My Journey

I roam these endless paths,
child and woman both,
I hurt from all the grieving,
for all I should have had but never did.
I see myself more clearly;
I'm a ragamuffin child
destined to a legacy of "not quite"
My abuses provided no visible scars,
I am the child whose clothes
didn't quite match or didn't quite fit
I never quite knew what to say,
And instead of blaming my abusers,
I blamed myself in every way.
I hated my body and I hated my soul,
I could barely slog through the
deep, dark, murky piles of anxiety
that were the by-product
of the child-me's parenting skills,
but I did parent my parents
though they could never parent me.

12/31/98

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