My Art Work

Silvery, lacey, and light as air
A spider’s web
Designed to entice, entrance, snare and trap
silky
precious
fragile
but stronger than I could ever be
with one touch
I could break it
and let loose all my bad dreams and demons into the world

One by one they’d fall

Harming any innocent man, woman, or child in their path
my wrath would destroy anyone who dare cross me
my tears would drown all those who couldn’t swim

If the web is broken
it wouldn’t be my fault that the dreamcatcher wasn’t strong enough to hold everything in
neither am I.

One touch and then I am trapped
in its silvery, silky, treacherous clutches
Stuck there with demons and monsters
nothing but nightmares, hatred and darkness

Nowhere to go

Struggling to move away only makes it worse.
Should I just wait to be devoured by the monsters in my dreamcatcher?
I have no choice
I can not leave
Me and my demons are one in the same
If they destroy me, they die with me.
In the end, I know I will win.

Dreams

In my dreams a little girl cries out for me to help her.
She is looking for her way home.
Without question, I help her.
I walked with her, unitl we came to the forest entrance.
The trees are thick and twisted.
I get the feeling that if I keep going, I may never come back out.

There are monsters in those woods.
I stop.
She points to the woods.
I shake my head.
She says, "I came from that way and then I got lost."
I say, "but there are monsters in there."
She lets go of my hand.
She says, "I knew you wouldn’t help"
She runs away from me into the dark of the woods.

I let her go.
At least for now I am safe from the monsters.
There is only me, the moon and the Cheshire Cat.

Erika Steele © 2004

The Doors

Behind the door are monsters
I know what’s happening there
I am trapped and unable to move
Unable to talk
Unable to comprehend
I am being devoured by monsters

Outside the door I am safe
I can’t go inside
I won't go inside
To save the girl trapped there
It is too late
I am safe
I think
I am safe
I leave her there because
I want to be safe

And now,
Years later,
She is still trapped there
She is still angry
And scared
I can’t blame her.
I’d be angry, too
If I knew
The world forgot me.

Me and the Devil

You brought me here
I followed you willingly
You promised me warmth
You promised me safety
You promised me beauty

So why did you leave me in darkness?

You did this to me
I closed my eyes
I turned my back for a second
And your turned into a demon
A monster
With claws
My eyes
My soul
My spirit
Gone in your mouth

Why did you want me to die?

You gave this to me
When I was empty
When you sucked away everything you could
When I hadn’t the strength to refuse
You gave me this
Ugly, dirty, disgusting
Vile, foul, hating
Angry, writhing, killing thing
That I could not name
You promised me gold
But you brought me here into your ugly cold world
When mine was so warm.
You brought me here
You left me here
Frightened
Lost
And broken
Without a voice and without eyes
To find my way home
You left me here in a world
Where monsters and demons were real

You did this to me

You made me ugly
And dirty and stupid
You made me voiceless
And soulless and spiritless

You made me hide from the monsters in my closet again

You made me afraid to look under the bed
I knew you were hiding there with the dust bunnies
Waiting to take what precious little was left of me.
You made me want to disappear

You gave this to me

A lesson in how to hate
A lesson in how to destroy
A lesson in how to bring down everything and everyone
A lesson in how the world really was
A lesson that monsters were real.
You gave me fantasies that you would die by my hands
Just like you destroyed me.

I brought myself here so I could save myself from you.
So I could protect myself from the monsters
I brought myself here so I could never feel the things that
I never thought would happen.
I brought myself here to drown underneath the ice
I brought myself here to disappear

I did this to me

I became the hated
So nobody would think that I was special
So nobody would ever see me
So I would be small and unimportant
So I would be nothing.
So that I would never be raped again,

I brought myself here so I could rescue me from me.
So that I could see that you were gone.
So that I could see that you did not control me
So that I could see that you were not hiding with the dust bunnies
So that I could stop raping myself.

I did this for me.

I melted the ice that held the pain frozen in my heart.
I destroyed the demon that made me hate me, you, the world and God.
I pulled myself from the darkness.
I resurrected my soul and spirit.

I opened my eyes.

I forgave you for what you did.
Hating you only made me like you
Not forgiving kept me tied to the hate you gave me
You are not worth my thoughts
You are not strong enough to destroy me.

I did this for me.

I made the choice to love you instead of hating you.
I gave myself the right to love
The right to live
The right to be beautiful
Sexy and strong
I gave myself a new voice
I rebuilt my world.
I gave myself the right to feel.
The right to mourn the person I lost.
The right to rejoice for the person that survived.
The right to let myself be loved.
I gave myself the right to be whole again.

Winter

I was simply looking for a warm place to lay my head. I was tired and sore from dragging these things with me. My dress worn, my feet and hands were frost bitten. My lips were dry. I was Ugly. These things were so heavy; a place to put them down would be nice. I thought there was someone who could take these things from and they could do whatever they like with them. If I died before I woke, at least I would know there was one warm place on Earth. One warm place left after the day the sun plunged into the sea and the moon’s tears froze wherever they fell. I thought after walking for seven days I could rest. I thought.

I thought God wouldn’t help me. I thought maybe I made a mistake of thinking there was a heaven and I know I know there is only the way it is. The way my eyes see the world and no matter how hard I try I can’t make the grass greener than what it is. I can’t make the ice break beneath my feet just because I know there is a warm place hiding underneath it.

I carried my father’s hand with me in my pocket with all these other things. If there was a warm place I could give it all away. I thought in this warm place there would be Prince Charming on his great white horse. Then I remembered those trapped in the desert want shade and ice. Well, they can have all the shade and all the ice they want. They can have all they can carry away from my frozen world. Just for one look at the sun again.

I was there when it fell. I saw it fall. I saw it fall. It was so fast and all the colors went away with it. Everything turned grey and blue. Dark dark blue. If I had learned to skate maybe I could get out of this. Maybe I could find my way to the lake shore. Maybe I wouldn’t be stuck out here in the middle.

I just gave up one day when I couldn’t walk anymore. When I came to the edge of the world. I had no choice but to stay or to jump. It was too far to walk back into the ice. There was only ice. How was I supposed to know what I would find and what I would feel if I found anything at all.

I remember I felt my heart sinking with the sum, and since my soul had nowhere to live it left too. I spent my life going through the motions. They came and they went and nothing mattered. Now when I look back I wish I could have opened my eyes. Maybe just maybe all the times my eyes were closed in a blink the sun decided to shine. Wouldn’t it be a shame if I missed it because my eyes got too tired from waiting until the icicles melted? Just maybe I let the ice get too thick too feel the sun anymore. I can’t so I just sit down. I can’t go on anymore. If I closed my eyes forever everything would be the same when I opened them again.

Still Winter

I waited and I waited in the ice and in the wind. The sun never came. I waited counting snowflakes. I waited with my head up. I waited with my head down. I dreamed a dream of sunshine and flowers, only to wake in the snow. I waited for the sun to return. It never really came. For a second in my dreams, but I wake to find my world still buried in the ice and snow of Winter.

I looked back and my footprints had been covered by ice and snow. Had I really sat here for that long? Can I really not go home? The sunshine was a dream, or maybe the snow is all just a dream. Maybe I can’t wake up. Maybe I am not really frozen here. Maybe I am not really lost. Maybe my mind was frozen in an dark dream.

I wonder how I got here in the first place. I wonder with my footsteps gone how would I find my way home. Why did I come here to this land with no sun? Then I remember the sun was taken from me. The sun went away. I would never walk away from the light that warmed my face. This is not the snow from my childhood where I searched for twin flakes. This snow is unending, unyielding, unmerciful, and I can’t see the Earth below my feet. I can’t see where I came from and I don’t know where I am going. I am just here. I am abandoned. My home was burned with the sinking sun.

I wonder, if I moved forward, would I find my way out of Winter. I wondered if I ran back with all my might could I get back to the place where I lost my sun. The latter was impossibly impossible. I could not bring back time and restore life to my long dead world. Move forward into the unknown it would be. Would I find rebirth? Would I find signs of life? Would I just find more snow? Could I grow wings and fly? Would I just die? Would it always just be Still Winter for me? I can’t see past the snow. I wait here.

Sand and Sea

I’ve waited all these years only to find I couldn’t fix your wings

You wanted to break mine

And then neither of us could fly

We’d have each other

My love would feed you

My heart would beat for you

I’d live my life for you

And you would watch me die

My love is only to make your soul grow stronger

I have no other purpose

I have no other worth

I lost myself somewhere in the sand behind the pink fence

I thought you could help me find me again

But you were the sea and you carried me to a far away place

A place where I should have never gone

When God said No

I said yes, I’m in love

For days the sun did not shine

For days there was nothing but sand and sea

You and me

And then came the storm and you got bigger

I was trapped and powerless at the shore

But now I’ve been down for years

I’m not going to let you wear me down

If I have to I’ll drag this with me to heaven

I will destroy you

I will kill you

I will be without you

No matter where I thought it was written

From time to time I’m still haunted by thoughts of you

All the memories I made in my mind to play over and over in my head

To be played, to be paused, but never erased

Sometimes it’s warm, but I don’t want to be here anymore

©Erika Steele 2002