Unmet, unseen, unappreciated

By our husbands, partners, lovers,

We go through life

As did our mothers,

As did their own mothers.

If I question this, you question me

“You want too much!”, you say,

which really means:

“Don’t rock my boat”,

“Don’t make me look”

“Don’t show me what I am trying so hard not to see!”

But my whole body recoils,

With the pain you refuse to feel

Can’t you see

what your denial is doing to you,

what it’s doing to me?

You have stuffed it down and passed it on and called that ‘normal’.

But something went ‘wrong’

because it went right and I feel that pain.

A searing in my heart

A burning in my gut

That boils tears down my face

With the anger you will not feel

Because once you do,

There is no turning back.

You flee instead to your mothering,

To your breakfast with your friends,

To your work, your yoga, your shopping,

Your drugs, your alcohol, your sex.

But the incessant buzz of dissatisfaction won’t leave your body,

no matter what you do.

What will it take

To make you see

There is no way out of truth?

The truth of your unhappiness,

Of your searing loneliness

When you console yourself

With the bitter crumbs of compromise.

How will you feel

when you see your own pain

Mirrored in the eyes of your daughter’s desolate soul

In her stuffed tears, her stuffed wail,

Because she got cheated out of a real life

By following your example.

How can you bear to live with this?

You can’t, so you don’t live, and you don’t feel,

Not the pain, not anything

but this dull thud

you call life.

However,

inside,

our heart calls,

“my sweet, it does not have to be this way,

Don’t compromise,

Don’t betray yourself,

Don’t give up your longing

You are not home yet…”

In the crack that opens in the dawn of our loneliness,

The pain shines through,

And it ignites

our sacred anger

With an enraged wail

That screams

LIVE!!!!!!!!!

Stop choosing death!!!!

Wake up!!!!!!

When the call comes, heed it, grab on to it

Like the last train out of desolation

Breathe life in,

Breathe numbness out

and own the power you gave up

No more compromise

The chain breaks here

This stops with me.

We need anger. Our tendency is to react to anger in the habitual way that we have reacted throughout our life. In fact, it is not unusual for that habit to go back generations. Have you had enough? Anger about these habits, acknowledging them, getting to know yourself through your historic reactions can facilitate the change you are looking for.