I wanted you to love me ugly.

[nonnymonster]

I wanted you to love me ugly.
Wanted Right to drag me kicking, screaming, into its bright light.
But the lambs cried and I would be fine.
How could you find time for my vipers?
My pastel plush lamb too blemished for your thirst,
You gave dreams of centipedes,
Placed my hands deep in the wounds in your side.
No one ever called you the Polite Houseguest,
But I learned the power to forgive you in the dark.

[Cate]

Hey Nommy,
I wanted to say that I thought that this was interesting, I'm intrigued although I don't quite follow.

ugly is with a small u - so I'm assuming that the Narrator is not calling 'you' ugly but is say that s/he want wanted the Narrator to love her ugly ... with N being ugly. Right is with a capital so a proper noun and a character who seems to have wondered off to take care of the 'lambs' assuming that N would be okay ...

I'm not sure is 'you' is real, or if 'you' is darkness ... perhaps something abusive
but, the last lines are very strong.

- - - "No one ever called you the Polite Houseguest,
- - - "I learned the power to forgive you in the dark."

[nonnymonster]

[quote="Cate"
I'm not sure is 'you' is real, or if 'you' is darkness ...[/quote]
Interesting way to put it, because I guess I'm not sure either. Part of what I was talking about was being a little kid and all the weird things I thought &*@ was saying to me in my dreams. I realized before I posted it that it could be misinterpreted as a poem about child abuse. But I figured that if it means something to somebody, I did my job, and it doesn't matter if somebody else knows exactly what my scary dreams were like. Or is that too cruel?
Maybe you don't follow because I tried to put too much stuff in it? I know I do that sometimes. And I guess the whole picture is kind of unified but there's a whole smorgasbord of things that piss me off going into that picture.
I remember waking up from those dreams and thinking well &*@ told me something BAD and I can't think those things about him because he'll be sad, you know, so I would try to make a kind of screen in my head and turn it into something else which was of course an impossible task because I knew he was reading my mind the whole time anyway.
I suppose my night terrors were different from yours were different from everybody else's. But what is probably common though not universal is the feeling little kids get that, well, I can't let anybody KNOW about this problem (whatever it is) because mom or dad or my teachers or &*@ for that matter can't handle it so I'll have to handle it by myself. And if you do that for your whole life then eventually forgiveness and acceptance and passivity become a power akin to revenge.
And maybe you grow up into a rather arrogant and self-absorbed adult with an affected British accent and you want to love something strong, that you can attack with all your might and it won't budge. But you can't believe there is such a thing. You don't have superpowers, and for all you know you are surrounded by such things. But it seems too cruel to ever check, because everything around you looks like it will turn into dust if you don't just keep being NICE to it.
Did that make sense? I can't tell. Maybe I should split it up.

[Violet]

I'm not sure is 'you' is real, or if 'you' is darkness ...

Interesting way to put it, because I guess I'm not sure either. Part of what I was talking about was being a little kid and all the weird things I thought &*@ was saying to me in my dreams. I realized before I posted it that it could be misinterpreted as a poem about child abuse. But I figured that if it means something to somebody, I did my job, and it doesn't matter if somebody else knows exactly what my scary dreams were like. Or is that too cruel?
Maybe you don't follow because I tried to put too much stuff in it? I know I do that sometimes. And I guess the whole picture is kind of unified but there's a whole smorgasbord of things that piss me off going into that picture.
I remember waking up from those dreams and thinking well &*@ told me something BAD and I can't think those things about him because he'll be sad, you know, so I would try to make a kind of screen in my head and turn it into something else which was of course an impossible task because I knew he was reading my mind the whole time anyway.
I suppose my night terrors were different from yours were different from everybody else's. But what is probably common though not universal is the feeling little kids get that, well, I can't let anybody KNOW about this problem (whatever it is) because mom or dad or my teachers or &*@ for that matter can't handle it so I'll have to handle it by myself. And if you do that for your whole life then eventually forgiveness and acceptance and passivity become a power akin to revenge.

.. I wanted to say that I don't think forgiveness and acceptance ever become a power akin to revenge.. but maybe "withholding" does. If one is angry, say, and instead of telling about that anger, one withholds oneself, doesn't say anything, maybe.. that is actually rather cruel behavior, I think.. something I witnessed once.. it was a man I knew who used to do this to his daughter, who was only about eleven or so. But it was hard to watch.

And maybe you grow up into a rather arrogant and self-absorbed adult with an affected British accent and you want to love something strong, that you can attack with all your might and it won't budge. But you can't believe there is such a thing. You don't have superpowers, and for all you know you are surrounded by such things. But it seems too cruel to ever check, because everything around you looks like it will turn into dust if you don't just keep being NICE to it.
Did that make sense? I can't tell. Maybe I should split it up.

Perhaps these other lines are also about this issue of anger, which no one manages to get right somehow. Or maybe not just anger. If expressing one's true feelings was never truly allowed in childhood, then it doesn't get any easier as an adult. You fear someone would fall apart if you expressed your true feelings, since that was the impression you got from your parents, say.

I don't think you'd want to love someone who didn't have feelings about your attacking them. That doesn't mean that person isn't strong, or isn't able to "handle" such of your feelings. It's to allow that the both of you are human. It's to have a conversation that hopefully deepens and furthers a connection to someone. So.. it's to realize, too, I guess, that we've all been damaged in how we've been raised. Or most of us have, and we have different ways of coping. But what the fear is here, maybe, is not so much about testing another's strength, but one's own will to change how one has managed one's emotions ever since childhood -- which is rather a big deal, in fact. In so speaking, to allow another person to know what's going on with you doesn't need to be cruel, or an attack, or be devastating -- but it could have you feeling that it is.. again, given how things were in childhood.

So, in other words, to change how one does things in the emotional department is powerful in its own right, and can cause the sort of anxiety that could have one feeling that the sky is falling or something. I remember reading, though, that even if one's own anxiety [which arises when you make such changes].. but even if such anxiety could have one feeling that way -- as if the sky is falling -- what becomes important, then, is to hold on to the fact that such anxiety is honestly not going to kill you (even though it can feel as if it is). But it's to take the risk to change.. to maybe be oneself in a more direct way.. trusting that the sky won't actually implode or anything -- that that is just the fear. And soon.. well.. it could be like learning to ride a bike.. it's all shaky in the beginning, but then you get your bearings.. and.. well, now you're more comfortably expressing your feelings, your "self"..

.. anyway, this is the general zone that came up for me when reading your blurb there.. maybe I've hit on something.. or maybe not.. (who can say?)

v. x

[Cate]

I liked the poem. I don’t have to follow or get it to like something … for example I’m a big Cohen fan and half the time I don’t have a clue what he’s getting at but something in it speaks to me - perhaps he speaks to that part of the brain that doesn’t have such a big need for words.

Part of the reason that I was having a hard time ‘following’ was that I had a hard time locking into an image – in my head I went from lovers, to an afraid child or an emerging woman to a dark dream. I know you don’t want to direct your reader but perhaps a title that could help unify images for the reader - although that’s a killer opening line … I love it. I wanted you to love even the ugly parts of me – the wounded and wounding me.

~~

Yes that makes sense to me. I do think that forgiveness and acceptance can be pretty powerful – the power to let it go and be released. Fully forgiving can be tricky (just on the topic of dreams) it seems easier to forgive in the day then in the middle of the night.

I also think that passivity can be a strength but it needs to balanced with ability to be assertive when needed.

[nonnymonster]

Huh. Well, I like your suggestion, Cate, but I've never given anything a title before and I doubt I'd be any good at it. The only thing I can think of is "All the closet monsters end up skeletons". The "all" will hopefully make it sound less like a story about child molesters (since everybody has nightmares, but not everybody has THOSE) and the monsters and skeletons hopefully tying together the child and adult versions of the character.