My color

Start writing... I read somewhere that people can become trapped at the age that something

traumatic

happened to them

I always had a problem with that word

It's almost as if it wasn’t life-or-death, that it didn’t qualify.

I was in my mind when I was at school. Swinging as I made imaginary friends.

In my thoughts, as my class mates made their first friends running around the playground

I learned survival

I had a gift. I could be anything to anybody at anytime.

It started when my Dad would complain about my mom

She would be in the house getting ready as we sat in the driveway

Buckled in.

“Why can’t she ever be on time?!” “Come on!”

It wasn’t the words. Anybody can say words.

It was the presence behind them like a storm crashing against

A window.

I was the confidential therapist , shrinking into myself each day.

Late night talks at the kitchen table I said the perfect words.

I told my mom how it bothered him that she couldn’t be on time

and that dad likes a routine. I told dad that mom just has a hard

time sleeping and she doesn’t do it to hurt you.

We always went out .

Dinner. Movie. Dinner. Movie. My cousins told me how lucky I was

I started eating more and more to fill the blank space

Everything was a distraction

From words from expression from emotion

I found it hard to see myself

As a separate Presence

From them

White lab coats and clip boards

I learned of the new depression drug that was to be my savior

As I tried to Savor the thought that one day I could

Be

I wanted to help fix everything but I knew I needed a connection

Something to serve as an outlet before I collapsed into myself.

You can only go so long with intentions and

Words

I started drawing when I was young

The movies I watched become put on the page and for the

First time I felt alive and

Apart

Art was something that was mine

it was black and white

I didn’t have to hide

As I got older still, I tried to be perfect

I rewrote my homework 5 times over

I would pretend to fall asleep so I could wake back up

Like a Disney princess

Poised and conditioned

My art started to get crinkled up and thrown away

In my eyes it wasn’t enough

I would begin each piece and each morning then

throw it away

Start again

My grades were top notch and my parents were proud

And I shrank some more

Art kept coming to me like a spirit or angel

The pictures moved through me and I started to see

I had a gift.

I could draw the things I was afraid to say.

I read somewhere that sometimes pain is passed down

In the family

A generational effect.

I started thinking about how my grandmother was to my mom

I wondered if maybe

The things she had been through made her

Who she was

The hurt she felt growing up

I drew women constantly, as if it was an ode to something

That was lost

Comfort, acceptance and maternal instinct

Why did I feel like I was a window to those around me

Would I become the storm.

I grew older and I found myself alone.

Isolated but my art

It was the color

It was words written that I never before expressed

A picture I painted from my grandpa who had never asked me for anything in his life

A scrapbook I made to remember where I have come from

My color is me my color is here

Now