wise, habit-wise, health-wise, hobby-wise, anyone in order to be worthy of love. I do not need to be needed to be lovable. Aka, love, kindness, respect, tenderness, do not have to be transactional. Should not be transactional.
   
3. I am a wounded girl from an emotionally neglectful and physically disrespectful household. Where my feelings didn’t matter/were ignored. I do not need to remain silent or needless. I do not deserve only “broken” people to “love” me.
   
4. I was not raped–by my father, or my stepfather, or my uncle’s, or my neighbor’s–but I did suffer sexually at the hands of others who took unfair advantage of my kindness, my naivety, my desire for connection. That makes me vulnerable and leaves me with blind spots. Someone may very well have preyed upon me and my children for their own sick need for power. This does not obviate my responsibility, my role or in the fallout; but it does mean that I need to be vigilant, and also, make space to forgive myself for not knowing or doing better at the time, and in the future.
   
5. I am an adult, divorced woman. If I decide to have sex with someone, whether or not it’s within a commited relationship, that is my decision and my right. I am free. I am strong. I am worthy.
   
6. Healing is a daily decision and a daily practice. For me, it requires meditation, journaling, writing poetry, making art, playing and listening to music, taking walks, listening to the rain, washing dishes, folding laundry, taking showers, drinking water. Eating good food, laughing, teaching, sleeping, and being touched. All in moderation. All one day at a time. Some days, twelve steps forward, some days 11 steps back. It’s all a part of the journey.

Over think

Over eat

Over sing

Over bake

Over fuck 

Over care

Over dare

Over share 

Over hear

Over there

Over prepare?

Overrule.

It is over, see?

        I am.

                      over.

                                  Here.

After my father left, family dinners became Salisbury steak and accompanying mashed potatoes, cooked-in-the-aluminum-tray-provided and eaten in front of the TV. 

We missed his cooking, but at least we no longer heard his nightly curses from the kitchen, when he’d invariably hit his head on the same corner cabinet (How does someone do that every. single. day?) 

Other background sounds changed too: fights for his attention that had lead to smacks across the cheek were replaced by piano appegios, Chopin, and Beethoven, our mother practicing incessantly, her senior recital upcoming in the spring.

As we gave up on being parented, my sisters turned on one another, clawing and scratching each other through adolescence. I turned to kind neighbors and our bedraggled Collie dog for nurturing and guidance. 

Despite our Jewish heritage, our mother thought that December to bring home a Christmas tree. She pulled it out from it’s cardboard box and set it up to its full 3’ height. She wrapped it with colorful lights and tinsel strands in the living room, paradoxically named as none of us kids was allowed in there due to the white sofa. It remained the least “lived in” room in the house. 

She admonished us, “Do not tell Grandma about the tree.” Of course I did. It was so beautiful.

I don’t know if we’d have been a bit less tilted had they stayed together. Not even the best intentions can straighten what has begun to go sideways.

I.

My fingers trace
the curve of your shoulder,
the length of your
forearm. The line where your ocean meets
my sky.
We are horizontal.
One shift of your body and I am on top
Of a mountain
Gasping from the altitude.
I have never been so high.

II.

Where I stop and you begin

If I don’t teach you

We will be less than one.

III.

You took away my keys

and then you let yourself

Into my home.

Uninvited. Unwelcome.

“Not without an invitation,” I said.

“These boundaries,” you said, “I am agog.”

Yes. These boundaries are mine.

You cannot take them from me.