I feel like…
I feel
I have feelings
What happened?
I feel like I etched my name on a page of college ruled
notebook paper
Sara June Asay
Zero Nine, Zero Three, Nine Two
Twenty-one years have passed
That piece of paper is filling up with notes from my life
experience
With diagnosis after diagnosis
Treatment options that didn’t work
High hopes and plummeting lows
My best friend, who’s no longer a friend
My many moons ago’s, and I remember it like it was
yesterday’s
The page overflows with criticism of my ever present
imperfections
My neuroticisms and everywhere I fell short
I drew an apple core on the page and filled it in with dark
graphite lead
The core of my being, an empty existence
And a sketch of a measuring tape borders the page
To ensure that I fit perfectly within the parameters of my
expectations
I turned the yellow #2 school pencil around
The pink rubber end kissed my name on the top of the page…
I stopped for a moment
It had never occurred to simply take my name off the page
Instead of trying to erase all of the ugliness carved on the
paper
I could simply erase my name, and the piece of paper that I
had become
No longer belonged to me, and I no longer belonged to it
I took a moment than went back to work
But the cheap yellow #2 pencil eraser only smeared my
existence
It rubbed an uglier mark through my name
Now everyone knows my secret
That I am so ashamed of those 12 letters
And all that defined them in black and white
That I wanted myself and all others to forget
The existence of this person behind the nomenclature
Sara June Asay
As if a change in name, or the lack there of
Will actually make all of the shame built up around it
Like the bricks of a tall building
With fear, the mortar
Make that existence cease to be remembered
The page is still there, ever changing but never forgetting
My name feels like a mistake…
I tried to erase it but it only smudged
Out of despair and hopelessness a tear fell down my cheek
And landed like a cannonball off the hive dive in the middle
of the paper
Right over the word that read “worthless”
Its wetness bore a hole through the word
I only cared so much to shed a tear
Because part of me wanted so badly to believe
That I was, in fact, worth it
And the very well from which I drew it
Destroyed the same word that made it feel so weak
And every time I feel
Yes I fell,
Every time I feel like I’m so worthless
I remember the tear that wanted something more for me
Boring through the very word that made me feel so alone
The wish I had for myself, destroyed the pain on that page
Erasing my name with that yellow #2 school pencil
Only left me feeling more defective, broken, and absent
But destroying that which pulls me down
With the last drop of hope left in me
Creates room for more…
Beyond words on a page of college ruled notebook paper
Beyond the trace of black graphite on a white canvas
Beyond anything that defines me or hold me back
Because I don’t look at my Nephews big hands and say,
He’s going to be a pianist
Because I look at my Nephew and say,
He is now, always has been, and always will be Carter
Because I can’t look at that little girl and say,
She was bad in the core
Because I want to look again at that little girl and say,
Your core is hurt, I see you, and I believe in you
Beyond a number, a word, a label
Beyond a diagnosis, a social standing, a role
Beyond anything this society has made you believe you are
worth
Rubies and Pearls
I’ll buy you a star
Barbie “dolls”
He’s Prince Charming and you’re Cinderella
Unworthy of simple love
But so lucky to dazzle him with your fairy tale beauty
You are worth more than all the stars in the sky
Open your eyes and see the life all around you
Open your heart and feel the life within you
Take off your mask and let them see your face
The eraser didn’t work because you are not meant to be
erased.
