Daddy's Little Girl (poem)
Insomnia-My Mind Wanders
Lying awake in bed. 3 a.m. after 4 hours of sleep. My mind wanders. How do I solve that email client problem? … Decided on the next attempt at a solution. Done. Release the problem from my mind.
Can I sleep now?
My mind wanders…
Floats on a stream… Looking forward to that free 15-minute discovery session with a potential new therapist today. But will I be awake for it if I can’t sleep now?
Therapy… reminds me of family.
My mind wanders…
The father. Cleaning his bathroom every week as a teen-ager… the horrible stink… the mosaic of disgusting tiny curly black hairs from his beard trimmings and slightly larger wavy black hairs strewn chaotically across the sink and floor along the floorboards, sometimes also encrusted in the residue left on the fiberglass shower.
My mind wanders…
I’m 10. Still reeling from the violent divorce and kidnappings by the father two years earlier. The father took his girlfriend, my brother and me on a trip to Maine. Staying in a nice little cottage by the sea. It had just two bedrooms and a pull-out sofa-bed in the living room.
First night, I had chosen one of the bedrooms to sleep in. My brother slept in the other bedroom. The father and his girlfriend slept in the bed in the living room.
I was scared and alone in the bedroom. Next day I asked if I could sleep in the living room. Not realizing I would still be scared and alone there.
The father let me sleep in the living room. He slept with his girlfriend in the bedroom. I lay in the bed in the living room, scared and alone, crying and crying. Wanted to go back into the bedroom again. Dad got angry at me. I was scared and left on my own, in the bedroom, in the living room… and now Dad was angry at me.
After some time, my brother spoke from his bedroom to the father "Dad, Celestine’s crying…" My father in a rage: "I really don't give a shit!!"
I cried even more.
Daddy’s Little Girl – 19.01.12
“Who could ever love this broken girl –
absurd with fear
stupid with pain...Should this worn-out thing ever deserve love –
look at her
curled up in a bawl
on the floor...
What freak of nature could find love in his heart
for this thing?!”Indeed, only the farthest-flung stars,
removed to the Edge of Night
could ever look upon her
through a sparkling tear of compassion.
For only they, in their own dark solitude,
have lived in the depths of her anguish.
Sometimes I still experience myself being banished from humanity.