Vagina Poem

It has been a long day, a long and good day. My body feels good. It likes the sun and the soft heat. I smile a lot and talk to people and admire flowers, and more flowers.


Vagina

my legs are wide, open
who?, looks inside

nothing, go, away,
nothing?

my legs open wide
another who? prods inside
nothing, go away, nothing

i am in pain, i say

against the white wall my words bounce

another who?
another white wall

my legs are spread, open
who? specialist who? looks inside
go away you nothing

i am in pain white wall bounce out of here now

who? spreads wide legs open
white wall echo's pain

my head bang bang bang into white wall
pain and terror
strangle me

they, they, they do not see
me
spread your legs
vagina

BUT I AM IN PAIN. DO YOU HEAR? I CAN'T WORK. I CAN'T WALK. I CAN'T LIVE.

get out of my white wall you baby crying dot
go get a shot
something is wrong with your head

white white wall turns to barbed wire
train track under my feet
barbed wire twisting
mutilating my insides

get out, you are fine, get out

was i once human?

what am i now?

rolled ball of knives
razor blades
boiling ball flames

no such thing you girl crazy

crazy crazy crazy
in the closet

crazy crazy no such thing railway tracks

spread your legs crazy
crazy spread your legs


razor blades ripping through my flesh day and night

pudendal neuralgia?

yes, yes

we know

how terrible

i am so sorry

spread your legs dead crazy white walls echo

when did i become human again

WHY DIDN'T ANY OF THE GOD-DAMN DOCTORS LISTEN TO WHAT I WAS TELLING THEM? WHY DID NOT ANY OF THOSE GOD-DAMN HUMAN BEINGS HEAR MY DESPERATE CRY FOR HELP?

I write the horror in poetry. I think that to write it in prose is still too painful. I was dehumanized. I became invisible. What I said did not matter. No ONE took the time to try to hear me, to try to help me. Being invisible was terrifying. Being invisible when I was pleading and crying for help transformed the world into a terrifying place. My body was in complete disconnect and I was desperately trying to get what I was experiencing across to the doctors. They could not see anything wrong and my desperation meant nothing to them.
I was just another patient to walk into their office and to walk out of their office. My cry for help, my desperation, my explanation that I could no longer function because the pain was so intense and overwhelming fell onto so many doctor's deaf ears. It is frightening when everything turns black like that around you, when everyone shuts down around you.


TODAY I was back, me, the one that I thought that I lost forever; the open and smiling one that talks to strangers and has life happen to her at such a pace where the spiritual and the physical mingle into one reality. TODAY, I thought of the people who left me on the road-side, and I said baaaaaah, I am still alive. Baaaaaaah, you have not succeeded in destroying me. Baaaaaaah it is me, it is me, this is me. DAMN YOU ALL uncaring souls. I care. I have love and compassion in my heart. 

Today I can actually say that I felt happy.

I believe that this is the first time in two and a half years that I felt happy for a day; a whole day.


My father came home today and he helped me water the flowers.

I wish that more people would read my blog. I wish that people would respond to my blog. I wish that people would share with me. I wish...

for another happy day, tomorrow.

Love,
    Atara

survivor

I found three

i found three
new
born
kittens

squealing

a box
wrapped in white strips of nylon

no, not the box
the kittens

i untied them from the nylon
and more nylon

they remained tied to each other

the vet used surgical scissors
their umbilical cords had been tied together

newborns, their eyes still closed

three baby kittens

i fed them baby milk
i kept them warm
i put them on soft fabrics
i sang to them and held them

oh, but one died

and i buried him

and another died

and i buried him

The third one lived
The third one opened his eyes
The third one grew fur
The third one yawned and drank and purred

Every day I loved his little lion cheeks more
Every day I counted one more day of health and strength

All night he squealed and cried
All night I lay awake

Was he crying for the life he knew?
For the life he now knew that he was losing?

Was he crying from pain?
His cries were shrill and desperate

He cried for hours

With the morning his body stiffened

Can i blame you?

Still, you had the strength to grow and  to live even after what had been done to you.

You had the courage to try even after you had been taken from your mother and had been tied and twisted to your brothers by your umbilical cord

And that strange white nylon that was ripped into strips
that ensured that your death would be gradual

little guy
i love you

rats

The Rat

the rat
rolled
glued
the metal
the cage

electric shock
system
wires clamped
genitals
rats

barbed wire
sawed
twisted

small
female
hole

i lay
rats gnaw
raw rats

gnawed away

in the corner of my childhood

room

the beast

It has been a good day. Yesterday too. I brought my pink fliers to the pain clinic today. On wed. they will be put out. I wonder if women will contact me.


The Beast

the camel
tied
his nose to the stake in the ground

Every move
rips
Every move
tears
Every move
salt and snot

Every blink
nails into the beasts eyes

The beast breathes
the beast eats
the beast cries

The beast hears laughter
sees movement

the beast's nostrils open and close

the beast rips its face out of the metal noose

only to know
that the noose is inside
embedded in its flesh

and there is nowhere
no way to escape

the laughter and the sun grate
themselves against the iron

beast die
die, beast die

the beast cannot die

die

beast

die

damn you, die

the fight and the flag

Three days in bed, three days of rain and tears, three more days of my life lost to this horrible condition. Three days wishing that my life could end with a final period . now .

And then, the awakening, the coming back to life, the fighter in me pushes its way out from the dark abyss. I don't even feel her until she has made it through to my throat, until the tears turn into wrenched sobs and here she is, again. I know her so well, sometimes i wish that she would die too. But she does not. She fights with her spirit and she has a spirit that is much larger and much braver then me. She comes up out of the dungeon, out of the depression with pretty pink posters : SUPPORT GROUP FOR GENITAL PAIN SYNDROMES.  She bought  the pink/violet paper many months ago. She carried it on her back even though she knew that she was carrying too much. She had plans and they were going to be pink and violet. Most of all, they were going to be. This is me.

Truly, this has always been me, only that now the pain pins me down. And she, she keeps on going. Despite the despair, despite the loss, despite the pain, she is waving pink paper. She is fighting for her survival. Don't ask me why.

I would prefer to just end it now. Like I said, with a clean round plump or dehydrated period.
She, she still has so many plans for me.
The pain.
Sometimes we fight it together. And sometimes we split.
I am not quite sure what we are fighting for.
Whatever it is, it is much larger then me.
I have been destroyed and crushed by the pain long ago. I am ember.

She, on the other hand will be sure to take a picture of the pink paper and to post it here. Trust me, I know her so well.

Victory is earned so tediously. I finally got the okay to put my posters in the pain clinic. But only on wed., the day that Dr. Volovska is in the clinic.

I put a pile two weeks ago. I was told it was okay. Then I found out that they were all thrown away, dumped in the garbage, in the bin. How sweet, I wonder if the paper was recycled. My effort and the ink won't be recycled. I had to call and call again and one more time and maybe this time and I will not give up this time and I am depressed and in bed and in pain and this time.....thank you, I will use my pink/violet paper this time. Another little step, another little step towards getting her the support she needs.

The Video

Tomorrow we continue working on the video. I hope I can get some beauty sleep. I wish my room could get some too, but I think that I will have to clean it.

Lyla Tov Neshamot Tehorot
(Hebrew:goodnight pure souls)

Today i can write

When I was deep in suffering and certain that my destiny was to suffer the endless torture of pne (pudendal nerve entrapment) and to eventually end it by some form of suicide..... I was unable to write much. I was terrified of everything, the ring of the phone made my heart race...noise, light... my brain was only pain, my mind was only pain, everything else was unreal, belonged to another world, a world that I once inhabited, a world that I desperately wanted to return to....I lay chained, stakes through my pelvis and up into my vagina. I cried in a way that I never had known before, wrenched out from a place within myself that I never knew existed.  A place? A dungeon of hell, of torture with no end in sight except by my own hands. How do you mourn the loss of your own life? And how do live with such torture? You don't. You don't live. You suffer desperately, endlessly. You suffer being cut up, sliced, burnt, electrocuted, twisted and wrenched ....and stabbed and stabbed and you cannot fathom that this is really what is happening to you. You cannot fathom pain that is so absolutely mind-blowing, pain that leaves you wishing you could tear your own body into pieces, pain that none can see,,,,
over and over, hour after hour, day, night, day, night..... I thought that I would go insane. I thought that I would lose my mind. I wanted to rip my self out of my body.

I am trying to balance things out here. Today I am better. Today, usually, there is one knife deep inside my vagina. It is exhausting and difficult and I cry. But I live too and I live a lot and I know that I have not gone insane and I know that life can be stronger then this god-damn condition and I know that I can see and feel things that I could not before. I am no longer only in pain. I am in pain, but I am in life too. And I can enjoy what life offers again.

So, I am trying to balance things here. I guess also for my readers and for myself . The horror is real. But today unlike then I can see and feel the beauty of the flowers. Then I could see the flowers but I could not feel them. That was scary too. Everything around me was unreal. And the life that I had lived belonged to a different me.

Until slowly I gained 'me' back and life began to teach me its wonders again.
I take pictures of the spring.

last spring i did not feel the spring
i did take pictures of the flowers
and i saw their beauty
this spring i see the flowers differently
my god, they are so beautiful
so so beautiful

i can feel them in a way that i never have before
i look inside of them and i see

i see and feel them
and i thank them

for their incredible

beauty

Drawings from my diary

These are drawings from my diary from about a year 

and a half ago when my pain/suffering was at its worst

drawing from my diary; please allow me to die

day in, day out, broken and exhausted, morning and night

why are you torturing me like this? why must i suffer like this?

no arms, no legs

father, must a child live for their parent?
week, month, year

time is caged in my pelvis

let me go

god damn this hell

The Eruption of the Divine Female

the eruption of the divine female; art therapy workshop, 2011

our vaginas are just as beautiful

wow, is she erupting!!!! beautiful!!! spring you are an amazing goddess.

the view from my bedroom window; flowers, the jewelry that i make and my stones

So, things aren't that bad. The fact that marijuana helps makes me hopeful. It makes no sense that medical marijuana is illegal in mass. I think that this is idiotic and detrimental to pain-sufferers. To think that there is something that we can grow ourselves to help us get control over the pain and over our lives makes me feel good. I am not completely dependent on the medical 'system' and on health-care for my survival. I can grow my life together too!  

I just uploaded some of my drawings from the art therapy workshop. And I uploaded some of the pictures from my neighbor's garden that i took yesterday. She has some very beautiful flowers and so many different sorts. Lovely.

Whoever is reading this. I cannot stress this enough. try some pot. we need as many soldiers as we can get in our army. or as many flowers as we can get in our garden.

love,

atara


           

Oh yeah, and then the time that I cried and cried and cried. And my mother hugged me and asked me why i was crying. And i told her that i was crying because I was worthless. And she said "How could you be worthless." And she said "Don't you see how valuable you are to us."

Today when I spoke to my father i asked him "doesn't our love mean something to you?"

Shouldn't love be stronger then pain and depression.

Sometimes it isn't. It just isn't.

Until you smoke a joint and remember all the happy and shiny people.


My father said that he would like to smoke a joint with me. He was too good a boy to ever smoke a joint. So, even 70 year olds suffering from clinical depression  have reasons to be alive.

My dad will be 70 next month. I plan to make him a surprise party. Just cuz i wanna see him smile and laugh. I really miss seeing him smile and laugh. When he smiles and laughs his eyes and his mouth get so close to each other. Just thinking about it makes me smile. It is kind-of hard to see my father's face smiling and to not smile too. There is sweetness and playfulness and love and kindness and understanding. And you can see it all so clearly when he smiles.

So, i have something to look forward to also. Maybe a little joint in an envelope will be his birthday present.

Hey friend from Cape Cod, thanks for calling. You stopped my tears.

Love,

Atara



Feeling worthless, valueless.

I have lost my hands

I have lost my eyes

I have two teeth left

I am feeling useless.

I am in the corner.

What can I do?

I am in the dark.

What can I do?

You can smoke a joint and remember.

So, as you see, I have begun writing poems about Marawana.
This might mean that the transformation may have already taken place.

How do you know when you have crossed the line between smoking pot and becoming a pot-head?

For me it was when I was in Cape Town smoking pot every day and reading only books that were about pot.

Now i know that i have crossed the line because i am writing poetry about pot.

Oh, boy i like this.

This is good man.

why did it take so long for the medicine woman to give it to me???

a very smart doctor informed me that marawana works for pain.

That is a good doctor!

Cute too. And black. I have always had a very soft spot for black men. They come even before the long-haired men.

A good-looking young black doctor. I asked him if he was a nurse. He just looked too sweet to be a doctor. And a little too opened minded.

My last pain-doctor just did not get it. He diagnosed me with pudendal neuralgia. I ideolized him. He undermedicated me to a very dangerous degree.

They don't get it. It is like the pain-scale they have in their office that makes me want to scream.
It is dangerous when pain-doctors don't get it.

My pain-doctor today gets pain. She gets it. Not that she can just heal it. But she doesn't waste any time. She has suggestions and options.

My x-pain doctor just told me and my family that one day i will just live with the pain and that within a year i will just be back into life.

He didn't understand that I was going to end my life because the pain was unbearable.

He was stubborn too, refused to let me try a narcotic. He said that narcotics are a dark alleyway and that he was not gonna put me on that road.

Dood,

dood, you cannot send someone who is dying from pain  DYING FROM PAIN ,,,, you can die from pain...

to a room with a very sweet and kind occupational therapist who talks to me about what things i would like to do more of in my life.

 I am bawling from the pain,

bawling because i cannot do the things that i want to do

not because i don't want to,  not because my foot has to get taught how to walk again

but because i am IN SO MUCH PAIN!!!!!!!

the lack of understanding of pain makes us feel only more hopeless

we walk around from doctor to doctor only to get quizzical looks

What, do you think that i am making this up?

You think that i am crazy?

That i am fantasizing the pain??

Damn it,

It has to come from us

We have to make it be heard

Why?

Don't waste your time asking why

cuz you are not going to get an answer

Part of it is the fact that sex was considered shameful, the meaning of the word PUDENDAL is SHAME. So sex is shameful and if we enjoy it we are going to got to hell and Lord knows what else. Part of it is that we internalized this shame and were unable to talk about our vaginas. Part of it is that if we talked about our vaginas we were probably considered....

Part of it is clearly the opression of women, and the control that men had and to this day have over the female body. Look at female circumsicion, look at rape, look at domestic violence, incest... wherever you want to, if you really want to, you will see it.... it is everywhere, it is rampant, it is the norm, it is more then average. India, Africa, the Arab countries and yes, all over the modern world.

Here it is a bit more hidden. It is a bit more controlled.

Here we can talk about vaginas. We can enjoy sex. Our sexual organs aren't torn out of our bodies by our own mothers. Here we arent exchanged for cattle or sold to marriage at the age of 12, or sold to prostitution at the age of 8.

I think that it is time

I think that it is our responsibility

I think that we are the ones that know

And it is true, it is hard to fight when you are sick

But there are ways, we can help eachother, slowly,

I believe cuz if i did not believe then i would not be alive today

And S/he just aint ready to take me yet.

S/he wants to visit my garden.

And she wants to teach me how to play with stones.

And she wants to smoke pot (I am telling you, i am becoming a pot-head.)

And she, me , the goddess, the marawana, whatever you wanna call it wants to live

But Damn, it is hard to live with pain


(Hey Allie, thanks for telling me that you like the stream-of consciousness blogs the most. Kind-of like the chain/earing?? that you liked.)

Some people like it clean. They like it simple. They want it real.
Man, that is the kind-of woman that i want in my army.

Goodnight girls

Marijuana

Marijuana works for the pain. I was crying today and in bed, feeling the pain very intensely. Marijuana helped me through today.
It it isn't the miracle drug. I still feel the pain but it is less in the fore-front. Other things get more focus. It kind-of over-rides the pain a bit. But it only lasts for a few hours. Truthfully, my joint is almost finished and i am eager for more.

So, i don't know

I do love sun-flowers and long-hair and men with long hair, ...

And I do love being in less pain. Cuz then I am just a bit more in life. And sometimes that is exactly what i need to get me through the day.

For now it is a yes.

I recommend it.

I guess i will be a pot-head for a while. I will keep you up-dated as to where it takes me.



Well, I can't stop writing without saying thank you to my friends. Cuz it is their love that got me through this till today.


I wish that one day i could help many people that are in pain get out of pain, or at least learn how to live with it well. I wish that I could learn how to carry my pain with love.

I think that i do, but i cry a lot and feel that i lost so much of my life and i feel scared a lot.

Goodnight friends

My neighbor helped me plant a lot of plants in my garden today. My garden makes me smile.

Love,
Atara

A guest!!!!!

Guest blogger: Allie

Allie: This is a piece from the Art Therapy Workshop Atara led along with a description. I'm honored to be asked to be a 'guest blogger' and I hope whoever reads this finds this meaningful and inspiring. I'm dedicated to the cause of helping women cope with pelvic pain conditions and I welcome your feedback.

When I wake up each morning, I look over the mound of my husband (or the pulled back sheets he left
after wakening) at the clock on his bedside table. If it’s early, and I can’t get back to sleep, that means
more hours of the day in pain. If it’s later, I’m relieved that I will have less hours in pain, especially since I usually have at least two drinks at night, so even if I stay up late, the alcohol has numbed my nervous system, and therefore my pain, to a tolerable level.

Art therapy workshop, 2011
Allie's drawing

My pain varies daily, hourly. Most of the time it is a stinging, shooting pain that radiates over my entire vulvar region. In this depiction of my pain, my vulva is red and irritated. The black tendrils represent  the stinging, radiating pain – a pain that is evil and menacing, and seems to exist outside of my body. The blue surrounding the vulva is meant to be a cooling liquid or force, which represents the varieties of treatment – psychological, medical, and homeopathic – I am employing to combat the pain. But regardless of the large amount of healing energy represented by the blue background, the black tendrils overpower it. The flower that covers the vaginal opening has multiple meanings. First, and the most obvious, it is in reference to the vulva’s flower-like nature. Second, the fact that the flower covers the vaginal opening means that it is not accessible right now, because I am unable to have intercourse. It’s a barrier to pleasure. Thirdly, it represents a gag, an inability in the medical community and society/culture at large to speak about this devastating condition, which is not particularly rare. So the symbolism of the flower is ironic – it both represents the cultural idea of femininity but also silences the feminine voice. It exposes the rampant sexism that continues to pervade Western culture and medicine.

Flowers

As you can see from the pictures that I post here, I love flowers.

Today I ordered A LOT of bulbs, mostly tulip-bulbs. They will be sent to me in late Sept and that is when I will plant them.  And I will dream about them until next spring. Then I will take pictures of them and post them here for you! I am a flower addict. I love love love flowers. I think that they, along with butterflies and dragonflies are very courageous to live and express their beauty in such a  world. Last year I wanted to plant flowers for my mother around the big tree in the middle of our front yard. This year I did it!!!  I am determined to surround us with many flowers. They will be our fortress. They help us keep faith. They remind us to take a deep breath.

And tulips- they remind me of the sweet old man who lived down my street ... One moment my seven year old hands were tugging at tulips, the next moment i was staring into the eyes of a full-grown male human being. I froze, my head tilted upwards to meet my bad fate.  My little hands clenched my stolen treasure as i waited for my scolding. I just hoped that it would be quick and that i could run home before the tears came.

The tulip-man asked me softly if  I liked his garden. I nodded yes. My little ears registered curiosity and kindness in his voice. I looked into the tulip man's eyes and my eyes confirmed what my ears had heard. There was no anger in his eyes.

Yes, I nodded again. Indeed, I liked his garden very much, so much as to have to talk myself out of picking its flowers every day on my way to and back from school. Today I  could no longer control what felt like an impulse.

The tulip man asked only a few questions and then politely invited me to continue picking flowers. It seemed as though he had no desire to disturb me in my business.

I thanked the tulip man very much and walked a few houses down to present my mom with her gift.

I never picked flowers again from the tulip-man's garden. I knew full well that here was a man that had earned every flower that grew in his garden.

The tulip-man has moved away or died. The treasure that he gave me has not.


Soft eyes of Love

Soft eyes of Love
With tender patience
and faithful trust
light green eyes; i bathe in their gentle expanse
and
find self and spirit
resting

Your voice,  your trust in me, your loyalty tap through distance and time
and reach me

You show me
and
guide me to the place, the in between spaces where spirit inhabits

Through you i can reach into those treasures that lie within me

You see
You see
You see





I wrote this little poem for a friend, a real good friend
no wonder it came up here with the tulip-man
some souls simply belong together