I must have read this thread five times, started to write a response as many times & deleted them & left... Wonder if I'll get anywhere this time? Anyway...
Anger, huge anger. The same old anger I've had ever since I can remember, stuff from long ago I can't talk about even today. Relevant: For the last couple of years in the school of last resort I was sent to, I was the kid from hell - had a gang, packed switchblades, trashed classrooms, taunted and bullied teachers... but - gang rule was we only went after bullies, never the nervous or frightened (the teachers did that anyway - so pay back time for them) because we'd all been there until I suddenly went nuts & organized the brave but bullied into a gang. We ran riot until we hit the then legal school leaving age of fourteen. The full school turned out to watch the staff throw me down the stone steps of the school the day I turned 14. Blood dripping I stood up & laughed at them 'cos I'd won, they'd gone beyond the rules & knew it & I'd gone to school that day determined to provoke them into doing it. No family support ever, totally dysfunctional, bigotted, self-obsessed bunch of nutters who put on a brilliant facade of a typical upper class Brit family but very nasty doings behind the classy doors. Whew!
I guess what I'm saying is that I'm so moved by what's happening to your young relative, hugely relieved that he's going to get the help you describe and that he's got people like you fighting for him. I don't know if you realize just how hugely significant and life changing that is or will be for him for the rest of his life. He may not recognize that yet, but he will. Without someone, anyone, that anger gets internalized, shoved down, along with the constant message you're fed that you must be worthless because there isn't anyone to say to you, "This is wrong, it's unjust. I care and I'll stop it for you because you're not ready to do that yet." Hell, stupid as it is, I'm so right back there right now writing this I'm jealous of the caring help he's getting - now that really proves what a nut case I am, huh? Sheesh!
The rage never left, its still there - it never will.... for me. But for him? You put those bear claws on, the war paint & the mohawk, whatever it takes to make 'em sit up & take notice that you're not going to take it any more.
My childhood taught me well, gave me attitude & a refusal to back down, I dunno why or how. I had to fight the system for one of my daughters, and I played dirty if I had to, I knew how, and got things "sorted". Ate me up emotionally, but that inner rage kept me going I guess.
Anything my family was/is, I'm not. Racism & bigotry brings on the rage. I guess it shows sometimes. Just a month or so ago a friendly neighbour stopped me as I was going by on my E-tricycle to ask about it. Nice friendly chat. Then he said, "It's a good thing you've got that lovely big workshop to store things like that in, you can lock it away. If you didn't it would be gone in a flash." I commented that I couldn't imagine neighbours stealing stuff. He laughed and said that we had a lot to learn. "It's not our people you have to worry about," he said, "it's them!" Jerking his head towards the Reserve houses visible from where we were standing. "They'll take anything and... blah, blah" for a few seconds more maybe. Then he stopped & looked at me kind of funny, backed away a bit, muttered something & beetled back into his house. I guess I'd kind of frozen, the rage was boiling inside but I hadn't said a word. I dunno, my face must have shown something that spooked him. I wish I could yell, shout people like that down, tell them what sicko's they are, but I can't. So its rage upon rage. It was like that for me living in Detroit when the Civil Rights Movement was starting up, I lived right on the edge of one of the largest ghettoes. Seems like there's no place where I don't bump into some racist b*****d that gets the rage going, why does some little old guy interrupt a conversation I'm having with someone in the supermarket & tell me with a sicko smirk that it was too bad they stopped Hitler from finishing what he started & we'd all be rid of the J*****s for good?!! Hell, why didn't I just deck the slimey creep instead of just glaring at him until he scuttled off?
Makes me feel like the person in Robert Frost's poem "Yellow". Do you know it? Read it when I was young & never forgotten it.
Yellow
One pearly day of early May
I strolled upon the sand,
And saw, say half-a-mile away
A man with gun in hand;
A dog was cowering to his will,
As slow he sought to creep
Upon a dozen ducks so still
They seemed to be asleep,
When like a streak the dog dashed out,
The ducks flashed up in flight;
The fellow gave a savage shout
And cursed with all his might.
Then I stood somewhat amazed
And gazed with eyes agog,
With bitter rage his gun he raised
And blazed and shot the dog.
You know how dogs can yelp with pain;
Its blood soaked in the sand,
And yet it crawled to him again
And tried to lick his hand.
“Forgive me, Lord, for what I’ve done,”
It seemed as if it said,
But once again he raised his gun:
This time he shot it—dead.
What could I do? What could I say?
’Twas such a lonely place.
Tongue-tied I saw him stride away,
I never saw his face.
I should have bawled the bastard out:
A yellow dog he slew;
But worse, he proved beyond a doubt
That—I was yellow too.
=======
Poetry X » Poetry Archives » Robert Service » "Yellow"
Anger, huge anger. The same old anger I've had ever since I can remember, stuff from long ago I can't talk about even today. Relevant: For the last couple of years in the school of last resort I was sent to, I was the kid from hell - had a gang, packed switchblades, trashed classrooms, taunted and bullied teachers... but - gang rule was we only went after bullies, never the nervous or frightened (the teachers did that anyway - so pay back time for them) because we'd all been there until I suddenly went nuts & organized the brave but bullied into a gang. We ran riot until we hit the then legal school leaving age of fourteen. The full school turned out to watch the staff throw me down the stone steps of the school the day I turned 14. Blood dripping I stood up & laughed at them 'cos I'd won, they'd gone beyond the rules & knew it & I'd gone to school that day determined to provoke them into doing it. No family support ever, totally dysfunctional, bigotted, self-obsessed bunch of nutters who put on a brilliant facade of a typical upper class Brit family but very nasty doings behind the classy doors. Whew!
I guess what I'm saying is that I'm so moved by what's happening to your young relative, hugely relieved that he's going to get the help you describe and that he's got people like you fighting for him. I don't know if you realize just how hugely significant and life changing that is or will be for him for the rest of his life. He may not recognize that yet, but he will. Without someone, anyone, that anger gets internalized, shoved down, along with the constant message you're fed that you must be worthless because there isn't anyone to say to you, "This is wrong, it's unjust. I care and I'll stop it for you because you're not ready to do that yet." Hell, stupid as it is, I'm so right back there right now writing this I'm jealous of the caring help he's getting - now that really proves what a nut case I am, huh? Sheesh!
The rage never left, its still there - it never will.... for me. But for him? You put those bear claws on, the war paint & the mohawk, whatever it takes to make 'em sit up & take notice that you're not going to take it any more.
My childhood taught me well, gave me attitude & a refusal to back down, I dunno why or how. I had to fight the system for one of my daughters, and I played dirty if I had to, I knew how, and got things "sorted". Ate me up emotionally, but that inner rage kept me going I guess.
Anything my family was/is, I'm not. Racism & bigotry brings on the rage. I guess it shows sometimes. Just a month or so ago a friendly neighbour stopped me as I was going by on my E-tricycle to ask about it. Nice friendly chat. Then he said, "It's a good thing you've got that lovely big workshop to store things like that in, you can lock it away. If you didn't it would be gone in a flash." I commented that I couldn't imagine neighbours stealing stuff. He laughed and said that we had a lot to learn. "It's not our people you have to worry about," he said, "it's them!" Jerking his head towards the Reserve houses visible from where we were standing. "They'll take anything and... blah, blah" for a few seconds more maybe. Then he stopped & looked at me kind of funny, backed away a bit, muttered something & beetled back into his house. I guess I'd kind of frozen, the rage was boiling inside but I hadn't said a word. I dunno, my face must have shown something that spooked him. I wish I could yell, shout people like that down, tell them what sicko's they are, but I can't. So its rage upon rage. It was like that for me living in Detroit when the Civil Rights Movement was starting up, I lived right on the edge of one of the largest ghettoes. Seems like there's no place where I don't bump into some racist b*****d that gets the rage going, why does some little old guy interrupt a conversation I'm having with someone in the supermarket & tell me with a sicko smirk that it was too bad they stopped Hitler from finishing what he started & we'd all be rid of the J*****s for good?!! Hell, why didn't I just deck the slimey creep instead of just glaring at him until he scuttled off?
Makes me feel like the person in Robert Frost's poem "Yellow". Do you know it? Read it when I was young & never forgotten it.
Yellow
One pearly day of early May
I strolled upon the sand,
And saw, say half-a-mile away
A man with gun in hand;
A dog was cowering to his will,
As slow he sought to creep
Upon a dozen ducks so still
They seemed to be asleep,
When like a streak the dog dashed out,
The ducks flashed up in flight;
The fellow gave a savage shout
And cursed with all his might.
Then I stood somewhat amazed
And gazed with eyes agog,
With bitter rage his gun he raised
And blazed and shot the dog.
You know how dogs can yelp with pain;
Its blood soaked in the sand,
And yet it crawled to him again
And tried to lick his hand.
“Forgive me, Lord, for what I’ve done,”
It seemed as if it said,
But once again he raised his gun:
This time he shot it—dead.
What could I do? What could I say?
’Twas such a lonely place.
Tongue-tied I saw him stride away,
I never saw his face.
I should have bawled the bastard out:
A yellow dog he slew;
But worse, he proved beyond a doubt
That—I was yellow too.
=======
Poetry X » Poetry Archives » Robert Service » "Yellow"
