I changed my mind on this posting.

James -- even though you changed your mind, probably a good topic....do you mean raised on brokeness (as in family not having much money?) or do you mean raised on brokeness in that family was like a "broken family"? or something else all together?:)

Might be neat to share....:)

I mean family brokeness, really screwe up kind of brokeness. I will go ahead and post it. I don't know if it is one of best poems poetically but my sister said it describes our lives very well. It is not cheery!

Raised On Brokenness

We were brought up on brokenness.
It started with our parents divorce,
Christmas that year was not very merry;
I remember sitting on the stairs
hearing the fighting, why so much
fighting?

After the divorce came many men.
First their was Gary, the man who used
to live at the end of our street, Elmwood court,
Surprise! He was living with us when Hill and I returned
from a summer in Massachusetts.
I guess he didn't want to go back to his
family after leaving his
prison home.

Gary and mom took us to Lake Tahoe,
I guess Los Gatos wasn't a good place to
live anymore, too many ties to his past.
He was just the first of the men who
stole a piece of my sisters childhood.
From Tahoe, down to Wally's Hot Springs,
What great place for a boy-building and construction
but that was all that was good.

Goodbye mom and Nevada, hello dad
back in California.
Just a minor detail, mom will be
Now living in prison, mom says goodbye
to us as we make our new home in Santa Clara
The brokenness continues as anything
normal is ripped apart,
blown up and
shattered.

A year of the babysitter becoming step-mom
Because a baby is on the way—more
Chaos crashes in our young lives.
Patty who becomes Susan later
and sometime is patty again,
the schizophrenic in
our lives.
Our lives were stolen from us by
broken adults who didn't care
for the treasures God gave them.
Picket fences were broken down.
Patty dearest also had a brother,
Uncle Charlie another burger of a
little girl's childhood—
Hillary suffers some
more.

Jamie doesn't come back from
summer vacation in Massachusetts
and now Hillary is alone
With a schizto step mom
And a nervous-breakdown-dad, and
wicked uncle.
Little Jamie I didn't know that
burglars were stealing from
my sister, perhaps I could have
helped her,
Perhaps.
Maybe.

Now we are separated:
Hillary in California,
Jamie In Massachusetts and
Then James in Florida, no more
Jamie Summers, the bionic woman.
Mom's back on the outside
But needs a new name.
Morgan it is because it's the Witness Protection
game.

Florida is fun for James after
Terrible times in Swansea—
Just a short year of Oasis in
Years of brokenness.
Friendliness and warmth were found
In Pensacola for James
While turmoil and breakdowns
were the beds Hillary slept in.

Some stones are taken from the wall
as Pensacola was not the place that Mom
wanted to be.
A two day cross-country trek
brings James and mom
back to Hillary's backyard,
Campbell.

Mom's man from Massachusetts
And Florida, Harry, takes a plane ride out to
mom and James.
Soon, Hillary is back with mom, James-
And now Harry.
He was more fun than all
rest, hide and seek and other
kids games he did play.
Only yelling was his fault for his
stay.
Harry, guiltily did run away
After he and seductive, schitzo Patty
Did play.

But wasn't that nice Harry had a
Friend, Tommy, that mom could have.
Back from a weekend at Tahoe, now
They were married.
Another nice surprise.

Tommy, the monster, brutally
Inflicts his pain.
He turns our lives upside-down,
Flinging stones, ripping out boards.
Drunkenness
Yelling
Fighting
Beating
Our spirits were crushed and broken
as never before.
Mom was crushed and beaten
as never before.
Broken fish tanks, black eyes,
and the screams-
The sounds still haunt me.

A section of the fence is knocked down
His brutality knocks mom
into the hospital
and Tommy is put into the
County Jail.
He's gone from our lives,
We move on. . . . .

Six months later the monster returns.
Betrayal from our mother,
Should-have-been-protector,
the madness returns.
More drunkenness
Yelling
Anger and
Fighting.

But I stand up, I fight back,
growing towards a young man.
Finally,
Some how,
Some way,
The monster is gone forever!

But the brokenness has already happened
It takes years and years to repair
torn down fences,
many must be completely rebuilt.
But with God's help the
fences can be mended.
He can rebuild us up.
He has rebuilt us, replacing
boards and polishing some stones
on the walls of our lives.
Like Nehemiah, God is rebuilding
torn-down walls and mending the
broken fences of our lives.

Psalm 34:18
Psalm 147:3
Romans 8:28
2 Corinthians 1:3,4
6-12-03

James: Thanks for having the courage to share that.....it's great...very descriptive....You can tell how it REALLY was...and I'm sorry you had to go through all that....:( And I'm glad you're here...

Thanks Joan. I am glad I am here as well. The next thing I post will be cheerful.

I am also posting to this Poetry Yahoo Group and there is a contest there that I am going to post to and it is something where you have to do metrical verse in response to one of five different poems. I will do a happy poem.

I actually won a little award for one of my poems, this "You've Been Spotted Award" for the poem I posted here called Anguish and Joy. I guess they are going to send me a ribbon and a little certificate. It's not the pulitzer prize or anything but it is confirming and encouraging.

Joan, again, congratulations on your Graduation! You must be proud and happy and relieved that you are done. Also congratulations on becoming a Moderator on ADDForums!

Sorry to hear about the rough childhood Jimmy, but at least ya made me feel better about mine... sorry if I sound like that stupid commercial.

The point is, it could always be worse.

Have you gotten counseling yet? For myself, I know it was a long hard road to figure out that not everyone wanted to hurt me. Took me until my midtwenties before I really got my head fairly straightened out.

For me, I needed to know why I reacted the way I did in order to adjust that behavior.

Yeah, I have done some counseling. I guess it is that fact that no one really gave a damn about me or my sister when the rubber really met the road!! There is also the fact that they didn't try Not to hurt me. Or put another way, My parents were not living out their role as protectors, and dammit if someone is going to be a parent THAT IS THEIR JOB!!! It is not good enough to make excuses for people. I am alive yes, but damaged along the way.
Now don't think this is aimed at you Force, but just the ideas behind what you are saying. I can't go around life angry at everyone and everything and I am not, but it makes me angry that I am sitting here at 35 years old dealing with crap from when I was a sophomore in High school. It all comes back to the fact that people generally do not value children in this county or we would not see the divorce rates we see. The children are the ones that suffer in a divorce! We also would not see the child abuse, the child abductions, and murders!!

I will jump off my soap box now....I am head down a slippery slope. :)

Yeah, exactly. One of the two people in the world who were supposed to love me the most, would get drunk and on a pretty regular basis take his frustrations out on me. That will definitely mess with your head and make it difficult to deal with others.

I am in exactly the same frame of mind as far as anger about having to be my own parent as an adult and all the time I've lost in just having to repair myself to the point of normal functionality, nevermind finding a career and advancing in that.

So while it may seem harsh on the face of it that I don't have contact with my father, after all, someone on the outside of my situation might say, "he's only human, everyone makes mistakes..." etc., he's already cost me years, how much more time should I waste on him?

I did get back in contact with him a few years back, basically to see what that side of the family was all about, and learn what half of my genetic makeup predisposed me to, etc., and I just didn't feel I got enough out of the time spent to make it worth it for me.

There was also a certain satisfaction in knowing that I was exquisitely twisting the knife in him, when I broke contact again. (Originally he drifted off after a year or two of playing weekend dad after the divorce. That was rough on a kid too- yeah, you're my kid, but I could be having fun on the weekends... I've always known he resented having kids and being prevented from living his life the way he wanted to because of it) It was like, ok, I'm going to let bygones be bygones, and then once I saw what he was all about decided, no, you're not worth my time.

I know this may sound incredibly mean to someone who came from a good family, and I invite your comments on my actions. There is a part of me that cringes when I think about how badly I hurt him this way. But I feel that it's fair.

As for your comment about the children suffering in a divorce, yeah, sometimes, and it sounds like the real tragedies came about in your life after your parents' divorce, but in my case, my life improved immeasureably.

No more lunatic getting drunk and whaling on me. I don't think it's right for people to stay together "for the sake of the kids" and be miserable. That's going to have an effect on everyone, and not a favorable one according to everything I've ever heard.

Well I would agree with you only to the extent that there was abuse. I think, and I am speaking in generalizations, that people give up far too easily on their marriages and get divorced almost out convenience to themselves, the adults. The children suffer. But by no means do I advocate a woman(or a man) staying in an abusive, dangerous marriage. There are times for divorce, I just think many give up too soon.
My parent for instance. My dad did not abuse my mom. He may have had some depression issues that could have been worked through. He could have gotten medical/psychiatric help.

It is good that your dad was not there anymore to beat you up.


"When you get to the end of your rope, tie a knot and hang on."
~Franklin D. Roosevelt (And that is not the physically dangerously abusive rope)
"It's always too early to quit."
~Norman Vincent Peale
"Success seems to be largely a matter of hanging on after others have let go."
~William Feather

Originally posted by jimmmaaa


I actually won a little award for one of my poems, this "You've Been Spotted Award" for the poem I posted here called Anguish and Joy. I guess they are going to send me a ribbon and a little certificate. It's not the pulitzer prize or anything but it is confirming and encouraging.

Joan, again, congratulations on your Graduation! You must be proud and happy and relieved that you are done. Also congratulations on becoming a Moderator on ADDForums! [/B]


You won a poetry award??? (a cerificate and a ribbon?)....congratulations for that....Hey a pulitzer prize may be in your future....You never know!:) Anyway, I think that's great...

Thanks for kind words.....:) YES SO RELIEVED I AM DONE....:)