SOUTHIE

FREE

This is the land I come from
the land of
broken tar,
cracks in the sidewalk.

The place where roaches are squatters surviving a desperate home filled with spackled dreams.

She erased the young lovers from the mural on the wall
leaving just an empty tree
never to be climbed again
an artist whitewashing her future.

The land of white knuckles and fight clubs; of white men with dangerous pasts and drunken futures all too close and personal.

A city of tears and required loyalty to false gods.

Desperation
paints the streets
with dreams of escape,
of knowledge beyond
the corners and the cracks

I watch from my second-floor window, the souls that stroll past the burnt out warehouse across the street mirroring their young and angry lives.

Me. Hiding.

Afraid to see myself as the same hollowed out wasteland whose heart smells of burnt wood and mildew.

I hold my innocence and integrity steadfastly close shutting out
the pain of
dying dreams,
lost expectations.

Laughing at my intimate lonely world filled with fantasies so not to cry.

I
Will
Free Myself…

Patch the wounds
Fill the cracks
Plant the seeds that will sprout from new and fertile earth

A tree
growing
never to be hollowed out,
rooted in acceptance.

I will climb
Out of the fear
Into the future

FREE

Namastè
©NicholeDonjè

#artist #nicholedonjeartist #southie #southboston #boston #nyc #newyorkcity #ny #yonkerny #yonkers #photogrpahy #poetry #writing #art #lifelessons #personalgrowth #dogmomma #activism #feminism #theatre #director #connection #selfcare #selflove #acceptance #compassion #curiousty #creativity #courage #trust

Life Poetry: 11

Southie: the protector, the defender and the neighborhood that wasn’t mine

I look out onto the street from my second floor window. I’m not quite sure what I’m looking for, but I know it’s different from what I see.

Silver Street is dirty and filled with jagged memories. There are the stairs I sit on longingly waiting for my dad to drive by. I watch the corner with an eagle eye hoping the tough girls don’t come around. The gym where the nasty boys hang out and where Atilla and Finegan (two very large and scary dogs) reign sends shivers through me. I’ve spent more time running into this house and away from the world than living in it. I’ve confronted meanness and aggression too many times, I’ve had to stand up to protect a friend only to bawl my eyes out from fear the minute I’m alone.

Yet I sit here watching – remembering the laughter, the singing, games of kickball, and the old man who comes by every day to give Rags bologna. I think about the flames breaking out from behind painted wood windows during a warehouse fire across the street that fascinated and terrified me. I’m reminded of the many special 4-leggers who have come and gone; my beautiful Vicious who wandered into our lives introducing us to love bites – gentle nibbles of gratitude on the cheek, our handsome Bruno – a stunning tramp of a Shepherd who let us adopt him for a couple of months then moved on, Medford Tom downstairs who’s wild stories of his harrowing life scared the pants off us and his rottie Eric who stole my heart, Buffie my best friend whose belly was my pillow, and Rags – the most well lived dog I’ll ever meet- he knew more of Southie and its secrets than the many humans who live here.

I picture how beautifully Silver St. lives up to its name in a thick snowfall. The light sparkles over the uninterrupted drifts of snow covering the grittiness. There is a quiet sadness in my observations. This place is my foundation. My parents are from here, it’s in my blood. I am so different than this world. I don’t belong and I want nothing more than to leave; to run far and fast from the hardness of it. I am a stranger here and yet, it is a part of me.

People in Their Environments 056 – South Boston 1983 by, Sage Sohier

In my search for an old photo of my hometown, I came across this picture and was immediately awed. I reached out to the photographer to tell her how much the photo moved me and reminded me of my childhood. I asked her if she knew the girls in the photo, she did not. As an artist and photographer myself, I wanted her to know she had captured something visceral for me. In the poem above I mention the “tough” girls. While this isn’t all of them, it is some of them…the actual girls! That is the corner of the street I grew up on, straight down across from that car was my house and the fire I mention was in the warehouse the car is parked in front of. I have personally destroyed a bike and my nose on that very pole these girls are sitting behind.

I want to share how much a simple photo by a stranger can unexpectedly move someone even years after it is taken. I am nostalgic of the location itself, but also by the girls. These girls terrified me as a child. They were hard, mean and often cruel. Looking at them now as an adult knowing so much more about life and considering those around me, I see their pain their longing and their dreams of escape. I see now that their anger was not at me, I just happened to be the easy target.

I love this photo. I wish I could afford it. Its only available through a gallery for quite a hefty fee, so I will simply admire it from afar. I highly suggest looking up the artist. I am grateful to her. This photo allows me to look back at where I came from. To see the pain of my past in a new light, to see and forgive that hardness of life and to remind me of how fortunate I now am.

Namastè

Life Poems 9

The Girl Upstairs

“Hi I’m Nickie”, were my first words to the girl moving in upstairs on Silver St. Back then I’d say hello to anyone. Inviting as I was, we were playing in my room by the end of the day. She was tall with dark hair, pale skin and big brown eyes; very pretty in an unconventional way. We became like glue, sisters against the mean outside world of Southie boys and angry dogs. We played Barbies, dressed up our pets and reenacted Grease over and over (I had seen the movie 27 times). I exposed her to Michael Jackson and she exposed me to ABBA; try as I did my enthusiasm never grew for the group with the exception of our mantra song, Hasta Manana. She loved to sing and I loved laughing with her so it all worked out. We sang patriotic songs on the stairs and danced in the street. I saw an innocence that no one else did, a pain I wanted to disappear. She became the hot one and me her “shadow”, the protector, the one the boys wanted to ditch to be alone with her. Like mother like daughter, I did not bend. She was my first true friend, the first to expose my maternal nature.

Namastè

©NicholeDonjè

Letters to Loved Ones

Dear Grandpa Petros,

I do say I wish I had had the opportunity to know you. I didn’t even get Grandma long enough, as I’m sure you know she died when I was six. I want you to know I loved her with all my heart. She never did learn English, but we understood one another in our own ways. It would have been great if she taught me Lithuanian, but she wanted me to be an American; language and all. I would have loved if she could have told me about you in her own words.

What I knew of you was through the black and white photos she kept on the windowsill. They were covered in writing I didn’t understand, but it felt meaningful. Unfortunately a few of them were of you in your coffin. I can’t say I understood why those pictures were taken never mind displayed. I learned later it was a common thing in the old country. I tell ya, it’s creepy! Fortunately there were others. There was one of you in a uniform and another with a group of people, your family. You always reminded me a lot of my cousin Jimmy minus the height (he is quite tall). My understanding is that you were far under six foot. On the other hand your strong jaw, jet black hair and pale blue eyes would have made any young lady swoon.

Many of my mom’s memories are from after you got ill. They are seen through the veil of a heartbroken teenager who had to care for aging and fractured parents. I’ve heard tales of your strength as a young man and lifting a horse on your shoulders, that you were one of many brothers and sisters, that you were grandma’s second husband and that you helped others to escape before the war. The biggest and oddest fact being that I was born Feb 1, 1972 at 3:45pm and you died Feb 1, 1962 at 3:45am…very weird, a little creepy and coincidentally creating a very cool and unique connection for us.

I know when you came here you had big dreams that failed and that you never recovered. I’m sorry life was so hard for you here. It’s heartbreaking to know how much you lost. Mom says through it all you were passionate, angry and stubborn but full of love.

I want to say you thank you for coming to me in a dream. I know some people think Oiji boards and paranormal experiences are nonsense, but I will always cherish my experience. I used to play the Oiji board with a couple of dear friends in college. One night after a very intense experience each of us in a single night had a unique encounter. Mine was unforgettable. In the dream I entered grandpa Nick’s restaurant, people and cigarette smoke everywhere. I walk straight through as if I was being drawn through a maze and there you were. Hand out and smiling. You waved me to you. I can’t say I understood your words, but as your arm wrapped around my shoulder and you shook me and laughed I instantly felt your pride and love. It wasn’t a normal dream. It was peculiar from the way it felt to the memory of it. I thank you for that; for the few moments with you that live in the back of my mind. It was a gift and I have never witnessed anything like it since.

All that said, I hope you have found joy and peace. I’m not sure what I believe about the afterlife other than I know it exists somehow in some way. I’d love to think I will meet you again, that you are with the family and your friends laughing and sharing stories, taking care of Auntie Bertha and watching over all of us. I don’t really know though. What I do know is that you are out there in some way or form, an energy I get to share. Know that though we never met in this life you have always been in my heart and a huge part of who I am and I miss you.

I don’t want to be presumptuous, but I would like to ask you for one thing. Your daughter, my mom has had a tough go of it in this life. Maybe you could send some loving and healing energy her way. She’s trying but she could use the support, your support; an internal nudge, quiet inner moments of joy, a little epiphany in a dream…whatever you got. Thank you.

You are always in my heart.
Nickie

Life Poems 5

The Wizard of Oz and the Monumental Mission of a Five Year Old

Each year near easter the giant console in the living room became a gathering place. It was the only time the family came to our house. We had the color tv and I believed with all my heart that deep down I was Dorothy on a monumental mission to save the world, so I had the biggest pull.

The adults would get the black leather couch and chairs as all us kids gathered on the floor with pillows waiting for the magic to begin. My heart would pound as the music began and Kansas, in whimsical black and white, filled our eyes. It was my favorite time of year. The spectacle drew me in and my mind overflowed with phantasm of it.

I regularly convince my cousin to play Wizard of Oz with me having the explicit agreement that, next time she get to be Dorothy. It was never a long journey since I never reciprocated and always insisted she be Toto. I’d convincingly plead, “Whats Dorothy without Toto?!?”.

That world was unlike anything I knew; brilliant colors, fabulous voices and terrifying flying monkeys. I was fueled, enchanted, driven to find my yellow brick road and wondrous friends. To be in a place so different from where I lived where evil monkeys equaled mean boys, the wicked witch was my Nana, and sirens where the whirl of the tornado outside my window.

©NicholeDonjé

On Art and Consequence

I didn’t I realized how strong my need to protect was. I am removing the layers of my life choices and recognizing how my ethics have both driven me forward and held me back.

I was raised to be an artist. Creativity was sewn into the fibers of my life carefully and with purpose. The issue is that somehow those threads were infused with rules. Rules stifle the mind. They tighten on the heart and make it difficult for blood to flow. The brain seizes. Art cannot be tamed or smothered. It needs at its essence to bare the truth of whatever process it’s driven by. The goal needs to be to share the story, not the tamed version, the true version.

My rules were unintentionally suffocating. Everything I did had a consequence, good or bad I had to ask, “Who would it hurt?”. The rules fused my life with others. If I told a story or shared something personal it was not my own because another was somehow attached. Even now in this moment I find myself fighting the frankness with vagueness and ambiguity.

I am constantly protecting someone I love by not giving the full story. I was told, “that’s my business, no one else’s”. When I said, “Its my business too”, I was told it was not mine to share. How can I be genuine while editing what is integral in my life. How can I be open if everything I do is tied to a circumstance that is not my own? I can’t.

I am realizing that part of my struggle to be clear and direct has come from the habit of my belief that I need to protect others. I always leave something out. I think, “What if they don’t want anyone to know?”, “What if sharing my anger or pain hurts someone else?”. I’ve been in handcuffs for years and am just now willing to see them.

My voice; my true artist needs freedom. I’ve been locked in and weighed down by misguided loyalty. At this point I question if I have I actually been protecting others or protecting myself from their reactions. I don’t want to hurt anyone, but my life is mine. I cannot be fully present if everything I share considers everyone else before my own truth.

This new layer in my dig is both rocky and fragile. It is infused with the learned beliefs of how I was raised and where I’m from. I find it difficult and painful to navigate. It will require delicacy, patience and courage. I may break a few things, but in the end and with care, reparation is possible.

Namastè
Nichole Donjè

DNA Analysis – Daily Post Writing Challenge

WRITING CHALLENGE:

Your challenge is to take something intensely personal — the bits and pieces that make you YOU — and use them as a springboard for a post that makes a larger point and resonates with lots of other readers.

In the symmetry of my face the right three-quarters is my mom, the other quarter my dad, or so I’ve been told. In the shape of my eyes I see my mother’s love and facility for art in decades of notebooks that no one will ever see. In my hair I see the frailness of my fathers poetry.

My parents are broken people, slivers of who’s lives have cut their way into mine. I see their gifts in me; cooking, poetry, talent, love of nature but more often I have felt the shards of their brokenness and see the scars. The imperfections and abandonment. I see anger and disappointment. I see the world through eyes of pain and misplaced fears. There are scars everywhere, most old some new: fat, ugly, stupid, lazy, insignificant.

I see Southie in my core, the tough neighborhood of mine and my parents childhood. A private place. I was taught not to share my life, because it meant sharing theirs. The privacy of our inner worlds that no one was allowed to see; vulnerability, weakness. But we are connected, our families help shape who we are. If I can’t share you, I can’t share me; rendering my life and experiences insignificant, somehow unworthy. It left me disconnected, bounded by roots, stunting my growth. I see guilt for not being strong enough, brave enough, pretty enough…or simply enough.

But…

As I’ve learned to look more closely I see the mirror has more volume. Like the symmetry of my face where my parents both dwell in my features; I have emerged an individual. I have been staring in this mirror for years searching for myself and fighting for my existence. I have found a change. My features are softening, warming and calming.

Today I glance in the mirror and stop, not to stare, but to breathe. To allow my life to fill in and seal the shards. I touched the scars and blessed them with forgiveness. I am different and quintessential. I always thought I was broken. How else could it be, I am my parent’s child am I not? But when I look in the mirror today I see a woman, scarred but whole. I see the person tending to the wounds of the past and piecing together the slivers of my parents with forgiveness and compassion.

I see strength and power, someone who understands the gravity of communication, openness and connectedness. I see the web I have built; an intricate, beautiful network of artists, friends and individual family members who know me beyond the shards who have all added to my healing.

The woman I see is human and flawed, brilliant and compassionate and always working to be the best individual she can be. I see a wondrous work in progress emerging from the shadows of the past ready to leap into her own peace.