I think that too, when I uncover true things. I have posted as much, here. I wondered, for the longest time, where the darkness and savagery of the poetry came from.
Because it was true, Copa. It can be theater if you like, Copa. We are exploring all that we wonder about, here in this secret place where everyone can see but no one can know, not really.
Again: What I see in each word you write is integrity. Brutal self honesty. Self accusation in which I see your mother so clearly I wonder whether she is not my own.
Mostly, I see the strength in you, Copa.
You are like me.
Like me, and like Serenity.
For us to possess our weakened places, we need to break open the door and have the Child's pain with our adult hearts and compassion and love; love in Maya's sense of love as a courageous and honest thing, a real Presence. For me, the feelings I live again feel real in the present. They are so disturbing. I feel so dirtied, so worthless.
I cannot imagine the courage of the little girl that I was to have survived it.
Just a baby. Just a little girl or a young woman or a new mother, herself.
There is compassion. Not pity, Copa. Compassion. You will have, as was I, been taught to abhor pity. That word, pity, brings my mother's contemptuous face front and center, even today.
Compassion, Copa.
A true thing. A real, gut level understanding of what happened to the sweet little girls that we were. I posted a picture of my granddaughters. The one I have on my fridge. That is what all little girls look like, Copa and Serenity. You did. Me, too. Serenity, too.
That is what we looked like, before they hurt us.
Those little girls were their victims.
Isn't that something.
Cedar
