You left me, long ago
At first I was puzzled
Where were you, where had you gone
I tried everything to find you
I begged you to return
Bribed you with expensive gifts
Built you a wonderful nest
Listened to your demands
And badgered and begged you to return
I gave you the best years of my life
And some of the worst ones, too
Now we sit on opposite ends of the couch
A distance of two feet,
Yet light years, parsecs, universes
There is no measure of the distance between us.

SELECTED FROM THE IRISH NOVELISTS

THERE was a green branch hung with many a bell
When her own people ruled this tragic Eire;
And from its murmuring greenness, calm of Faery,
A Druid kindness, on all hearers fell.
It charmed away the merchant from his guile,
And turned the farmer's memory from his cattle,
And hushed in sleep the roaring ranks of battle:
And all grew friendly for a little while.
Ah, Exiles wandering over lands and seas,
And planning, plotting always that some morrow
May set a stone upon ancestral Sorrow!
I also bear a bell-branch full of ease.
I tore it from green boughs winds tore and tossed
Until the sap of summer had grown weary!
I tore it from the barren boughs of Eire,
That country where a man can be so crossed;
Can be so battered, badgered and destroyed
That he's a loveless man:  gay bells bring laughter
That shakes a mouldering cobweb from the rafter;
And yet the saddest chimes are best enjoyed.
Gay bells or sad, they bring you memories
Of half-forgotten innocent old places:
We and our bitterness have left no traces
On Munster grass and Connemara skies.

They badgered me, berated me.
They beat me and they hated me.
They seemed to want me to die
Too soon, then, so did I.

I was different, and that was the reason.
Too many saw that as a form of treason.

I had to adhere to the boundaries
That were set for us artificially
They had no reference to reality;
More to some kind of elite tyranny.

And, I still find it horribly strange
That very little has changed.
The rules are still very much
Incredibly socially out of touch.

Strive to be elite or be beaten
And ultimately, almost literally eaten
By the swarm of mindless fools
That go on defending the rules  

That allow children to be thugs
And, come to school to sell drugs;
That let the criminals escape
And, turn a blind eye to ****
And abuse and battering
But keep the ******* clattering
At PTA, school board and council meetings  
More concerned with politics
Than the real-time subjects
Such as kids afraid of attending
Because the battlefield is never ending.

There was a green branch hung with many a bell
When her own people ruled this tragic Eire;
And from its murmuring greenness, calm of Faery,
A Druid kindness, on all hearers fell.

It charmed away the merchant from his guile,
And turned the farmer's memory from his cattle,
And hushed in sleep the roaring ranks of battle:
And all grew friendly for a little while.

Ah, Exiles wandering over lands and seas,
And planning, plotting always that some morrow
May set a stone upon ancestral Sorrow!
I also bear a bell-branch full of ease.

I tore it from green boughs winds tore and tossed
Until the sap of summer had grown weary!
I tore it from the barren boughs of Eire,
That country where a man can be so crossed;

Can be so battered, badgered and destroyed
That he's a loveless man:  gay bells bring laughter
That shakes a mouldering cobweb from the rafter;
And yet the saddest chimes are best enjoyed.

Gay bells or sad, they bring you memories
Of half-forgotten innocent old places:
We and our bitterness have left no traces
On Munster grass and Connemara skies.

A dream dreamt for a millennium
Everyday oozing away as I badgered and prayed
For one splendiferous day
To feel limitless and ecstatic in my cranium.

Suddenly, my dream came to fruition
All this time was worth the anticipation
My brittle bones became strong through elation
My every cell frenetic with love's constitution.

The dream fulfilled
Vanished without warning
Soaking my heart in distrust and mourning
Creating in the center of my mind an emptiness so still.

Halloween is my favorite time of year

We threw a costume party it was full of cheer

Two nights later you flew into a rage

I felt like a bird trapped in a cage

You yelled and badgered me for  hours

In my face your mood completely sours

You finally burst into strange laughter

As if your personality began to fracture

I drop my daughter off to go trick-or-treating

She didn't need to see me get a verbal beating

Time to get my daughter from her night of fun

I find you in another room with your father's gun

I ask you what you think you're doing

A familiar hateful look stings me for asking

I warned you I could not do this anymore

I needed to leave to see what life has in store

No more drama because of your illness

My life is no longer filled with sadness

all at once

He degraded me, badgered me, and would never me kiss him good-night

Blood.
Water.
Oil.

One of us has to rise to the top.
Unless your only fantasy is in the forest.

That forest is now a development for condos.

You taught me that everyone that wasn't a christian was going to hell.
You taught me that we were the prime example of a good christian family, even though I had bruises on my skin.
You taught me that girls should wear makeup and do their hair and wear pretty dresses, and are good for nothing except being a housewife,
you taught me that my talents should be used only enough to get money so I can live in a big house with kids and be a good wife.
You taught me that homosexuals should be strung up and gutted for being sick and diseased sinners.
You taught me that boys who don't dress like men are homosexual ***** nasty sinners.
You taught me that I wasn't good for anything
You told me that you wished you could raise me all over again, so maybe I wouldn't be such a disappointing sinner.
You told me I couldn't play with boy toys, because that's a sin,
You told me I could only wear girl colors.
You told me to only read books about good girls who do good things and not books on adventure and crime.
You told me I was ugly.
You told me I was fat.
You told me I could be somebody someday, but it wouldn't be so because I was ugly and fat and stupid and good for nothing, so I better stop dreaming.
You called me a liar when I said my father hit me.
Even when you pulled him off me as I breathed what would have been my last breath.
You didn't take me to the doctor when I laid in my room screaming in pain for an unknown reason,
You called me a ***** and a ****
and that my friends are disgusting.
You claimed I had no free will and that everything I did, was me just trying to be like all my nasty sinning homosexual friends.
You said all I did on the computer is watch ****. I was a kid.
You said my pains and sorrows and feelings and thoughts and ambitions were me just being dramatic.
You never called the police
or divorced him sooner,
you just got another job and left me alone with him all day.
You called me a liar no matter what I said.
You blamed me for your woes and your weight.
You prayed and begged and cried in front of me,
trying to understand where you went wrong and why I was such a sinner. I was a kid.
You didn't raise me.
When I twisted my ankle on a field trip, it was another parent who iced my ankle.
You didn't pick me up from the school play at 10pm,
I waited and waited- it was another parent who came back to check on me, and took me home.
When I woke up with ****** knuckles and ****** walls, you didn't care that I had been punching the walls in my sleep you didn't do anything to help.
I ran away from home three times and each it was my sister who came to get me, never you.
When I fell through a window and that piece of glass lay pointing at my heart, for I was too light to have my body push down through it, I wasn't relieved, I was disappointed. You didn't stitch me up, my brother is the one who cleaned my cuts and bandaged me up and down.
You didn't help me, it was my sister who taught me how to push our dresser in front of the door when he was on a drunken rampage with a baseball bat, so it would buy time for us to hop through the window and down the street.
It was my sister who held me when I fell of my bed and took the skin off my nose.
It was my brother who read me stories of a brilliant boy named Artemis Fowl who went on adventures.
It was my sister who screamed for him to stop when I played too loud and he smashed my head against the wall.
It was my sister who taught me how to cook and clean
and bought THE LABYRINTH so that I could fall in love with David Bowie and learn to be a girl who didn't need anyone to save her.  
It was my brother who lent me his clothes when he grew so I could get out of those nasty pink dresses with lace that covered every inch of me.
Every time I spoke you said I was a liar and that I should sit down and shut up.
You badgered me for being rude when I didn't speak in public or with family and when I do you laugh and shush me, letting the other people know that I like to exaggerate, I like attention.
and then you scream at me for being rude and that I should sit down and shut up sit down and shut up and that's what I did.

From birth, you said I shouldn't exist and that I was heartless and nothing and cold and dead inside. You blamed me for the world and you still do.

This all happened before I was 8 years old.

When you went to Italy last summer, you went without a word and left me with no food or money. It was another family that sheltered me. It was a man I've met only twice who has become my only father figure and texts me to make sure I'm okay and picks me up and feeds me and gives me a place to stay and helps me indulge in my interests and tries to heal me and treats me like his own daughter.

This is still all you do.
You expect flowers and a card
and chocolate
and the world at your feet
because you have given me the world
and raised me
and cared for me
and loved me.
But when I do the dishes for you as a favor, I can only think about whether the knife I'm cleaning will be plunged into your heart, or mine.

For the woman who tells me I look ugly on prom night, who calls my friends sinners and curses them  tells me I'm fat and nothing and punishes me for things I've never done and won't leave me alone in the doctor's office so that she can "Correct" everything I have to say so that I can't get anxiety or depression or anger medication or a thorough checkup on why my body hurts everyday. To the woman who cries and screams to this **** day that she doesn't understand why I'm a disgusting monster, how she doesn't understand how I turned into a freak. To the woman who openly despises every inch of me that tries so hard to be happy and love everyone and everything,
Happy mother's day.

today you made me angry and i hate you for that. i hate
that you act like your six-year old brother, who’s cuter than you
and can get away with **** like that. ooh, did i offend thee?
poor dear, perhaps you’d like to stuff your face with some humble pie
instead of that ****-cake that i made two nights ago.
and pur-lease, don’t give me some ******* that i ignore you.
you do the same thing. and don’t act like sorry is just a word.
*******! is love just a word to you, too? ha! let’s scrawl it out
on your forehead and see if you can feel how i feel for just a second.
i’d like to say a lot of things to you right now but they’re far too mean,
or for you at least. i can’t say anything without getting yelled at
anymore. shocking, since i’m stuck beneath your sad little jabs
all the time and i only laugh because it’s water off a duck’s back.
and now you sing down to me like rapunzel and i can’t help
but feel sad, wishing that i hadn’t ignored you in the first place
and that you hadn’t badgered me until i actually decided to be a *****.
so yes, forgive me when you’d like and i will forgive you.
but don’t give me some whatever that means ******* because everything
i do for you is for you and me together. i am not hateful
when i tell you the truth, but perhaps the truth is more than you’d like
to hear right now. or perhaps all the time? i’m sorry. really i am,
and though you may never say you’re sorry to me, i can still hope.

There was a green branch hung with many a bell
When her own people ruled this tragic Eire;
And from its murmuring greenness, calm of Faery,
A Druid kindness, on all hearers fell.

It charmed away the merchant from his guile,
And turned the farmer's memory from his cattle,
And hushed in sleep the roaring ranks of battle:
And all grew friendly for a little while.

Ah, Exiles wandering over lands and seas,
And planning, plotting always that some morrow
May set a stone upon ancestral Sorrow!
I also bear a bell-branch full of ease.

I tore it from green boughs winds tore and tossed
Until the sap of summer had grown weary!
I tore it from the barren boughs of Eire,
That country where a man can be so crossed;

Can be so battered, badgered and destroyed
That he's a loveless man:  gay bells bring laughter
That shakes a mouldering cobweb from the rafter;
And yet the saddest chimes are best enjoyed.

Gay bells or sad, they bring you memories
Of half-forgotten innocent old places:
We and our bitterness have left no traces
On Munster grass and Connemara skies.

Ambivalence sat in a corner staring off into space
as Antipathy tried so very hard to keep up with the pace
Cruelty crept up behind
to pinch them one by one
while Greed badgered them all
to be a part of the fun
Lust writhed upon its chair
and licked its lips upon a grin
Timidity cringed against the wall
bombarded by thoughts
of touching unholy sin
Narcissism saw no one else
while Awareness saw them all
When Love walked in
to join the group
the walls began to fall....

Science class is boring. People are loud. I'm hungry. I'm tired. I'm depressed. My numbers have not been good when I rate my emotions at therapy. My mom overreacts to everything and does not listen to my side of the story like always. She acted like it was my fault that I got half credit on a late group assignment. Technical difficulties deleted everything and we turned it in a month late after redoing it. Half credit was generous.
I haven't been able to talk to Sage much recently... I miss him. He is right there and I hug and kiss him daily, but I miss him. I almost had time on Tuesday, but my mom took that away. I feel alone. I've thought recently that I'm ugly. I don't feel good about myself. I promised not to try again or hurt myself, so I found another way... I haven't eaten well recently, meaning I won't eat for a while and then I will binge on junk food... It makes my stomach hurt, but I don't care.
Anyway, I almost had time, and my mom said yes at first, but then I told her that school was good and she asked about the project. Then she said no. I was trying to explain. I may have raised my voice a little, but then she started screaming at me not to yell. I wasn't. Cell phones have microphones. And mine is broken, so it just made it worse. Everything piled up at once and I started to cry. He left before my mom got there and I just sat and cried. A police woman came just to ask if I was okay. I told her I was fine, just a lot of stress and my mom pulled up. I got in the car and she instantly badgered me about why I was talking to the police and when I told her why, she to,d me I was throwing a temper tantrum like a three year old. I told her I wasn't and then her catch phrase came out. I swear, she says it to me every day. "You're full of ****, Kaydee."
I wasn't having a good week to begin with, my numbers were bad all week. Since I only go to treatment once a week now, I keep track of my own numbers until I get back. I seriously contemplated trying again or harming again, but I didn't. I was proud, and thankful that I have at least five people to support me, my family not included. They go back and forth. Everything I do is wrong, I'm full of ****, I'm a liar, and then they love me and only care about helping me.
Do they even understand how difficult this is? We're they ever sent into treatment? Are they living my life with my teachers and my views and disorders? My parents have depression and have attempted, but they still don't get it. If they did, they wouldn't be doing this.

I just want to be let go. I was doing fine until this started. Therapy made it worse. I harmed after I went into therapy. I was pain-sober before then.

My therapy place called me again today. I don't know why they called me and not my mom, but whatever. I don't even care. Normally music helps with things like this but I'm shying away from my normal taste... I've been listening to more Death Cab For Cutie and Regina Spektor. All is well, though. Just softer than the screaming and explicit lyrics I'm used to. More meaningful and poetic, I think.

Well, I think I'll be done. Writing this helped, but I am still on the verge of tears. I need to be done.

   Sincerely, Kagami.