When Heroes Fall

Posted on by sereichert

I’d been trying to think of something writer-like to put on the blog this week. I am, after all, a writer and my blog is about more than just book signings and the random outburst of poetry. It’s a space for aspiring and seasoned writers to not feel so damn alone. To know that we exist in a universe together, with other, weird little writers. We inspire and uplift each other. Sometimes we are cautionary tales, or serve as examples good and bad to one another. We critique and offer hands up, teach and learn, all together, knowing that the heart of an artist is surrounded in a soul more sensitive than most.

We see the world differently. We hear it and smell it, and absorb it. We make connections and notice the little things that many don’t. Its often why we suffer so much more greatly. But this week. This week I watched and read as whispers of misconduct became horrible, horrific truths. About someone I used to admire very deeply. Someone I thought understood and abhorred causing unnecessary suffering. I read his books. I read my children his books. I bought his graphic novels, I enjoyed his writing advice. He was incredible and creating characters and monsters.

Then the truth came out that he was one. A true-to-life monster.

For years, and in very dark and disgusting ways, he committed monstrosities. Ways that I cannot as a feminist, as a human, as an artist, or as a soul made of stardust, reconcile with. It took every one of his books off my shelf, and put it in the recycling bin.

But you can hate the artist but love the art, right? All of those terrible acts don’t negate that he’s a good writer… Here’s where I brush aside that morally gray line.

NO. I can’t love the art of someone who’s soul is so rotten and sick that he’d do that to another person.. Yes, those terrible things DO negate that he’s a good writer. Because the brain that created those words, also created and excised pain and terror on actual human beings.

Here’s the bottom line. I’m fed up with a world offering excuses to people who behave this way. Weighing a ledger between talent and atrocity. Where its ‘kinda okay’ because I don’t want to give up my special editions? No. It matters. It matters who we support and what we allow, and I’m done allowing it.

I took his books off my shelf, for those girls and women. For my daughters, for anyone who’s ever fallen victim to a hero, and every hero who’s ever taken advantage. That’s not heroism.

He’s not allowed in my house anymore. I’ll never willingly read his words again or buy any more of his books. I hope he turns the monstrosities and horrors he put out into the world, back in on himself where they belong.

The Past Holds on in Dark Places

Posted on by sereichert

I’ve been debating, but I think this post just has to happen.

It’s been a heavy weight on my heart for almost two years now, and I’m ready to move on…to healthier spaces, to new horizons. But I can’t fully do that, when this shadow has been living in my peripheral. Because, sometimes trauma thrives in dark places. And I need to shine a light on it, even if no one is paying attention. Because otherwise it will continue to tendril itself to my ankles like a weight, an anchor solidly planted in the black of the ocean’s floor, and never let me be completely free. The only way to get loose, to get back to the light, to be free…is to get a knife and start cutting. But I can’t do that, until I shed light on the chains. Even if it risks losing a limb.

Imagine, for a moment, being in this place with me. See if you feel caught in the same chains. Feel your breath burning in your lungs, from the silence you keep.

Know you’re drowning.

Here’s a story, of something that happened. Not so long ago, but long enough that I feel safe in letting it go. So…here I go…

Suppose as a young mom, with very few friends and isolate from the world (not even admitting you’re a ‘writer’ yet) you stumble upon a martial arts school. You remember being in Kenpo in college and loving it. How it empowered you, gave you friends and community…so, being a mom of young women, you start your kids there. Because it seems to teach ideals and principles that you agree with. Self defense, discipline, respect, integrity. All good and decent. Your kids have fun, and you join the program, to be a part of their journey as well as to start your own. As time passes, they move on (as kids do) to new adventures. But you’ve found a home there. A real home. Friends, community, purpose. You love the art. You have plans for the future practicing this art.

Its inexplicable how deep in your bones you feel it. It’s like it was always there waiting for you to find. It might have even been something you always knew from eons ago, because it felt organic and made sense, and the way it taught you to move and use your power was the most beautiful thing you’ve ever had.

So not only do you want to continue to live in this world, but you want to teach others, you want to help kids, you want to encourage women in the art. So you work hard, nights and weekends, extra study and home and private lessons, and getting up early for weapons classes and staying late to help with questions. It is your life, and the family and friends you’ve made on the journey are as close to you as your own heart beating in your chest. You feel safe. You feel finally respected and equal as a woman, even in such a man’s world.

Then…one day…

A man you’ve worked with for almost ten years, who has always been like a big brother to you, completely platonic in your eyes, a family man to all who know him, your coach, your mentor, and someone you trust implicitly…starts to say things to you. Uncomfortable things. He starts sending them via messenger, non stop. From the moment you wake up in the morning until you try to sleep, he’s there…prompting, asking, demanding your attention.

You don’t respond, you deflect, you laugh it off. You ask him to stop.

Because he’s a man of this art–this art of integrity and discipline–and a family man, your coach, your mentor, you think he must just be confused, or teasing, or…joking? And when you tell him its uncomfortable and you don’t like it, he should respect that you’re not interested. And stop. He should…right?

But he doesn’t. He doesn’t stop.

You block him. He tries to manipulate your friends and co-workers at the dojo into getting you to talk to him, feigns depression, sobs into your messenger, leaves depressing posts all over social media. Everyone is very concerned for him. But you are confused. Because you feel like you did something wrong. When all you asked for, respectfully, was for him to back off.

Why would someone, who was like a brother to you, act that way? Why wasn’t your no enough? You’ve blocked him, you’ve asked him not to work with you on the floor, you don’t speak to him. You won’t take classes with him. He tells your collective friends that you’re being stubborn and unreasonable. He leaves the school in an emotional outburst. You stay. Because this is your home, and your sanctuary. And you have children to teach who are the very beat in your heart and you cannot abandon them.

Only soon, it doesn’t feel like a sanctuary because two weeks later, he comes back, starts requesting classes, starts saying that his mental health is at stake. He starts leaving typed notes in your employee box, tucked into books for you…telling you that you’re denying the truth of your own feelings (as though he knows your feelings better than you do?) He gushes that he loves you. That you belong together, that you’re fated for one another… You bring it to the head of the school. Because now it’s happening at work, and it’s gotten scary. This isn’t some passerby.

This is a man who outranks you, who could kill someone with his bare hands. And he’s made your workplace hostile.

And by hostile it means– you shake every time you pull up in the parking lot to teach. Your stomach is ulcering, you’re not sleeping. You hope, every night, that he doesn’t show up. Every time the bells ring on the doors into the dojo you cringe and look for the next higher rank. But it doesn’t help. Because no one knows.

Because your boss doesn’t want to ruin the man’s reputation. He doesn’t want to put a ‘stain’ on his school. Even though its more than just an inconvenience or a stain to you. It’s a dark and frightening world that’s closing in on you everyday. The man starts taking more classes, which means you take less. Your training suffers, you fall behind on your hopes of a higher degree and becoming a Sensei. Because you can’t be on the floor with him and you worry one day he’ll step onto the mats with you and do real, physical damage. You’re afraid it would lead him on if were nice out of fear, or even just in being near you, even if you ignored him completely. Because even when you gave a clear no, he only heard yes. You don’t feel safe.

You finally tell your boss, you can’t do this anymore. He tells you that you need to work with the man, to heal and get over it. That the man is depressed and they can’t possibly make him leave…what about his mental health? Can’t you two crazy kids just work it out? You tell him that there are laws against this sort of thing. He says he’ll think about it.

But you don’t need to think anymore. You can’t stay someplace that’s not safe, and the family that you thought you had is just a hierarchy of men looking to protect themselves, and any form of behavior they want to engage in. They are fine calling you their token female to promote a ‘family friendly’ atmosphere and boost female students to sign up, but you better not speak out for your actual rights to be safe, or against a higher-ranking belt, because that would make them look bad.

So you quit. A lawsuit is an option. But it also means an upheaval for the students, the kids and adults who find comfort in the art and in the community. It means years of litigation and strain on your own family, including financial weight you cannot afford. It means having to defend your ‘no’ to a bunch of men, who like the others before, don’t believe you.

So, you send in your resignation. The head of the school says he’s asked the man to never come back to any of their properties (out of fear of litigation, not out of a sense of what is right). They hope you’ll come back when you’re ‘feeling better’. They tell everyone you left to pursue a ‘book deal’. They don’t say that you left because you were being harassed.

You hope that you can feel better…you hope it will be safe again and your wounds will heal and you can move on and get back into the world and the practice and the teaching you love. 9 months pass. You start to take a couple of classes in different schools. You start to feel…buoyant, supported, you laugh on the floor again and you haven’t done that in over a year. You find an instructor you trust. You can hug people again and not feel…strange. You agree to cover a couple of classes to help them out. You sign up for an all-school event. Knowing you’ll have to prep for it, knowing its a big step, but feeling that you’re ready. And you’re excited at the challenge and at getting to practice again, and at being part of your family… Oh my God…how you’ve missed it, the motion, the science, the beauty…

But then…you feel the anchor on your foot, cutting into your ankle when someone pulls you aside and says, hey…he’ll be there you know? He’ll be there. At the event. They’ve let him register. He’s coming. He’s coming back. Just as you are. And your guts turn and you throw up and you can’t eat or sleep for days and you can’t not cry. It’s a cruel torture tactic, giving someone hope, for escape and freedom, only to shackle them down at the last second…

So you pull out your knife and you stare down at your foot and you know that you’ve only got one real choice if you want to survive.

And it isn’t to stay here, where this past, and this darkness, and this hurt is the weight keeping you under. You can’t possibly put your heart back into this water, now that the shark is circling. So you cut yourself free, and it must be complete. Through the bone, the limb can’t be saved. You won’t ever come back, there is no hope of it. You’ve lost a decade or more, of your life, of your passion, of the marrow in your bones. You’ve lost friends. Your family.

Because someone wouldn’t take no for an answer and someone else defended his ‘right’ to a yes.

So if you seem heartbroken in your posts and your correspondence, you hope its only temporary. You try to feign the idea that you’re ok. But when, for so much of your life, your safety, happiness, and well-being has, in one way or another, been snatched away by a man who thought he deserved your time and your light, its really hard to come back to ok.

I’ve been floating in the sea, bleeding, without a limb…fighting up, and away from the dark for a year and 6 months now… but there are days when I still feel like I haven’t breeched the surface yet. I want to shout out to the entire world, but I don’t think they’d listen. Because, I’ve merely become one of a couple hundred million women…who were told to stay silent, to not rock the boat, to be the anchor. The stability in status quo…

I’m not an anchor anymore. And its time to let go.

Thanks for listening. I know it won’t change anything and the damage is done. But half of my life’s goals, my passion, my love, was stolen from me and so if I have a hard time, sometimes, calling back, feeling happy, wearing fitted clothes, getting on and getting over, finding energy, finding confidence, trusting, coping with crowds… not looking over my shoulder when I hear bells ring… I hope you’ll understand. I hope you’ll give grace. To every woman.

Poetry 4-20-23

Posted on by sereichert

Today I’m going in for a root canal, after a rough week both personally and professionally. So…while I’m ‘enjoying’ all of my experiences, please enjoy this.

Let it seep beneath your clothes, let it draw out memories, a needle to the dark blood, and wash you clean again. Let it remind you that you are still here. A breath at a time. Through all the pain, the rough days, the personal and professional losses and gains. You’re still here.

So this isn’t a poem for the broken hearted
it is not for those who were left behind
or ghosted
or dumped
or abused
or disregarded

This is a poem for those who watched
as another soul walked away
or preferred their silence to truth
or was released from another person’s life
faced pain at their hands
or were simply ignored
into nothingness…

You are the warriors of time
you, who have felt the sting
of heartbreak 
and disappointments
revealed as new skin 
while hope lay, a the shed skeleton
in the dirt

you are the carriers of grief
and the bodies made of scars
and you have lived through
every burning cut
and every lonely night

This is not for the soul they thought 
they broke,
this is for the you that survived

I will not preach from some high tower
that you are stronger for it
that you are braver because of it
that you are a better person
a heart bigger, with cracks to let the light in

But I will tell you what I know

You survived.

You packed up your heart and your mind
and you moved on
You accepted their silence
you treated your wounds and closed the door
you started paying attention to yourself 
when they no longer did

and that carries weight
self determination
and the ability to move past
the fickle and soft-seated lies,
of a love always perched to flee 
the very second things got hard

Your feet remain grounded
and you endured

You heart is a seasoned warrior
and it may never let another in

but it doesn’t need to...

It might not even have the space

because in their absence
 
beyond the echoes of their abuse
the pain of their mistreatment,
you’ve filled your heart,
with the unfaltering love
of yourself

they can’t ever move back in

there isn’t room any more.

VerseDay 11-21-19

Posted on by sereichert

Good morning Poetry aficionados, thanks for joining me here on this blustery fall day. I think we’re beginning to finally see the petticoats of winter and the darkening days are upon us.

Sometimes, my friends, I come across a poem so powerful, so raw, so honest, that it moves me from some deep well inside. It connects me to my humanity and to the visceral pain of life and what it takes to come out the other side still kicking.

Today’s guest Verse is brought to you by Kathryn Balteff.

Kathryn Balteff is a poet, writer, and artist who currently moonlights as a used book, gift, and coffee shop owner, although over the years she’s also worked as an educator, sheep farmer, veterinary technician, and veterinary practice manager. She holds an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Southern Maine and an MA in English from Oakland University.

While Kathryn mostly is known for her poetry, she also pens essays, fiction, and killer to-do lists. Drawing inspiration from the landscape, sea, and the cosmos, Kathryn often can be found wandering the rocky trails near her home along the coast of Downeast Maine with her husband and their collie dog, Lady Kate.

Enjoy, share, and if you like it, let her know.

 

Good Daughter

 

You threw the plate to the floor at her feet.

The damn eggs were overdone, not over-easy, how stupid was she? I listened

and watched

while you cursed, threatened, and bullied my mother. Strange how I remember the first time, but never the last.

 

When I was older, Maybe nine,

I protested

Standing over her,

futile, scraggly-legged, human shield while she cowered on the floor

shards of broken gin tumbler around her feet.

You paddled me until I screamed

then made me write part of a Bible verse

1000 times at the desk in the corner of my room

Black-and-white grade school composition book chewed-end yellow Number 2 pencil

King James in childish printing.

“Thou shalt honor thy father. . .Thou shalt honor thy father. . . Thou shalt honor thy father . . .

 

I was stupid like her and

Ugly too.

 

I did not want to be that girl.

 

When I was eleven there was a college kid, Noreen, one of your students,

around our house,

a lot.

She was there so much my little brother named a stray cat after her. I hated that cat.

There was a party near the holidays.

Rock music, too loud laughter, cigarette smoke creeping upstairs under the door of my room where I

was supposed to be sleeping. I snuck down,

three stairs to the first landing, to see.

 

You in the dark hallway

with Noreen smashed up against the wall.

You were laughing.

She struggled silently against you. She looked up through tears.

She saw me.

 

Quickly I pushed myself backwards, sliding up the stairs. I crept into my room,

eased the door shut,

pushed my nightstand under the knob. hid in my closet, blanket over my head.

 

In the morning my mother was trying

to scour away the stench of stale alcohol, cigarettes, and something else I sensed, but did not understand. Because I moved my furniture without your permission, you made me scrub every inch of my room

and the bathroom again

and again

until you decided they were clean enough. I did not want to be that girl.

In high school I ran. I ran.

You bragged of being a track star when you were in school. You would be proud, I thought.

I was good.

For a girl.

But never good enough.

 

Still, I ran.

The day you finally left us,

I came home from track practice to find my mother ironing your shirts so you could pack them in the backseat of your car.

She was crying,

You were screaming obscenities at her. I shrieked at you to leave her alone. Just. Get. Out.

 

You pushed me hard to the ground

One leg buckled underneath, my other knee sliced open wide on a rock in the dirt.

Hot blood dripped down my leg onto my turquoise running shoes.

You told me that I got what I deserved

Again.

 

 

Who did I think I was?

I would learn my place. I ran.

A friend’s mother patched me up.

She never asked what happened.

I didn’t say.

I would not be that girl. I kept running.

Medals of tenacity clinking a rhythm against the varsity letter on my jacket. Years and years now

I have not run.

Still I hear those medals

as they marked each footfall that took me farther.

 

 

“I am dying,” your note says.

“You should be a good daughter.” “You should come to me.”

 

I will never be that girl.

 

You have been dying four long years since the cancer first arrived in your alcohol-preserved liver. The first year I grieved the what-ifs and could-have-beens,

the if onlys.

 

I lived sorrow, angst, guilt, anger, and more.

 

Those gaping, bloody wounds the years had slowed, yet not fully healed,

tore open.

Ugly infectious mess

seeping out onto my clean, though imperfect skin.

 

I am my own.

Only what I create.

Myself.

I can at least thank you for that.

 

I trim the ragged wounds with a new blade, delicately slicing away rot and neglect.

Pull the edges together,

Stitch neat, tight, hidden rows sealing up leaky vessels.

Add a drop or two of glue for good measure.

 

 

Mending well is hard work through so many layers.

 

There.

I look almost new again. I am this woman.

 

Kathryn Balteff

 

VerseDay 12-20-2018

Posted on by sereichert

 

 

Kiln

 

When you sculpt me today,

What shape will I take?

In careful, wet mud strokes,

What vessel will I become?

 

When you dry my skin in sun and wind

And abrade away the rough edges of my humanity,

What curves will your desire play upon?

Green and still so breakable, still changeable.

Scraped carefully down with blade and grit.

 

When you cast me in fire,

Warm bed that hardens the bonds.

What will I become then?

More permanent a fixture?

Or a mistake, forged.

 

Ruined.

 

Will you toss me into shattering pieces

Still not quite good enough?

Pulverized into nothing-dust

Mixed again…all over,

Cold wet lump returns

And I sigh, bottom flattened on table top

While itching fingers reach into me again.

 

What will you need me to be today?