So I've been trying to write again but it seems like everything that comes out is really rough memories about my childhood. It's hard but I also think it is the process of healing.
I just wrote this, and I thought I'd share, it's long so fair-warning.
TRIGGER WARNING- talk of self harm
Cake Mix
I remember the cake pan you used for every cake you ever made.
Aluminum, already aged by the time the 80’s came around.
It was cheap with hard curled edges. No lid so you covered it
In aluminum foil, a marriage of metals perhaps? But
We can’t talk about that or touching anyone, right? —Right.
I had a sheet cake every birthday. I’m not sure how you
Abused and regretted me, but still made me a cake.
Was it a practice of heritage? Did your abusive
Dad make you a cake each year? Or did he just teach
You how to make a pie crust? I can’t remember.
But you still let him hold me and had us visit,
Even though he was a pedophile. I guess that makes sense
In a way, you didn’t care what happened to me, but you
Guarded that secret carefully. It was right in your belly.
I gestated with it. No wonder depression is my forever sidekick.
You kept the monster there, under wraps, under lock and key.
It came out sometimes, like a black liquid
Exploding out of your mouth. How did it taste?
Did you like it? Seems you did as it occurred many times.
You’re little mistake, walking around, living a small,
Isolated, abandoned life, getting a sheet cake
Made by you once a year. I remember you
Forcing zipper mouth to buy me sixteen roses
For my sweet sixteen. Somehow he did it and it
Was one of the most awkward and terrible moments of
My life. Then when I grew up and you moved
Us to farm country, away from the few people I
Ever connected with. My how I cried,
My how I pleaded, My how it didn’t matter.
It was the first home we ever owned,
I painted my room guacamole green
And begged for a vintage desk that cost seventy-five dollars
At the thrift store. Somehow you bought me that
And a vintage electric typewriter. That’s when I really started
Writing, so maybe it was worth the 17 years of trauma,
Just to get a few poems out? —Fuck, I know that’s not true.
And once again, somehow, that desk is in my quite grown
Up bedroom. The typewriter has been lost somewhere
In the muck of this sick-house, in my sick-life.
That desk watches me make love to him.
That desk watches me have panic attacks.
That desk watches me sleep. A part-time monster,
For now covered in costume jewelry and clothes,
Hoping to be turned into a vanity at some close-distant time.
I can’t really touch it, other than when I grab some earrings.
It still carries the smell of cow dung that rippled down our farm
Wasted street. Its energy is monstrous.
But I adore it because it’s mine, nothing was mine as a child.
I’m not really sure why you did anything for me except
Be upset with me. Maybe you tricked yourself that the
Pitch monster wasn’t resting cozily in your stomach,
Just like I did over 34 years ago. You know you just
Popped me out, and then spent 19 years utterly destroying me
Ravaging me. Telling me I wasn’t a miracle baby
When I asked you if I was. I’m not sure how any person
Could tell their child “no, you’re not a miracle.”
But you succeeded in it. You thrived on your regret.
Now I try to exhaust you out of my brain
Like a sputtering pickup. I try to release the pain in
The most intense and raw therapy sessions of my life.
I try not to tear my skin open just to release some of the
Black monster you passed onto me. It hasn’t worked yet.
You're still in my head, on your cane rocker, lying to me
At nearly all moments of my life, the black monster overtaking you.
Now it seeps from your toes and fingertips, out of your eyes and up
Your spine. Just like my black eyes that I look into and only
See that midnight monster you spread into me like so much chocolate
Frosting. I have never made a sheet cake because that rectangular
Pan reminds me too much of you.
You gave up on me long ago. I think perhaps you never
Believed in me in any shape or form. Not even a triangle
Of compassion. I was small, I was vulnerable, I was anxious,
And you reminded me many times of how I was a mistake.
Sometimes in words, but more often in action. I don’t know
How you are still breathing. And I want the dark monster
To eat you alive
In the same way I ate my birthday cake.
