She
Wasn’t Allowed to Giggle
By Lavinia Thompson
http://laviniathompsonauthor.wordpress.com/
Copyright
2011 Lavinia Thompson
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Cover
Design by ~a-lanna on Deviant Art
http://a-lanna.deviantart.com/
Dedicated to my mother, for so many years of love and support even
in the darkest of times; you have always been my strength and
guidance when I knew of nowhere else to turn. Thank you will never be
enough.
Special thanks to:
Debbi, my adopted big
sister, for the late-night sessions of writing talk and titles and
for being my sanity.
To Rett, aka adopted Dad, also for the
support and all the writing help. You have both helped me grow as a
writer and a person. This book never would have been possible without
the both of you.
And to all those who have known domestic
violence and abuse: You have a voice. You have a choice. There is
help and there are ways out. This book is dedicated to all of you.
Table of Contents
Part I-
Light at the End of the Tunnel
Journal
Entry I
Eloquent
Mirror
4
a.m. (Ice Covered Roses)
Blood
Paint
Paper
Flowers and Lace
Drunken
Shadows
Crevices
Monsters
are Crazy
Asylum
Blood
Dripping Precariously
Walls
Poise
of Blood
Words
Were Whispered
The
Corners You Hide From
Dark
Angel Clichés
Loneliness
Beneath
the Rippling Night
Screaming
Jaded
Eyes Eloquently Fragile
Somewhat
a Beast
Dreamless
Moon
Screams
Silent as Ashes
Hostage
of an Ancient Ghost
Glass
Swept Under the Rug
Part II: Innocence After
the Dark
Journal
Entry II
Ancient
Moon Dust Black
Darkness
Shrouds
Paint
the Blood
Sitting
at the Eloquent Mirror
Poem
Without a Moon
War
Paint (Down Her Face)
Sobriety’s
Every Breach
Ruled
for a While
Oblivion
Condescending
Haunted
Still by Deranged Visions of You
Burn
Drops
of Blood
Never
Again (Stand Up)
Monsters
in the Sky
Anger
(A Monster All Its Own)
Stupid
Whiskey
Black
Lace Angel
Worlds
in One Explosion
Sombrous
Eloquence
Ravaged
Beyond Repair
Like
Frigid Trees
Who
Do You Think You Are?
Smouldering
Part
III: The Worst Is Over...
Letter:
Dear Mom
Strong
from Here
Fallen
Somewhere to a Lost Light
Drunken
Breakdown
Someday
Melted
Candle
Happy
Now
Darkness
Betrayed
Never
Be Ruled
Sometimes
Insanity
Choose
No
Poetic Way
Broken
Chains
Ash-Stained
Pieces
of a Reckless Butterfly
Past
Inks
Dancing
Circles (Know No Shame)
Bare
Gypsy Feet
She
Wasn’t Allowed to Giggle
Where
Fallen Angels Fly
Pearl
Moon Conquered
Orange-Dusted
Dusk
You
No Longer Reign
Oblivion
in Reverie
Blue
Motel
Untangled
a Little
Journal
Entry III
Journal
Entry IV
Part I
Light
at the End of the Tunnel
August 25, 2009
He said maybe we should just be friends
for a while and see where it takes us. That was last night. But all
along I have been wondering if maybe this has been as right as it
feels; if that fluttering sensation in my chest every time he’s
around is actually real. I lay awake watching the moon dance across
the sky asking myself if maybe it was all in my head.
It’s
hard to think that this has been make-believe, all fairy tale-like as
our friends’ wedding felt a month ago. I felt it the first time he
took my hand, the first time we danced, the first time we kissed. In
that moment I never thought maybe there would be complications. It
hasn’t been a mistake by a long shot. I don’t regret meeting him.
I don’t regret anything that has happened simply because there are
no regrets about things that make you smile. Like the expression on
his face when we were walking in the rain and like a little kid I was
jumping through the puddles careless and free. I don’t know if this
is love; maybe it is and maybe it isn’t. All I know is he is
someone special. I have known that since the moment I met him and the
moments we have spent up until now can’t be taken back.
But
some ghosts never go away. I don’t want to hurt him because of what
happened to me as a kid. I want to trust him completely but some
damage just never goes away in spite of how you try to move on and
forget, taking one step in front of the other. After it’s all said
and done, I find myself in a similar place where I have been all
along. Wondering if ever I can move on? If ever there is a light
where darkness has been full of shadows and screaming ghosts for so
long. The older I get the more that I see how holding on is wrong and
benefits no one. But the morbid thought of the man who took
everything, including the innocence of a little girl who never knew
any better makes me so angry sometimes. I know this still hasn’t
gone away, that he still lingers without even being here. He lives
even if he is dead by now, and something inside me says he always
will until something gives.
Sometimes it feels like I’m so
far into hatred and anger it plaques other parts of my life. I have a
feeling it has now infested my first love life and the more he
indirectly destroys, the more mad I get that my life will never be
normal.
I have watched most of my friends marry and have kids.
They are so happy, seemingly demon less and content; something I feel
I may never have. Here I am struggling with my first boyfriend
telling me we should just be friends because I may not be ready for
this. That above all incredibly weakens me as a result of my ordeals,
as if I’m too small a person to deal with this and let it go. They
all had fun in their high school years, lived until they graduated
and now they have a life of happiness and love, one I fear I may not
get even if I want it. They got to go out every weekend while I was
sitting home every Saturday night listening to a drunk scream at my
mother while he threw her around like a rag doll that didn’t
matter. I would hide in the basement, the sweet hidden shadows of my
moonlit room with every song I hated playing on the radio and somehow
it made me feel better instead of wanting to hate them more.
He
would come into my room when no one was home, talking so despicably
sweet about how lonely he was, that Mom never paid him any attention
and all he wanted was for us to be a family. He would say these
things while letting his hands up my shirt and slowly setting me on
the bed. I could smell the beer on his breath while it was on my
skin. I remember the things he would say; talking about suicide and
killing us all so that we’d all be out of our miseries. He said no
one would believe me if I told anyone what was happening, that Mom
cared more about my other two siblings than she ever did about me
because I am the middle child and the forgotten one, that the
“attention” he gave me was much more than my mother would ever
give me. He would say that my deceased father had been abusive; he
used to beat my mother and was this terrible mean ogre of a man. I
never believed him. I knew Mom’s ex never looked in the mirror at
the monster he was. Or maybe he knew but shifted the blame to someone
even I couldn’t defend because I never met Dad. I even stopped
writing for a while, because Mom’s ex would go through my room and
read everything I wrote. He would always find my hidden journals,
stories and poems. He’d use every word against me until I could
defend them no more. Eventually I stopped defending them and would
simply sit there and let him scream until he would finally leave.
Then, alone again, I would either write it out as best I could or
simply stay insensitive and block out yet another horror that played
itself out in a house that was never a home.
For almost 10
years that was my life and with every passing day it felt like I was
going crazier even if I never noticed. But the dark poems that I have
just gone through and thrown out said it all. They describe all of
the morbid things that came from the mind of a 14-year old who only
wanted out of agony and despair. There’s a light at the end of the
tunnel, I always heard people say. But is there?
I haven’t
written a journal entry for nearly six years now. There’s the
occasional piece about lives to be salvaged and such, other peoples’
dramas, but none related to this. I have poems and my novel focuses
on related things. Yet to focus directly on what happened to me? I
guess it’s something I haven’t yet the bravery to do. It is there
and will be until I defeat it but how do you deal with something you
have yet to tell your own mother? How do you find a sign of life in
the dark when all you want is to simply move on and be happy, wishing
none of it ever happened in the first place?
I hear people
say you have to tell someone. You have to talk about it and let it
out. But it’s all words I don’t know how to say. Like telling my
first boyfriend just how I feel.
“We should just be friends. I
get the sense you’re not quite ready for this.”
I
couldn’t live with hurting him in anyway. So maybe this is better.
Maybe it is me. Maybe it is something I have to deal with. I want to
be ready for this, to take that leap of faith into a feeling and know
it is right simply because it feels so. I want to be loved and feel
loved, and I want to love someone. But I fear as long as the memories
are still there it may never happen. Mom’s ex knew how to do
damage. It is still here and sometimes I feel it is still breaking
me, piece by piece. For so long I have tried to ignore it and move
on. But some things are just always there. I don’t know if my
boyfriend is simply scared to be around someone who has been broken
or if he really means it when he says “We’ll see what happens.”
I feel like I’m a crossroads where I have to decide where
to go and what I want and what to do. But it breaks down to this: I
know where I want to go. Four years of school and I’m out of this
hopeless town. I know who I want: my family close to me and I want
someone who loves me in spite of all the demons in my closet. But
what to do? Well that’s a completely different story.
Sometimes
it simply feels as if no one understands. I know this isn’t true.
Sometimes I could just scream out loud in the emptiness, even if it
won’t solve anything. Other times it feels like I’m so far into
this that maybe I just won’t get out and it’ll be easier just to
live without someone. I don’t want to live like that, but
sometimes, just sometimes, I think it would be better. I won’t get
hurt, I won’t hurt him. Ideally, it would be easiest. But there’s
something about him I want close to me. I don’t know if he feels
the same. I guess if he doesn’t call again I’ll know for sure.
And I guess I’ll eventually know if there really is a light at the
end of this tunnel...
I woke up this morning and had to get
this out. At least now, no one can use this against me. But I guess
I’ll see what happens and with another breath, life will go on
whether everything is wrong or not. The sun still shines and the sky
is still blue, so the world hasn’t collapsed yet. I just feel so
confused, frustrated with myself. I’m not even really hurt per say
by him wanting to be friends. I am angrier at myself for thinking I
was past my childhood because it is obvious that I am not. I am also
mad that it feels like there’s no way to deal with this and nowhere
to turn out of fear that no one will understand. Writing this makes
me feel more vulnerable than I like, the same way I felt when I told
him what happened to me as a kid. When one builds up walls for so
long they’re a lot harder to dismantle than they are to build up.
And I guess that light everyone talks about is somewhere beyond the
grasp of ghosts. I wouldn’t know. I’m still surrounded by them.
But to live in the shadows of all that has been is to
simply not move on. Light is where you learn to live again and to be
free of all that has held you back.
I only wish I knew how it
felt. If it feels anything like dancing in the rain with someone who
means so much, it is like a refreshing shower of bliss as clouds
slowly roll away to reveal the rainbows, it is like his smile when he
watches you leap through the deepest puddles cause they’re the ones
that splash the best. It is like holding his hand while walking
through the alleyways and wondering if really he could be the one, if
ever there is a way for the broken to love again. But I know the
broken can love. The hurt I feel for potentially hurting him proves
not only that I am vulnerably human in spite of the outer shell of
strength, but that as someone who has, like so many, been hurt and
broken, I can love.
Funny the word compromise comes to mind
now. All of those things I can let go of as long as he understands
just what it all means in the end. Funny how a word like love is so
often associated with light. I think I get what it means now, and
just where my light might lie as long as the past is something just
of the past and nothing more. There is no rewinding, there is no
going back. I am only as far into this as anyone can pull me out.
This is everything I have been feeling lately. But I think I’m
alright if only I can simply breathe and know that moving on is much
better than staying in the past.
Eloquent Mirror
Silk-enraptured angels
hide
childish fears from all these years.
By shadow of the eloquent
mirror
that little girl is a warrior,
fighting until there is
no turning back.
I’m still standing here today,
after
everything you put me through.
It’d be easy to loathe you
but
war paint wears off
when the rain falls down,
long after
you’re gone,
some wounds never heal…
When I cried, you
tortured me more.
When I fought back you whispered: “don’t
scream…”
No one would have heard if I did,
trapped in some
skeletal asylum.
Suffocating ghosts in the eloquent mirror,
haunting this room where once you stood
reaping the innocent
soul again and again,
watching me…taunting me…
ravaging
silk savagely...
and the petals drift whimsically…
innocence
lives on…
violet ribbons in midnight skies.
Broken,
crumpled…
Screaming until you were finished with me...
Lying
alone I was crying.
Little girls shouldn’t have to be
warriors.
She shouldn’t have to fight
with tiny hands to
save her innocence,
to someday look in the mirror
to despise
what she sees.
War paint never really goes away.
She doesn’t
giggle. She doesn’t bat her eyes.
She feels ugly.
She looks
back on you and
shatters mirrors with bare hands...
She was
never told she was innocent.
I’m standing here today
but in
the end she still feels alone.
4 a.m. (Ice Covered Roses)
Wish I could say it was
wrong after all;
something to blame for 4 a.m. musings,
like
lyrics and useless conversations on the phone.
Wandering round
this darkened house
like some weird ghost.
Seen you in the
doorway when visions
shatter like glass veins cracking;
circle
dances of witchery mystification.
I hide from the glaze in your
eyes.
Leave it behind but you’re still there
when lights
flicker on.
I don’t know what to say.
We are all
whimsical figures of self-disgrace.
If I knew how to make it
better I would.
You sit, dismally arrayed behind sobriety’s
mask.
It’s messed up but makes sense.
Wandering town for
another cycle
of seasons and wasted years.
Bigger dreams
overtake hatred for you…
If I don’t touch clouds I can say I
tried.
Blamed myself too long for what you did.
It was
your hands touching me that way,
but it was my fault.
It was
your drunken breath over me,
but I deserved it.
Snow descends
over this cold city,
flashbacks of frigid nights beneath
blankets of insecurity.
Call me broken, unfixable, call me
hard to handle.
I blame you for making me strong.
I
blame you for 4 a.m. lyrics that will
tell the world what you did
to me.
This is my dairy; it screams to untouchable clouds;
resonates December nights,
the ice-covered roses of velvet
discontent.
I blame you for these pages
scattered around the
room.
I am alone again when night falls.
I could blame you
for loneliness,
for dark and desolate bitterness
But I kind of
like it this way.
Blood Paint
Twenty years worth of blood on the
walls
painted red;
smears of a little girl’s hands.
She’s
been sinking slowly
for a lifetime now,
down where joy is
mere giggles,
where the bed is an asylum
for nightmares where
she screams.
Twenty years swallowed in oblivion;
I
will haunt you if I die down here,
hands stained in my own blood.
It’s not suicide;
that’s not what these lyrics are about.
They describe so diligently
blood paint.
I see in
visions dancing
like some gothic gypsy,
with black lace
draped over restless skin.
She’s been down for a while.
No
one ever sees her drown.
No one sees ghosts in her face,
graveyard eyes,
head stones of unscripted names.
She
speaks them but no one listens.
I remember them all
when no
one else does.
I remember how it felt
to be held down,
to
be friends with shadows,
to go insane
deep in some
blood-soaked asylum.
Stone walls;
blood painted,
haunted,
livid...
Twenty years sinking slowly,
drowning in my own blood,
screaming.
I have been dead
for years.
Am I only haunting this world?
Only the ghost of
me really knows.
Paper Flowers and Lace
Paper flowers and lace
are
strewn all over the place.
Swallowed in some screaming,
swallowed in the pain.
Night skies swirling...
Ruled once
again;
silence-bound lace,
possessions of broken
mirrors,
torn-up photographs
of a human that never
was.
Deadened wildflowers crumbled;
trampled once again.
Did it feel good to treat me the same?
Ghosts roaming
wistfully,
moaning painfully.
Naked cores hidden from view;
your breaths lived there for a while.
Been fighting them too
long.
Breaking down;
condemned
to this house;
swallowed.
Scare me to death.
Beat me until I can’t
cry anymore.
Scare me to death
until only paper
flowers
flutter haphazardly on your breathing,
swallowed in my
screaming.
You
can walk out the door
but you
will
never forget.
I’ll still be here
with paper flowers
and lace
scattered all over the place.