I watched an intriguing DVD last night titled The Secret (not to be confused with the 2006 documentary based on the mass-seller book recommended by Oprah). The 2008 movie, reviewed here, stars David Duchovny as an opthalmologist who loses his wife, sorta... then his daughter, sorta. The wife has uniquely intense exposure to the daughter's teen existence for a time that provides an opportunity to take inventory of her own life's path. In the mix is a drug scene that was oh so familiar.
The parent-child/parent-teen dynamic is something I lived through only one-sided, never as the parent of a child or teen. Even so, when I read old poems that I wrote in adolescence I've sometimes taken that inventory, reviewed what was there and who I was. Not to understand or help a child of mine, but to understand and to heal the child that was me.
My husband delves deeply into the mystery and pain in his childhood, where I'm more prone to skim over mine. I'm not sure why, but I'm more detached from mine. So when I pulled out this old poem I read it first with the detachment of a critic. Then I read it again and saw that I was describing my budding alcoholism without that being my intention. I see real defiance and fragility here. But the poem wasn't a cry for help. More like a salutation and surrender to something I couldn't control and, in fact, embraced for a long time. As the 23rd anniversary of my sobriety approaches in mid-October, this early poem is a reminder of the grace that separated me from the mess my life became as the years went by.
Dream Waif
Just a thought
before I fade.
Gotta hurry
Before I’m made
As the dream-waif.
They may see
I’m doomed to sleep—
fluffed comfort then
mine to keep
if just allowed to gently fade.
Gotta hurry
Before I’m made
As the dream-waif.
Threatening they creep—
cling—hover
pouncing if they once discover
I’m the dream-waif.
Guards of the ego
with pieces of dreams
bragging of assets—
intelligence—features
and veil their schemes
to remain creep-cling creatures
with only one mission:
Of the dream-waif,
Submission.
The nightmare army
won’t come far
attempting to tear me
off this star.
The warmth is soothing
deeper
deeper still.
It won’t be long
the wait
until
I’ll be encompassed
by the calm;
I’ll be surrounded
with the dawn.
For them, the bog.
For me,
the balm.
© MLydiaM "
