face my ghosts
nobody’s perfect
nobody’s all bad
nobody’s all good
and nobody knows
what it’s like to live in
somebody else’s skin.
I’d like to understand why people did the things they did
I’d like to know what was going on in their heads
and their hearts
but the only thing I know for sure is that
I’m the last in a long line of lousy childhoods.
people tell me
why can’t you just get over it
which really means
why can’t you just forget about it
but they don’t understand that
forgetting is not a solution
because what is left forgotten
is left unhealed.
they don’t understand that
I have to find all the pieces of myself
that were shattered over the years
and lie scattered on the road to forgiveness.
they don’t understand that
I have to face my ghosts
so I don’t pass them on to someone else
like someone else
passed them on to me.
I have to face my ghosts
I have to find them
I have to name them
I have to know them
I have to set them free.
The face my ghosts by Rick Belden, unless otherwise expressly stated, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.
5 Comments Add your own
1. Tracie | April 24th, 2010 at 12:08 am
This expresses exactly how I feel! “I have to find all the pieces of myself
that were shattered over the years” This gives words that I never had to the feelings in my heart. Thank you for sharing this.
2. Patricia - Spiritual Journey Of A Lightworker | April 24th, 2010 at 1:09 am
Most people that want you to “just get over it” really want to say “Why don’t you just shut up about it.” I actually had someone tell me to just stop talking about my incest issues. They were tired of hearing me talk about it. This was in an Adult Children of Alcoholics group. At first I was hurt. Then I got angry. Then I realized that the two people that said this to me each had unresolved incest issues of their own that they didn’t want to think about or deal with. Thanks for sharing your poem.
3. Rick | April 25th, 2010 at 4:20 pm
Tracie: You said, “This gives words that I never had to the feelings in my heart.” That is one of the highest compliments I can receive on something I’ve written. Thank you.
Patricia: I’ve had similar experiences myself and I know how painful and confusing they can be. I’ve found that people have all sorts of reasons and motivations for attempting to keep the “ring of silence” around an adult survivor of childhood abuse intact. Sometimes the source of the mandate to “stop talking about it” is personal, e.g., unresolved childhood material, as you said. Sometimes it is the result of family conditioning, social conditioning, religious prohibition, etc. In some cases, I think it’s just flat-out difficult for a person who’s never had to deal with the effects of abuse firsthand to understand the time and the processes required for healing. None of this makes it any easier for those of us who have to do the work when we’re challenged to “keep it to ourselves.” But knowing that I’ll be challenged and that my own motivations will sometimes be misunderstood, and knowing some of the reasons why it happens, has helped me feel more secure in pursuing the unique path to healing that is right and necessary for me.
4. marj aka thriver | April 26th, 2010 at 11:15 am
Wow, Rick. Thank you. Thank you for this so much. “…what is left forgotten is left unhealed.” That is so true. I wish everyone truly knew this. It’s about breaking the cycle. Probably a cycle that in both of our cases was hugely multi-generational. Thanks for your advocacy AND your poetry. And thanks again for being in our Blog Carnival Against Child Abuse. I so appreciate your continued contribution.
5. Rick | April 27th, 2010 at 7:25 am
Marj: Thanks as always for reading and commenting. You’re correct about the multi-generational aspect in my case. I have another poem that addresses that issue in a more specific way. I may submit it for a future carnival. Both that piece and this one are included in the manuscript for my upcoming book, Scapegoat’s Cross: Poems about Finding and Reclaiming the Lost Man Within, which I’m hoping to have published later this year.
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