I dreamed of two men
cold as ice in dark hats
handcuffing a woman
before tossing her in the back
of a black barred truck
with stars on the sides
and a To Protect and Serve
bumper sticker stuck like
a punchline and a baby girl
and young boy were crying
standing behind the yellow lines
but two has never been
a number that adds up to
nothing because it's only legal
to pass one at a time in these
dark days of executive orders
you fear because you know
it's all the evidence they need
to make you disappear.

Like an alien in a spotlight
With her magnifying glasses on
My mother as she worked, up all night
Did invisible weaving till dawn

I would watch her when I couldn’t sleep
Honing in on that hole in the suit
Intently, her concentration deep
Weaving tiny threads enlarged like jute

In other-worldly light she labored
I was afraid she’d lose her eyesight
Watching her focus never wavered
Her face all aglow in the lamplight

Invisible weaving, I inquired
How tediously she plied her craft
Worked for the money that she required
Made the warp and weft of fabric last

Reconstruction, undetectable
No more burn, or tear, or fabric blight
Weaving magic so incredible
Its wound now perfect by morning’s light

She taught me much that I’m still making
From her life that now I’m grieving
Sewing, crocheting and great baking
But never invisible weaving

The picture of her life that mattered
I now see how she toiled so finely
And that the wrinkles in the fabric
Of my own life splayed out so blindly

The vision of my eyes, bedazzled
Incandescent, her face in the beam
Unaware how her mind unraveled
As Depression stole her ev’ry dream

The threads of DNA defining
Who I’ve become I’m now believing
My mother’s hand in that designing
Of my own Invisible Weaving

In honor of my mother, Edla Sylvia Fitzpatrick, on this International Women's Day

A Story of Scientology and the
Mental Health System Connection

PAPERS! PAPERS EVERYWHERE...
AND NOT A* THING TO READ!

The thing I remember most about being in the Sea Organization at the Hollywood Org were all the PAPERS! Directives as I was to find. That's what they called memos. We were in a branch of L Ron Hubbard's private little army don'tcha know. Everything, therefore, had a military bent. More specifically we were in the navy. There were personnel who were labeled "bosons". And there were people with the rank of "Supercargo". And Commanding Officers. Actually, LRH would have liked us to be thought of as MARINES. Navy Seals!
He was really THAT egotistical. HIS title was COMMODORE. Yep. His overweening pride took him THAT FAR.
ANYWAY. So there was a storm of paper. Directives EVERYWHERE! Piled on desks. In inbaskets. In boxes. On filing cabinets, which were woefully insufficient for the veritable blizzard of PAPERS! I was forced to read these. DULL AS DITCHWATER. But I was given my own little pile, and a dictionary. Any words I didn't understand could be found in there. I was to look them up. And an extensive memo about the meaning of the Scientogeese which I was to learn. There was an entire LEXICON of THAT, let me tell you! More on that later on. AND we we didn't have TIME to read anything ELSE! Our day was filled with CHORES.... or reading of said PAPERS.

Then I began to notice the other "personnel" around me. NONE of whom appeared to be HAPPY. They were a grayish sort. Looked like the sun very seldom glanced their skin. Glum, yet (for all appearances), VERY dedicated. Then there were folk who seemed to be separate from the other workers. They wore filthy dark blue or black clothing, appeared to run everywhere, and address everyone as "Sir". They were called the RPF. Rehabilitation Project Force. Remember that unit and its abbreviation. For they are to loom large later in my narrative.

But there WAS one person who brought sunshine into my otherwise dreary world...

MARILYN.