Rearview Mirror's Influence
Rearview Mirror's Influence
Written by Olivia Mistelle Maxell 2009 posted Mar 31, 2010
Looking back I see I’ve lived the
life of a very selfish child.
Entitlement has bordered my ego,
bound by books I protected in
shelves to draw assumptions of
intelligence to defer from my 'less than'.
Conclusions surface through uneasy
sounds of this house:
First memory of insecurity when I
realized I wasn’t a boy;
first time I looked past my own nose
to see most of my wounds were
self-inflicted with no regard for the pain
it bestowed on my relation’s unconditional
obligation—and no respect to myself.
Let me stretch the tears back
before they became excuses;
connected like dots to paint a picture
of the very first moment I gave up:
The molding of a painted
grin victim who trips over circumstance’s
practical jokes by rationalizing a whiners
riddle.
My voice morphing into an appendage
of familiar deflective accents as it bellows
the mantra I silently scream on a tear
soaked stage;
performing for a faceless
crowd of aches and pains.
The wet spot still damp; the residue still
sticky on my skin—No good covers the
penetration of an evil mind, busting first
times with a poisonous thrust of a
forever shame.
No soap tough enough to wash the memories
from my dry cracked compulsive hands.
No mirror strong enough to capture each
still image in rolling frames of instances;
squaring the hazy pupil of worn out smiles.
I’ve made this my life without realizing it.
The repercussions of one simple act has lead
me into a whirlwind of an obsessive need to
numb away the bad…leaving me killing off
my good in order to achieve this goal.
Peeling back the onion of my truth waters
my eyes as it reveals my wasting of life by
executing all my potential with toxic
solutions.
The inward ladder to forgive myself brings
me to the core of forgiving the unforgivable
with no name.
I’m sorry to the selfish child I am, that never
grew past this obstruction and the protecting
defenses which nourished its option to
not evolve in trying on new aspects of colors
of character.
In remorse to my heart that hung in the closet
of pronouns next to the love I had for
unpainted masks of so many nameless
identities with invisible genders.
I lay to rest the misplaced anger that I
passed around in an over opinionated blanket
of a passionate desire to insure the belief
I’m not wrong, because in essence
I’ve never felt just right.
My day’s resolution is to learn the art of
admitting when I’m wrong without
resurrecting an excuse to justify the overload
of insecurity.
My life’s publication will reflect a moment
when I emerge from this sheltered excuse to
encourage the sparks inside to flicker bright;
exposing the good I lack the ability to tell
myself I have;
to open up the chance to
to open up the chance to
see the trail of scars along my skin that
lead to every insurmountable quake I endured;
to stop the running away in
leaps and bounds, as my life passes me by;
to collect my ambivalence and not trust in
the melting of my father’s lies.
To station myself in the belief that I am
fine no matter the outcome; no matter the
sin; no matter the error.
To release the burden of self loathing to
forgive myself in order to truly appreciate
the sensations I create.
To give myself a chance to be more than this—
To move past this—
To go forward—
without a rearview mirror’s influence.
Written by Olivia Mistelle Maxell copyright 2009
Posted by Olivia Mistelle Mistelle at Wednesday, March 31, 2010 10:03 AM 
Categories: Life, poetry, relationships
Tags: resolution august and everything after moving on compulsive recovery drug addiction misplaced anger blue october rearview mirror matchbox 20 healing mirror music pearl jam counting crows memories
Categories: Life, poetry, relationships
Tags: resolution august and everything after moving on compulsive recovery drug addiction misplaced anger blue october rearview mirror matchbox 20 healing mirror music pearl jam counting crows memories
Your writing is astonishing. It's as if you pull your soul out and put it on a piece of lined paper that's been folded and unfolded a million times. Grr... that probably makes no sense to you (my brain works in mysterious ways). I very much enjoy reading your soul though. Thank you.
That last line really did it for me, very poignant.
That's the key isn't it? To keep going without letting the past weigh on you. You can't get very far if your neck is turned in the opposite direction.