Losing My Faith

by Helena Toto, posted in Poetry

Sometimes it feels better to deny myself
Pleasures or water or food
When I’m bad

Sometimes it feels better to cut myself
Inside and out
Of my skin

See my blood run, feel it coagulate
On the skin above the
Denial of abuse

Swirling inside this depression
Is so familiar, like looking
Out from behind glass

It’s raining on my side and as the
Tears create streaks inside
I wonder,

Maybe if let them flow long
Enough, they’ll erode
This pain

And I can finally know what it’s like to be normal.

Photo Credit: FUMIGRAPHIK_Photographist Flickr via Compfight cc

An Ordinary Day Turns Extraordinary With a Sip of Coffee

by Helena Toto, posted in Poetry, Prose

I haven’t been “allowed” to drink coffee (including my beloved espresso) in two years. Severe allergies, they said.

With a newly supplemented liver, my taste buds are yearning for culinary delights recently withheld.

I didn’t go to Whole Food expecting to get a blended mocha, but my goal of “living in each moment” crept in and posed a question without my even asking-

“Do you remember what this tastes like?”

Yes, I do.

 

Photo Credit: verchmarco Flickr via Compfight cc

What If

by Helena Toto, posted in hope, Poetry

Slowly, slowly, the trees grow

Calmly, calmly the ants gather

Gently, the breeze blows

But my mind is filled with what doesn’t matter

 

I wish I was in a different world, a different time

When my life played to a soundtrack and

My body danced freely

To the beautiful songs in my head

 

Fear would be gone

And pain diminished

In this reality of dreams

Where walking took days

 

But within that time

Entire existences were created

Giving birth to unending ease and

Excitement at life

 

Eyes shining

Boldly singing

Gypsy-like

In my new light

 

So, slowly I can grow

Calmly, I can matter

Gently, I can exist

In this world

 

Connected to the other

Questioning what’s possible

If I only believe

Save Point

by Helena Toto, posted in Poetry, Uncategorized

If I could go back

To a point within my life

To do what wasn’t done

Choose again, right this time

 

With all the knowledge I have now

My heart aches with longing

In search of reprieve from the madness

Of Now – of this day

 

For so long, pondering the point

I would rewind to

Would it all change?

Would I still be me?

 

Would I know I had chosen?

Or would the weight of bad decisions

Be wiped clean from me?

Coming back from the coma

 

A save point would guarantee

A do-over

But I wouldn’t remember

You

 

Your voice, your touch

The way your eyes follow me

With light across the room as

I walk

 

Caressing me with love

The times you held me as I cried in the night

The love we made

Wrapped up in grief and anger

 

All this time to realize

You are my person

And I am yours

I would have to let that go

 

To avoid tragedy

Only to hope destiny

Will intervene to

Bring us together again.

Mom

by Helena Toto, posted in abuse, Consequence

Lily sits alone, fighting shadows

under the shade of the pine tree.

 

She wore a tweed skirt today, looking sexy,

but her mom called her a slut and

pushed her down the staircase.

 

What a dangerous game she’s playing;

if she’s not careful, her own daughter

 

will end up dead, with a note that reads,

I wasn’t worth it

 

Mother’s Day came and went

No one called her

Not one of her daughters

 

What can she expect?

She hates.

 

So, call her wicked, call her selfish,

call her the problem,

And keep it going.

 

Lily sits alone

All these years later,

 

her husband beckons from the

doorway, but he’s not there

 

She doesn’t see him.

She’s still fighting shadows

under the shade of the pine tree.

The Secret No One Tells You about the “Real World”

by Helena Toto, posted in Self-Improvement, Truth, World

Photo Credit: Andreas Komodromos Flickr via Compfight cc

I used to believe that in the real world there aren’t any do-overs.  Once a path is chosen, that’s it.

I used to believe there are only tears and blood in the real world.

Here, the air is so tight that sometimes I forget to breathe.

The Secret

It’s taken me a long time to realize the secret – the “how to” in making my dreams a reality.

It’s not about intelligence, and it’s not about money.  It’s not even about beauty or age.

It’s about awareness.

It’s about realizing what systems I’m a part of and figuring out how they work.  It’s about separating the parts and figuring out how they fit back together.

Only then does this “Real World” become a tangible thing-something I can step back from and observe, before making a move.

How to Play the Game

A system is a set of rules and procedures put in place to accomplish a particular goal.

We all have our own personal systems, the little rules that we use to make sense of and run our personal life and how we relate to others.

The Real World is a result of everyone’s systems colliding, crashing and burning, creating bigger systems that serve individual and personal interests.

If someone doesn’t know how the system works, or which rules govern it, they can easily become overwhelmed and intimidated.  But once they get to know the rules and understand the basic components, they can understand how each piece fits into the overall goal.

It’s easy to get lost if we continue to look at the hundreds of colliding systems as the scary Real World and not as it truly is- the compilation of individual systems.

My students used to do a project on the Real World, and they would frequently tell me that they were scared shitless because adults use phrases like, “real world,” and sayings like, “you’ll see,” and, “It’s harder than you think.”

Why does no one tell them?  Why when we find out do we hide it away like it’s our big secret?  Maybe it’s  because we’ve struggled so much, now it’s their turn.

But, I’m guessing many of you would have liked to know earlier on that you weren’t alone when you didn’t know what to do.

Personally, that would have saved me years of feeling trapped, thinking I was the only stupid one without the secret of how to be an adult.  Now that I know, I’ll shout it from the rooftops.

Now that I understand that everything is made up of systems, I can step back and watch the systems at play before deciding which ones I’ll be part of.  Now I have the mindfulness to choose what parts to focus on and what to let go of.

 The real world is a system, a structure of people set in place by other people.  And they aren’t smarter than you.  They aren’t better than you.  They’ve learned how to play the game.

I’ve spent years thinking my life couldn’t change, that I’d be forever trapped in the systems I’d become part of.  But I’m finding the cracks, slowly but surely.  And I’m making significant changes in my mindset and focus.  I’m seeing my dreams shine through and I’m realizing I can choose what I’m a part of and create a better version of me.

What’s Next?

Maybe you have a job you hate.

Maybe you are constantly questioning why you can never get a break.

Just because you’ve always been part of something, doesn’t mean it has to stay that way.  Decide what you really want and which systems are holding you back from reaching your goals.  Take a step back and observe how your systems are run, which rules make them up, fair and unfair, easy and hard.  Choose new systems that help you reach you goals, or find cracks within the systems you’re a part of that give you some breathing room.

The Real World does not have to be a scary place.

What we are Becoming

by Helena Toto, posted in ache, Adolescence, alone, longing, Poetry, Youth

We believe in curses.

The names we’ve been called,

The feeling we were being

Overlooked on the playground

 

The whispers behind our backs

The quickly muttered greetings

& sideways glances

Hands held between people

 

But not ours.

We shared our lunch with

No one on a picnic blanket

Meant for two.

 

Is it the color of our hair

Or the size of our frame

That make them doubt us so?

Or is it that feeling

 

Deep in the gut

Bubbling underneath the awareness

That’s let them know

Something sinister is lurking?

Dirty

by Helena Toto, posted in Adolescence, flash fiction, mental illness, OCD, pain

The bathroom was dirty.  The off-white tiles shined almost brown in the cheap fluorescent lighting.  She noticed right away there were no paper towels, only hand dryers, the kind that blow all the dust and germs around.

She checked the first stall and then the seconds-no, still dirty.  She would have to hold it until she got home after school, or skip 3rd period to go home to pee.

Grabbing her bag, she ran to her English III class, making it just in time before the bell.  The teacher had announced she had a treat for everyone today, and the girl had been looking forward to it for a while.  M n M’s; natural serotonin.  Good.  Maybe now her mind would calm down a little.  Maybe now she would stop imagining the bathroom air sticking to her, soiling her clothes and skin.

The teacher lifted the giant jar out from under her desk.  The candy was not individually wrapped.

The girl’s heart began to pound in her chest.  Damn it.  In reached the 1st students hands, grabbing what he could.  Then the 2nd, then the 3rd.  Dirty.

She’d have to go without.  Too risky.  The fear outweighed the momentary benefit-and so she refrained, once again, from experiencing life.  She couldn’t help but feel punished.

As class drew to a close, she reached for her bag.  A classmate noticed her hands, red and raw and asked if she had a rash.

No, just wash them a lot.  Understatement.

You need to get some help, then.  Cause that’s weird. 

Pause.

Then a breath, angry and hurt.  She squeezed her hand into a fist, and the skin began to crack and bleed.

She was smart, so smart, so she couldn’t understand how she couldn’t reason herself out of this.

The color was gone from her life, and fear had taken its place.

By this time, skipping 3rd period was a must.  She couldn’t wait until the day’s end to use the bathroom.  So she ducked out of class and snuck off to her car.

On the familiar drive home, she let the tears come freely as she drove.  Punishment seemed too friendly a term.  Hell was more like it.  Confined, in her own head.

She gripped the wheel tightly, as her hands shook.  The road was empty; no one would see.  The car was already picking up speed.  The Slow down – Sharp Curve Ahead sign far in front of her kept whispering its ominous warning.  All she had to do was let go, just for a moment, and it would all be over.

Maybe in the next life she’d be normal.

But as usual, I’m just not brave enough, she thought.

She pulled into her parent’s driveway, thankful they weren’t home.  No witnesses to see her suffer.  She preferred aloneness; silence was the most loyal friend.

After using the bathroom, going back to school right away seemed useless, somehow.  So she turned on the shower and let the steam fill the room.  She still felt dirty from stepping into the high school bathroom, and she felt just crazy enough to try anything, so she stepped into the shower, fully clothed, praying that the hot water would heal her.

And she sank lower and lower underneath the heat, until she was curled up in a corner, letting the water burn her skin clean.

Too bad she went crazy.  They all said.  Too bad.

But this wasn’t crazy.  This was OCD.  But she didn’t know.

And she didn’t know how to not blame herself.  For not being like everyone else-not able to let things flow off her, down the drain.

 

 

Photo Credit: Andrew Gustar Flickr via Compfight cc

Hidden Truth

by Helena Toto, posted in betrayal, fake, Fear, Medicine, mental illness, pain, Poetry

 

 

Where they sent me

To recover

Destroyed parts of me

Unseen

The soft parts

Of my underbelly

Soiled

And broken,

I’m

Like a doll

Who cocks her head

And smiles on cue

Open my mouth

And take a pill

To swallow the crazy

That no one else

Wants to see

Photo Credit: .v1ctor Casale. Flickr via Compfight cc