Half a Dollar, And Never Enough

Love was a strange word when I was growing up.

In a broken home—a one-parent home—I was already guaranteed to hear it fifty times less.

But my mom didn’t use the word love when it came to me.

She loved deals.
She loved coupons.
She loved free things and her long-distance boyfriend.
She loved saving money.
She loved all-you-can-eat shrimp nights.
She loved online games from the comfort of her office chair.

But she didn’t love me.
Not out loud.

I heard the word so rarely from my mom.

And never from my dad, when he was gone. 

No one ever taught me what love was—
So I gave it away to everyone.

I loved every boy who told me I had a pretty mouth or pretty eyes or a haunting stare.. 
I loved every friend who gave me their time.
I loved every adult man in my life—
Grasping, blindly, for the shape of love.

The boys who whispered things they'd heard in online videos hurt me in ways I'm now embarrassed to admit.

And even though they declared their love to others as easily as they did to me,
I clung—like a fading shadow—to the dream
That I was the only one their hands had grazed.

When my older sister's boyfriend “loved” me,
Confusion wrapped itself around me like an uneasy embrace.

When I felt his fingers skim my thigh in the passenger seat of his truck,
As songs played that grown men shouldn’t share with fifteen-year-old girls,
I thought it was because he loved me—
Not because he wanted to love me.

When he laid beside me in my bed,
Pretending to want to talk about life’s problems,
I thought it was out of love—
Not out of desire dressed up as concern.

And when I tried to show boys that I loved them,
I did it by trying to love them—
And I did it wrong. Every time.

The universe gave me boys like gifts,
But wrapped them in trauma—
As if it were trying to teach me what love was
By showing me everything it wasn’t.

I had no foundation of love.

No blueprint. No roots.
I had no foundation of a mother—
Only a woman who loved everything but me.

And so I learned to let others love
everything I could give them—
But never who I was.

I wear everything she was—and still is—
Like the comfort of an oversized sweater.
Something to hide the extra skin
She made sure I was well aware of when I was a child.
Skin that’s only multiplied
Since the first time I learned to hate my body.

I see her when I look in the mirror—
Even though I carry my father’s eyes,
His expressions flickering just beneath the surface.
But she’s there in my mannerisms.
In the hyper-fixations.
The endless collections.
Stacks of things that remind me of the mounds of boxes and junk
She crammed into our single-wide trailer—
Pushing me out with every new thing
She haggled down to half a dollar.

All of it worth more than me.

I tell myself I’m not like her—
That I’m nothing like her.
But then I catch myself
Arguing for all the reasons to keep
Sentimental pieces of clothing
That I couldn’t stretch over my stomach
Even if I tried.

I see her in me when I dissociate from reality—
When everything becomes too much,
And my brain shuts down to shield me
From the crushing weight of inadequacy.

I hear her voice
When I stand naked in front of a mirror and begin the ritual.
When I pull apart the folds and stretch marks,
Measure the width of my thighs,
The curve of my stomach,
The heaviness of my arms.

Her voice echoes in my head
When I scold myself for not hiding it all better.
When I throw on a 3XL t-shirt that hangs past my knees
And still tell myself, It’s not enough. You’re not enough. Cover more.

And then I hear his voice—
My father’s sharp, cutting:
“You’re just like your mother.”
An insult meant to wound.
A sentence I’ve never forgotten. 

But my mother said the same thing—
That I was just like him,
Any time I disobeyed, questioned, or dared to disagree. 

I’ve been trapped in a violent whirlpool of Who am I? for so long
That I can’t tell the difference anymore—
Between the parts I was told I am
And the ones that actually belong to me.

Maybe I’m a mix—
A patchwork of every word ever spoken to me,
Every action ever taken against me.
A collage of damage, and survival.

But when I try to weigh it all,
There always seems to be
So much more bad than good.

And I wonder—
If the absence of love in my childhood
Is why I struggle to find love for myself
In my adulthood.

Why all the boys want to love me
With their hands,
But never with their hearts.

The way my mother
Taught me to hate myself.

The Man Behind the Mirror

It’s in everything I do –

The way I talk, the way I walk, the way I work –
Little things you taught along the way,
Each action left its mark.

Though time was a thief of experience,
And broken was what most saw –
Influence worked its way into who I am,
Spinning gold from straw.

You may not have had all the answers,
And silence spoke more than words,
But somehow your presence echoed loud
In places I hadn’t heard.

I am more than who I’ve grown to be—
I’m shaped by all you’ve known.
A presence loud upon this earth,
Yet never mine alone.

Time may steal the moments we missed,
But it can't unweave the thread—
You live in what I’ve yet to build,
In all the achievement that lies ahead. 

And when they ask what shaped this soul,
What taught me to push through—
I’ll smile and say, without a doubt:
It was the best of you.

Acrylic on Canvas: Jaeger

You were yellow...

Golden: like the rays of sunshine glittering on the ripples of the lake. Your aura danced in the wind, on the back of a wish of a dandelion seed - happy, playful - a prayer of hope. 

You were yellow - the color of happiness, the wistful shade of joy, innocence in the giggle of a child. 

You were.. my best friend. 

As time aged us both, I saw new colors creep in — red, green, black — like dry brushstrokes on your golden canvas. Barely there... but there enough to see if you got really close.

I watched as you tried to cover it up, tried to adjust the lighting to highlight those golden hues in order to keep attention off of the rainbow stains - 

When those stains crept further, spreading across your canvas like water through a paper thin towel - You changed... started swallowing poison, slow sips at first, trying to blind yourself to the mess.

No longer caring about what others saw, but only trying to 

cope

with your own shame. 

I tried to take the poison from your hands, tried to reason it's release from your clutch... enlisted others to try to coax the bottle away. 

But you held on with a firm grip and desperate words. 

You held on to the bottle tighter than you held onto our bond.. 

You cut away at my hands with smashed glass and sloshed words.. 

Your gold faded 

- lost it's sparkle - 

tainted by the poison you so desperately craved. 

I could do nothing but watch as you took the brushes from your demons - easily, willingly...

 and dipped those brushes into large pots of black...

and began recklessly flailing at your canvas 

- all - on - your - own. 

Of your own volition - you pressed those bristles so hard they fanned out, the handle of the brush teased the canvas and with a slow - 

determined - 

press... you created the smallest of holes. 

Time passed, and you decided you liked those holes - you experimented with that pain, dragging the brush handle through the holes - enlarging the rips and tears. 

I rushed to try to sew the exposure up with words of silk, with words of wool, with words of anything that might work

 and you pushed my hands away - refusing the repairs. 

In the dark, when you were so inebriated with black paint seeping through the woven bits of canvas - I quietly snuck a small piece of the golden fabric, untouched by the darkness, and slipped it into my pocket. 

I needed it -

to save it - 

the only good of you I had left. 

As I backed away from the picture of you - I barely recognized it. I could no longer remember what it looked like... 

before. 

I tried to imagine that beautiful, glimmering shade that once fluttered around the canvas, like a monarch - free and fleeting. 

I couldn't. 

With tears in my eyes, I pulled the last golden thread from my pocket, smiled once — then turned away from the monster you’d become.

Ballet

 Pieces scattered. 

A fragmented reflection in each sliver 

Smooth on the surface - like water

Whetted blades on the edges

Like blades of 

Grass --- green, moist from the dew

Dew that soaks the slivers of cotton covering the skin

Soaked cotton in the worn seams

Seams worn from use

Seams worn from the calloused tips of fingers

Longing for a touch of that skin

Fingers moistened from the dew from the seams

Lapped up

Hungry

Pangs in the stomach from feeding the hunger. 

Splintered fragments - scattered

Pieces for everyone, a reflection of each blue collar worker in each

Her - in an array of uniforms

A performance

A recital 

A condition of love

Faces un-recognized by the owner 

Plethora of pointed shoes

Standing on tip-toe

Perfectly arched

A pirouette 

Perfect

For him

For them

For anyone. 

But still broken. 

Grave Robbers

Like sticky syrup.. he clung to her 

Honey on the lips 

Attracting insects

Biting, crawling, tickling their way back into the womb

Aching for a taste.. following instincts to bring her home to their colony

To be used

To be eaten

To share the honey with the other creatures 

Nature

Natural

Animalistic instinct

Pheromones

A perfect justification provided by a god that does not exist to her

That is not there for her

A god that does not answer her prayers but answers to the call of nature

Providing the sustenance for his creation to exist in his perfect picture

She laid there

And in her mind her body sank deep within the earth

A slow disintegration

Worms eating her insides

Beetles in her cavities

Sustenance for yet another creature created by a god believed to be a 

Father

His father

A provider. 

She knew her duty

When the grave robbers came 

To pull her bones from the inside of the damp earth

She knew they came for riches

She knew they came for value

Value can always be found in the leftovers

Because the leftovers have nothing left to give except what can be given

What she can give

What can she give

Syrup

Like sticky honey

Clinging to her lips

Smoke

The cigarette burned.

Left on the edge of the ashtray - a wooden one - with carvings on the side - memories... 

An ashtray picked up on a vacation.. meant to preserve happy thoughts brought on by a sunbathing coma and too many drinks. 

But the cigarette burned. 

Smoke.. trailing little ringlets signaling the disease... curling around into the sky and disappearing... 

Forgotten. 

Like the joy of a simpler time - when the pain of heartache was ignored. 

Heartache was simpler then because it belonged it someone else. 

A shadow of the person who existed in that moment.

Heartache was drowned with the poisons of substance.. 

But now... 

fifteen years later... 

Heartache is not so easily drowned, 

Not so easily smothered with smoke. 

Instead she had become that smoke.. 

Barely there.

Mostly invisible.

Trailing away into nothingness. 

The more she hurt - the more she burned - the smaller she got. 

The less that existed of... 

her. 

Because this time the heartache actually pained.. 

It cost something

Deep within her soul. 

Pieces of her faded away into ash 

and she let it. 

Because to fade away felt better than the pain of heartache. 

To disappear felt better. 

to merely exist in the nothingness that surrounded her felt.. 

better. 

Smoke. She never thought much before how the word was synonymous with her. 

How difficult it was to hold her. To see her. truly see her. For everything she was. For what she was made of. 

Was that the problem? 

Was that why she always felt like nothing to the people around her? Because she was like smoke - disintegrating at the touch of curious fingers - winding around, existing in the space of the person but not really there.. 

Is that why she felt so disconnected?

Or did she become the smoke because no one put forth the effort to catch her - study her - find out what she was made of - where she came from. 

Was she exhaled... forgotten... left to be nothing more than a stale scent clinging to a leather winter jacket?

A constant reminder of the past -- bringing about temptation for another just like her.. 

A reminder for the one that smokes.. 

A discomfort for those that do not... 

And the cigarette burned. 

1990s Tee

Forgiveness takes a piece of me every time - like lint on the dryer - pieces of me worn loose in the wash. Gathered - hot and grey behind the mesh insert in this big, hot machine..

Trapped. 

Then discarded. 

Eventually there will be nothing left of me... 

nothing left of use, anyway... 

and I'll have nothing left to give anyone - no comfort to provide - no protection from the sun which looks to burn the naked shoulders of those without .... a tee shirt. 

Like a hand me down.. 

used and discarded and given away - given away until there is nothing left to give away... 

Like that favorite vintage tee - you're now too embarrassed to wear in public. 

Stains in the armpits and holes in the seams - long lost remnants of the comfort this shirt used to provide and the fun you had in it - evidence of the shirt being

used. 

And now 

it is rolled up shoved in the back corner of the bottom drawer of your bureau.. 

with the socks you only wear on the coldest of winter nights... 

shoved back behind the useless articles of clothing that get pulled out for random occasions that require suspenders or polka dot tights.. things that are 

uncomfortable, 

unwanted, 

but a formal obligation... 

Forgotten. 

Further damaged by the moths nesting in the back of the drawer. 

That shirt got you through the best times of your life. You were wearing it when you fell in love. When your children were born. 

When you met...

her... 

But when you met her.. the shirt was no longer good enough.. 

Not worthy of being seen by her

Too stained and ugly to wear around her but still too significant to throw out. 

So there it sits. 

Unworn. Untouched. Unloved. 

In the purgatory of things that once were.. 

loved.

And so...

You bought a new shirt. 

Saltwater Shroud

I want to disappear. 

I want to fade away the way a letter in a bottle thrown into the deep, dark ocean does - a leak in it's cork that allows the insides of the bottle to be suffocated - air replaced with water - sinking, strangling..

I want the ocean to grab me with its frothy, sea foam fingers  and carry me deep down to the bottom - pulling my body to the sandy depths under its masses of water droplets... 

I want to feel the burning sting of salty liquid filling my lungs - feel the heavy weight of pain on my chest - feel the suffering - and then feel... nothing. 

I want the fish to nibble at my eyes - slowly remove my sight and take away my ability to see the things you've done flash before me like a dream. 

I want to feel the slimy sea slugs enter my ears, curl up against my ear drum and stifle my hearing so that I can no longer hear the things you said.. 

I want the cold blooded sea animals to suck out my tongue so that I never have to taste her on you again.. 

I want them to enter me - chew away the rest of the pieces of broken heart encased behind splintered ribs.. 

I want them to slurp out my thoughts like marrow from bone - erasing all memories of the pain.. 

I want the ocean to have its way with me - swallow me up and turn me to mush so I don't have to feel you touch me with hands sticky from remnants of her... 

I want the ocean to rock me to sleep in its arms of waves - shush me to sleep and erase all my pain. 

I want to become one with the ocean - the way I should have been your ocean—but you left me to drown in mine.

Setting

When the sun sets - I do not see if for its beauty. 

When the tones of orange and purple wash over the sky... I may acknowledge the beauty of the colors but I do not find value in it's appearance. I see those sunsets as a finality. 

The sunset is a closing of another day.. another day of being misunderstood - another day feeling out of place - another day feeling like a joke. 

When I see the big orange glow down low in the sky --- highlighting the fierceness of the mountains in a great, violet silhouette.. it is a reminder of another day that I was too much. It is a final realization that another day is gone - that time is swiftly passing and I've missed another chance of self acceptance. 

It is a great, beautiful, scary reminder that my children have aged another day and my time is running out. 

It is a reminder of my failures - a repetition in my head of the day's mistakes and wrong-doings and an indication that for another day.. I have disappointed those that love me. 

That I have disappointed myself. 

Sunsets stop my in my tracks. But not for their seductive appearance. 

They are presented as a reflection in my eyes of fear - disappointment... of realization that another opportunity has been missed. 

And when I see the sun setting - when I see the fire falling from its place in the sky, moving to hide from my vision - it is a reminder of you. 

It radiated in my mind as a synonym to your child games of hide and seek - making me wait to find you. It is a burning, silent dictation of your ability to make me feel lost under the cloak of darkness. The way you make it impossible to find you - the way you make it hard for me to even see myself - the way you hide my path and blur my vision. 

It reminds me of the way you force me to find an alternate source of light. 

It reminds me of the way you enjoy to present me with the dangers in the night. It is a representation of your cruel, juvenile games - and how no matter how many times you begin them - how I'll always, and forever play.

Dethroning

 She was regal. 

But she was not beautiful. 

She sat atop her throne of punishment for all of her mistakes.. 

A throne built on lies, mortared from shards of broken dreams. 

She sat there, in her stretched and heavy body and looked down at her people. 

Every face was another version of her.

Faces unrecognizable - faces painfully familiar. 

The face of a thinner, happier woman— a body slim, curved, acceptable.

A face scarred by age and choice.. 

A face bruised and tear-stained by lovers' anger..

A face full of hope and dreams, untouched by the knowledge that life would one day crush them.

So many faces.

If only she could have warned them.

If only she could have told them
that they too would one day sit upon this throne.

If only she could have told the future.

When had she become this?

When had she become the woman who gave endless chances,
though each one cost another piece of her soul?

As she studied the crowd,
another face appeared.

A face of pure joy.

A face she did not understand.

It wore traces of her features,
yet she knew it belonged to another.

A woman who received what regal women should receive.

A woman cherished.

A woman chosen.

A woman certain of her worth.

But it was not her.

It was a metamorphosis—
part herself,
part the woman who helped build the throne.

The woman who laid its false foundation,
then hid sharp pins within the seat,
where only the seated would feel them.

She planted them with the king’s blessing.

Each time the king confessed love to her,
he pressed another pin into her palm.

A secret exchange.

A knowing glance.

Neither cared for the pain it would cause the queen.

The queen was regal,
but never truly desired.

She became queen through lies—

lies of her womb,

lies that promised no princes,
no princesses.

And when those lies were revealed,
the king called it a trap.

Before she was queen,
she too had been a mistress.

A mistress dressed in black.

A mistress with features much like the woman below.

When the lie of her womb was believed,
the king draped her in ruby velvet,
fur trim,
jewels bright as fire.

The mistress became queen.

But once the truth emerged,
the gown began to fade.

The jewels were plucked from her breast.

The fur tangled and matted.

And now, in the crowd,
the pin-planter wore her gown.

A chill overtook the queen.

She looked down and saw herself exposed.

Her imperfect body on display.

Her shame on display.

Her fear on display.

She tried to cover herself,
to lift her chin,
to remain regal—

but the weight of the crown forced her lower.

And when she could bear it no longer,
the crown fell with a deafening ring.

It rolled.

Straight toward her.

Straight toward the pin-planter.

The woman bent with effortless grace,
unburdened by weight,
unhindered by shame.

Her long fingers closed around the crown.

She rose slowly,

eyes fixed on the queen.

With the posture of a woman long told she was worthy,

she placed it upon her dark hair.

She smiled.

In that moment,
the former queen understood:

she would still be used,

but she would no longer rule.

Then the faces of her past descended.

Hungry.

They swarmed what little life remained within her.

They fed upon the final glow she possessed.

And when they were done,

she was no queen at all—

only a mistress once more,

second to the new queen.