Speaketh Not the Truth or Die
By Jennifer Kiley
10.23.12
burning bright tiger
Speaketh Not the Truth or Die
By Jennifer Kiley
10.23.12
what do i say
when it is long past over
how could she not know
i am gone
i am a new person
i left her lies behind
the ones that tried to destroy
my relationship with the woman
i have loved
practically forever
she thought i would never
discover the truth
that i would always be too afraid
to check out the truth
i will not answer her
she doesn’t write to me
she writes to the other
who fronted for me
all these many years
under the parents’ name
she is toxic to me
i need to speak to my therapist
to straighten this all out
to use a go between not my partner
but a mediator go speak for me
and close this chapter completely
i will not be guilted backwards
into opening any doors to let her in
she is out of my life for good
the person she tried to ruin
is no more
she closed those doors
for good
nothing passes that corridor again
it is closed permanently
we’ll see what
my therapist has to say
she will probably say to stay away
a close friend warned to beware
my therapist told me she lied
could not trust her
she’d hurt me at the end
even my partner told me
that she lied
she said she is mentally ill
and she knows not
what she has done
there is no way she could
ever have known the woman
she accused
she knows so little of her
that is the truth
nothing happened
no affair
let’s clear the air
she lied to you
i don’t know why
the reason makes no sense
it was all a lie
throwing it in my face
except she did it over the phone
doing me a favor
she felt i should know
i unfriended her before the lie
was discovered to be what
it turned out to be
a made up drama to make me
do what?
withdraw even more
make my partner more
available to her
what game was she playing
and why after all this time
is she writing an email to me
to find out just what is wrong
she can’t find me anywhere
because what’s she’s looking for
is no longer there nowhere
for legality her name exists
but in all other things
she no longer lives
why is she trying to confuse
my conscience
she is toxic for me
she betrayed me
she is too negative
i cannot allow
her back in
i don’t want her back in
she doesn’t get me
my behavior tells me
louder than my mind
i don’ t want her in my life
i analyze and feel
to people i want to be kind
not so with this ex-friend
she tears people apart
we can’t be friends
i shake inside when we would talk
i couldn’t turn to her
when i was in pain
even though i had lost
my best friend
she died so young
if at that time i wouldn’t
turn to her
then when would a good time be
it’s shouting out to me
loud and clear
i don’t want her in my life
not ever or anymore
who am i kidding
what transpired between us
some kvetching and angst
and just talking smack
how deep did the feelings go
did they ever go deep
did i depend upon her
to help me when i was in pain
i don’t think so
i think it was all
tearing people down
what or who gets
satisfaction from that
she spoke down on my partner
i think she’s basically negative
she’s not good for me
and that isn’t about to change
she treats everyone with contempt
that’s not how i want to be
when i’d had the shakes
while and after talking to her
she reminded me when i last
really spoke to my sister
about my abuse
the one when my oldest brother
abused me for years
after he started
he gave me snuff porn
a woman being mutilated
like jack the ripper would
have done
he gave me this when i was ten
what did he think it would do
nightmares only followed
when i was able to sleep
he’d enter my room
in the middle of the night
he continued to abuse me
until one night
a voice from inside
spoke in a quiet sound
she found the courage
to finally say no
please stop what you’re doing
and never again
but sadly to say
that was nowhere
near the end
another abuser
took his place
a friend of my father’s
a gift from my father to him
it was the first time
i was forcibly raped
it was painful
it was humiliating
my father forced me to go
no matter my pleading
my father nor his friend
just wouldn’t accept
the word no
it was only the beginning
of the next level
for my nightmares
i was forced to remain silent
or all would be quite dead
i kept my silence for years
i was abused on all sides
my mother she beat me
my father he pimped me
his friends they would rape me
and i had to remain silent
while i walked inside a shadow
waiting for it to all end
so these are the thoughts
this ex-friend evokes in me
i’d say that she’s dangerous
if i feel overwhelmed
by such horrible memories
not everyone is meant
to be forever in your life
and someone i once trusted
who betrayed me in the end
is not someone
you want in your life
when it causes feelings
of the nightmare to begin again
a definite trigger bad for my soul
my heart it can’t take it
if i’m ever going to become whole
there are good people i love
who are now in my life
who are supportive
and on my side
and wouldn’t pull
the shit that she pulled
they respect my real feelings
they know boundaries
they’re not negative drainers
like vampires sucking my blood
i lose all my energy with her
but not so with them
i feel warm and energized
emotional feelings that
affect me with tears
not hands that are shaking
like feeling traumatized
by the years of negativity
i want accomplished
creativity in my life
producing and connecting
letting new good people
into my life
i have learned
the true meaning of love
i want to give more than take
she sucks me dry with her presence
must let her go to feel safe
so i will talk to my therapist
and speak with my friends
and work more on my life
in the way i want it to be
until my time comes to an end
but for now she is gone
it’s all matter of how
do I put her with evil comments
in the vault
I don’t want to speak to her
nor write to her
nothing at all
do I want
to have anything
to do with her
i am too good or kind
i don’t find this kind of thing
easy to decide
but it has to remain the end
or it will be the end
of letting my abuse go
so I can be set free
once and for all
time it is to let go
you’re in another life now
live it not then
you’ve got to let the past
stay in the past
and this is a trial
you are being tested
how strong are you
can you let go
you have already
you just have to
remember
it is over
now
write that
screenplay
start a new beginning
with that
soon there will be more
new beginnings
they’re always are
so go for it
live your life
not anyone else’s
now smile
are you ready
for your close up?
© Jennifer Kiley 2012
“When Suzie introduced Helen, she told the audience that one of the best things about books is that they are an interactive art form: that while the author may describe in some detail how a character looks, it is the reader’s imagination that completes the image, making it his or her own. “That’s why we so often don’t like movies made from books, right?” Suzie said. “We don’t like someone else’s interpretation of what we see so clearly.” She talked, too, about how books educate and inspire, and how they soothe the soul-”like comfort food without the calories,” she said. She talked about the tactile joys of reading, the feel of a page beneath one’s fingers; the elegance of typeface on a page. She talked about how people complain that they don’t have time to read, and reminded them that if they gave up half an hour of television a day in favor of reading, they could finish twenty-five books a year. “Books don’t take time away from us,” she said. “They give it back. In this age of abstraction, of multitasking, of speed for speed’s sake, they reintroduce us to the elegance-and the relief!-of real, tick-tock time.”
― Elizabeth Berg, Home Safe
“I just want to say one thing. If I ever write a novel again, it’s going to be in defense of weak women, inept and codependent women. I’m going to talk about all the great movies and songs and poetry that focus on such women. I’m going to toast Blanche DuBois. I’m going to celebrate women who aren’t afraid to show their need and their vulnerabilities. To be honest about how hard it can be to plow your way through a life that offers no guarantees about anything. I’m going to get on my metaphorical knees and thank women who fall apart, who cry and carry on and wail and wring their hands because you know what, Midge? We all need to cry. Thank God for women who can articulate their vulnerabilities and express what probably a lot of other people want to say and feel they can’t. Those peoples’ stronghold against falling apart themselves is the disdain they feel for women who do it for them. Strong. I’m starting to think that’s as much a party line as anything else ever handed to women for their assigned roles. When do we get respect for our differences from men? Our strength is our weakness. Our ability to feel is our humanity. You know what? I’ll bet if you talk to a hundred strong women, 99 of them would say ‘I’m sick of being strong. I would like to be cared for. I would like someone else to make the goddamn decisions, I’m sick of making decisions.’ I know this one woman who’s a beacon of strength. A single mother who can do everything – even more than you, Midge. I ran into her not long ago and we went and got a coffee and you know what she told me? She told me that when she goes out to dinner with her guy, she asks him to order everything for her. Every single thing, drink to dessert. Because she just wants to unhitch. All of us dependent, weak women have the courage to do all the time what she can only do in a restaurant.”
― Elizabeth Berg, Home Safe
I cannot like this. This is an horrendous story of degradation, horrific and tragic and all I can say is that I am so sorry for what happened to you at the hands of those who should have loved and cared for you.
I don’t think it was meant to be liked. It was just a real and visceral reaction to being triggered by being forced to deal with something that I felt was over and buried. Someone being able to force their way into my conscious, subconscious and unconscious mind in such an invasive way made me feel cornered and I needed to react and rid myself of the nightmare. I wasn’t intending nor thinking about what I wrote until it was on the page. At that point I felt I needed to expose it. It was a part of the buried part of my past. I am so abused by what happened and now by what this person has shaken up inside of me. I react when people demand something from me that I cannot give nor want to give. It triggers being cornered as a child and not being able to get away. My therapist told me not to go to the dark place. I’ve been struggling not to. Jennifer