The numbers

**Please note- this is a poem and it does reference some adult content**

We're fools whether we dance or not, so we might as well dance.  ~Japanese Proverb

It’s like I didn’t realize

I had a backpack on. If I had

I might have wanted to take it off

Or hide it.

I don’t want my skeletons in a closet, though.

I think I’d rather wear them

Display them, like hunting trophies mounted

On my memory wall

But…covering myself in my past demons?

Dancing in the rain made of

Tears of shame

                       And fallacy?

Each moment, even the losses, perhaps especially those

Have become victories

Strength.  Because I’m still here.

*The 16 year old

standing in the screaming slut-words

Flying from my mother’s mouth

I lived that slander till it fit, embraced it

With many men, too many.

But

On the flip side

                Is me now. Faithful, strong wife to an athlete and coach

                With cancer

                Mother of three

                Independent power goddess

                Growing

                Giving

*The 19 year old

laying too drunk

Beneath The Unwanted

Conscious enough to check for a condom

But not enough to pull away

Or standing scared in a dark dorm room

While the body building underclassman

Begs for a blow job

With a threat balancing on his biceps

Or crawling crying to the motel bathroom

Dripping from the hot tub

Hiding from the 2 guys who tricked me

And took me

I tried to join in with vigor

And ended up bawling, begging to go home.

But

On the flip side

                Is me now, 38 year old warrior

                Going out dancing with the girls

                Only a wing man

                Stumbling happily home

                To my always sober sweetheart

                Who doesn’t dance and loves me

*The 22 year old living alone with 2 cats

In a cabin in Maine only mildly different

From Thoreau

Student, teacher, volunteer, one family’s personal Mary Poppins~

Graduating that with not

Just a 4.0 degree

Most Honored Student Award

And highest graduating senior in my department.

But with the confidence that comes

From succeeding through giving.

Loving for years my own personal

Genius, reaching him, touching him,

Till beneath him, a whore

He was finally taking me, yet refusing to kiss me. 3 years

Of longing and finally finding it

Lacking the luster of any dream. An old record, skipping and scratched

These moments of me

These moments in time, some say they

Choose to change nothing

For each battle, won or lost,

Is a moment in training

For the war we are winning

Simply by living.

It’s more, though, for me.

I am here now, 38 year old

Mother of 3, 7 years a wife to a man

With a deep dent in his head

Scars from his war with brain cells

Gone rogue.

Cancer.

Incurable.

“Isn’t that enough?”

Since you are strong enough, no.

Teacher of 12 years

Finding faith

                Strength and hope

Standing at the head of the class, coaching

Modeling

Understanding

I have seen how much more kids learn

From our actions

So I act out the best of me

                For them

And in acting

Become

In becoming, building strength

So the classroom is taken

Leaving me wandering halls

A ghost in a shell

Till I realize

Whether I want it or not

That backpack is on me

These numbers all make me

So…

Empty the closet

Put up my trophies, my past Me’s,

Embrace them

                                                The scared

                                          Lonely

                                    Raped

                                Lost

                     Betrayed

                Abused

      Confused

And alone

Each one gives me power-

The strength and protection

Of armor and weapons

It’s not that I wouldn’t change

What I’ve been through, I couldn’t.

Rather I choose to remember

For facing this battle with brain cells

Grade IV, 52 week median life span

More numbers

This battle with cancer

And cohorts, desperation and destitution

Without my armor, my shield, and my weapons

I’d lose

This time I’m gaining the strength that comes

From learning to ask for help

Repeatedly

The strength of flexible tenderness that comes

From knowing how it feels

To be the one that needs

To ask for help.  And hold my head high.

No closets or trophies or backpacks

You can’t ignore numbers

But it’s too much

To wear on my sleeve

No. Instead, let me drape myself

In cloaks of my skeletons

Gowns made glittery

With the tears of past shame, loss, fear

Adorn me in jewels unbreakable

Forged in the fires

I’ve survived.

And let me always remember

To use the numbers to count the time, feel the rhythm.

I love to dance.