When I was little, I wanted to be Cinderella, smiling every time my tiny fingers skimmed over the yellowed pages of my favorite book. It was torn and aging but I kept it under my pillow and felt safe knowing it was there. My mother would come into my bedroom every night and read it to me before bed. As her calming voice acted out the story I knew so well, the enchantment of overcoming struggle lingered inside my ignorant brain since I didn’t know any better.

When I got older, my mother stopped her nightly visits and started drinking. My father gambled our money away and instead, he was the one who snuck into my bedroom while my mother passed out on the couch. Every night, just as I was about to drift to sleep, he would approach and kiss me roughly on the mouth. I would try to pull away, but he’d grab my arm and kiss me harder. As I’d struggle to break free, I wondered when my fairy Godmother would come and rescue me.

“Be a good girl and give daddy what he wants,” he’d say and I remember wishing he wasn’t my daddy.

“No,” I’d cry over and over, but he wouldn’t care.

He would trap me beneath the heaviness of his massive frame as I would struggle to free myself from his grasp. His breath always reeked of tequila and he’d climb into my bed, forcing my hands down there, asking me to feel the ‘…..’ through his jeans.

That first night, he nailed me to the bed then invaded me as I choked on my own tears. To avoid the pain, I remembered the book, tucked safely underneath my pillow, and thought about all Cinderella had to overcome.

Then, he left me crying.

I held the white cloth, soaked in my own blood, wanting more than anything to be able to hurt him back. The blood that drained into my mouth drowned out my cries and he was quickly gone. He probably went to drink some more.

I waited for my fairy godmother. I called for her, cried for her, begged for her to come take me away, but it was no use. She didn’t respond to my pleas. At the time, I thought it was probably because I didn’t have a ball to go to. I wished to be somewhere else, anywhere else – a forest, a castle, anywhere but the wicked stepmother’s house – but maybe fairy godmothers only granted wishes to girls who wanted to go to the ball.

I wished to go to the ball, but still, she never came.

It happened once a week after that and was the same each time. It had almost become a ritual for him. After he would leave and I’d cleanse myself, I read about Cinderella, hoping she would make me feel safe again. As the words hammered inside my head, over time, I began to realize they were filled with lies. There was no such thing as Prince Charming or Happily Ever After. The Fairy Godmother was just a fantasy and the Wicked Stepmother could not be defeated. Evil always won.

Daddy kept coming back.

***

That final night, when I turned thirteen, after my father crept out of my room and my mother passed out again, I watched the familiar pages curl up inside the blazing fireplace as I finally realized why they call such stories fairy tales.

Once the pages burned, and the house went down, I bought myself a tight black dress and shiny vinyl boots with a credit card I stole from inside my mother’s dresser. I hitched a ride to Tijuana and got myself a fake ID card, drowning my troubles in a bottle of Jack Daniels as the man, whose name I didn’t know, sat next to me, waiting for his magic blow job and anticipating the moment he could cum on my pretty face and turn it ugly.

My hands shaking, the sour taste in my mouth, I hang on to whatever lies ahead, fearing the end of my innocence will bring about my destruction and make me a slave to my own destiny. All because my fairy godmother never came.

(Anti-Cinderella is a short piece that took years to write, It evolved and got longer through the years, but the core story stayed the same: the consequences of child sexual abuse. This is a theme I explored in my short film, The Birthday Gift, which received tremendous response from survivors. A part of me is still unhappy and sees this piece as unfinished, but I feel it’s time to get it out there. I hope this story speaks to them like my film did.)

Regards the abuse of Mothers and Daughters.

This painting involves the twisted family dynamics of patriarchal demands, matriarchal acquiesence, maudlin defiance, martyred sacrificial attachments, isolation, children trying to learn how to move within it, get away from it, get high and forget about it, laugh so you don’t cry, growing old enough to recognize the conflict source. It took a sorcerer to get there and reveal to me that dysfunctional family is a redundancy.

Wake up little one
If you don’t come
Then I’ll take the baby.

Be quiet, lie still
Papa has work for you
The nighttime is when I pick

The freshest of fruit

Busted cherries bleed red
Stains the teeth
Stains the sheets

Block the ringing pain
It’s Thanksgiving again
The turkey’s huge

Dessert is you.

DREAMING TOSHI

On a train from Springfield to New York,
she drank tequila with an old man
that mirrored her first love.
He raised the bottle and winked across the aisle.
His charm seduced her to his side.
They drank from mountains high, to desert low
and through other wild places.
Through the agave, amber mist
she heard of a man long unknown.
Eighteen years come and gone,
Without him she would grow.

Her mother, a sleeping beauty upon a scandalous bed of secrets.
Tonight, she walks beneath a canopy of crushed diamond lights,
atop a train trestle with owl whistling dream songs written for the mind.
Singing all revealed in time.

Lick my skin to attention.
Tell the tale.
Open the windows wide.
Put the truth on sale.
Fling open the shades.
Pull the heavy blankets off the bed.
Only the coolest, clean sheets can touch me now.
Bottom and top – these are my twin lovers.

Surrender your mind to the worm.
Kiss those things that make you squirm.
Piss in arched, mezcalian streams in the valley
where his mouth empties:
Your daddy is dead
And your mama’s mind was left unattended.
The tale’s been told, now baby’s alone.

She fixes her stare at something in the distance.
He whispers, “Gal, give a 42 year old vet a chance.”
She figures, a day of service is all it is,
one devoid of romance.
Puckered lips go down
down and around the mountain
no longer wondering who will answer
her holler in the pleated pages of the night.
A last minute bit of business for God and everybody to witness.
Not unlike when she was three, the night she lost her virginity
under the bowels of Fun Town on the Southside of Chi Town.

These two pieces I wrote for myself and my sister.

Why Daddy Why?
Original Oil painting 30×40

This is my sister. I miss her very much. i wish i would have been the older one to protect her. Now she’s gone and I miss her dearly.

Leave him alone.
Original Oil painting 30X40

I never should have gotten in the truck!!

I can be contacted by email at majesticart@verizon.net.

Screaming was always around me
Tears running down my face
Trying to silence his voice, her voice with my hands
Good touch, bad touch
Too young was I really to know
All the poking hurt
My body in so much pain
“Hurt me, not my brother”
Hating bath time
Terrified of bedtime
Liquor, the smell of his breath
I tried to imagine I was dreaming
It wasn’t me but another 6yr. old girl
That’s what I’d try to think
Trying to hide from the teacher’s looks
I always wanted my Daddy to come and take me away
My mother left my brother and me here
Here in this cold place
They were strangers, cruel people
Their oldest daughter never liked it when it was my bed he came to
She made me pay but I didn’t understand why
I was a baby
My mother didn’t want to know
Did she know?
Why were we left here?
When we lived with our mother in New Jersey
All she did was yell, scream and curse
I was like my Daddy
I wasn’t a normal child in junior high
So she hated me
I didn’t care
I hated her
It was because of her
Her doing
That I was violated, beaten
She didn’t care
“I should’ve had an abortion”
“You’ll never make it in life”
This is what she’d always say to me
I wished my brother and I would’ve been with our Daddy
I wished we were with someone safe who loved us the right way
We would have been safe
She’d yell at everyone
For any reason
She’d beat on you something fierce
Hating that I only wanted my Daddy
I begged him to take us away
“Please Daddy! We don’t want to go back. Please Daddy!”
She had her ways
Cleaning had to be done her way and that was that
Laundry, garbage, ironing, hanging clothes on the hangers,
The way things were folded and put away, the vacuuming,
Making dinner, dishes….
If I didn’t do it right “her way”
I’d get hit with whatever was within her grasp
A wiffleball bat, a hot iron on my right thigh, a phone thrown in my face
“Slut, slut, slut”
That was her nickname for me (even though I was a “virgin”)
I’d never be anything, a loser
I’d never get my H.S. diploma
She kicked me out right before senior year finals
My ex-boyfriend Don’s Mom welcomed me into her home
She took me in, no questions asked
Disgusted with what my “Mother” had done to my face for the VERY LAST TIME
Yet this time, I fought back, I defended myself
Don’s Mother didn’t want all my hard work over the past 4 years to count for nothing
My Daddy sending her money to help with my expenses
Due to her and Don
I had the opportunity to take my final exams
Driving me to school every day
On graduation day
I got ready with my new “Mother”
A gift from my Daddy and her, a new outfit to look my best
Cap and gown, services ending with diplomas
Then here comes “this woman”
Saying, “I knew you could do it!”
To my curiosity, I turned and asked, “Why?”
“My baby is going to a good college because I pushed her to succeed.”
“I’m so proud of you.”
I almost vomited
I then told her that it was because of Don, his Mother,
My guidance counselor, my Daddy, and me
I succeeded because of me, for me
I never wanted to be her
A failure, a tyrant, unfaithful spouse
A person who’d feed on her young and others
An abuser
She was never worthy of the name ‘Mother’
She would never be my Mother
I would and could never be her.

She is a little angel, sweet and innocent and her soul death is happening right before your eyes. Unless a viewer opens the box they will not know what is happening or happened to this child. If only people took the time to see, but some people don’t want to see because seeing means they have to do something about it.  For some  it is much easier to live in denial that confront the personal, professional and moral ramifications of accepting that someone you love or know is a sexual predator. That is why so many of these predators get away with it.

Media: oil on wood, vintage box, door handle, tin wings, condom and glass sweet.

HEART’S HOPE OF POSSIBILITIES
EARTH SHATTERING PROMISES: VIS-A-VIS!

Heart in life for soul in art.
Far gone conclusions to start thusly so far…
In advances shared for Reason’s Enlightening
Purposes. For transitional goals inherent for
The bottom of dark shadows in silent minds
Exposed.

Breaking these holds… life on earth’s chains
Of events spent asunder of Rights, lain in a
Quagmire of defeat. Thrown aside -as if eyes
Don’t exist to see… freedom’s peace to live
Forever for one more day of our existence.

Along the cusp of the sun’s moon shadows
Out on the run, sung for love of words…
Beauty reigns magnificently drawn out
Of clouds covering up blue skies… shining
Hope in faith heard, felt and seen in truth’s
Prevailing soul forevermore.

Brave as one can possibly be… for eyes
In spirit of countenance for changing times.
Heartfelt subliminal sublime -arise in hope’s
Success of all- out of earth shattering promises,
Vis-a-vis! Holding to passions artfully!

DRUNK IN MY PASSION THROUGH THESE PAINFUL NIGHTMARES
Judas and Delilah!

This is extremely humiliating, trying to tackle these severe problems that has thrown me off the edge, out into the distance of dark hearted space. Relative to no one yet to be seen. When dreams don’t mean anything to people stealing your peace. That fake every reasonable belief across the western landscape for the world-at-large. No gifts left that they wouldn’t steal for free gratis of villainy. Impervious to feelings what is real? When brutal lies are compelling for trying to have the courage in strength of confessional rights.

However lain aside, when there are no innocent eyes left to recall. Dead in the spirit, they collude in stealth’s wicked duplicity. That overwhelms me, when people feel no contrition of guilt for their cold blooded crimes, that vilify my conscience in depth of all spying eyes.

They burglarize and bare false witness against me with malice aforethought. Fraud is their specialty, for how evil they can be. That’s left me with no mother, father, sisters, brothers, or a wife that hasn’t feigned their love, chasing after their stolen ‘American Dreams.’ Pariah predators. I’ve had to escape with my life. After they have already severely attacked me. In every way that is a shocking outrage. When nobody is listening, not even when I was a child, raising myself up out of these pits of despair’s blocked memories. For whose God that break every commandment known to man, woman and child?

It hurts like hell on holidays. Especially on Easter and Christmas. It amazes me how people can praise the Lord, then use religion as a weapon to cover up the truth, while they sleep together in their abominable beds. Gone unchallenged, except by my standing up against them, ripping me off for people who end up with household names. Which makes me feel like nothing in society for the laws I follow, but they break with impunity. Leaving me without safety. Making my life a living hell! Perhaps I’ll eventually be heard, felt and seen.

As a visual artist and writer that has written hundreds upon hundreds of lyrics. When writing was my only outlet to release my pain. While they would steal my writing for others to sing, making a great deal of money. Which started with my mother who would continually lie against me, setting me up to take these tremendous falls. When I was sexually, physically, and verbally abused as a child, leaving me empty handed, devoid of honest friendship.

But I can no longer block the pain, like I was forced to as a child. However, for what rights of wicked denial? What confession to be good for the soul? Or the truth to set me free from Judas and Delilah as thick as thieves in family like the Mafia for politicians and the entertainment industry. Subliminal. Sublime. Up to whom out of terror of treacherous minds?

Salutations for Signatures Refined…
Across the Planet for Humane Dignity!

No need, anymore

You look at me but you don’t see me

Don’t Forget Me

We were suppose to be family

What do I do now?

These collage drawings is part of an ongoing series of work that I started in 1994.
At the age of 27 I came to the decision to start healing. Having an interest in art I began to paint and draw.
I allow my feelings to create the work. To share a message. Change.