Dear Unsealed,
As a young child I was diagnosed with what they called a “lazy eye.” I was only three or 4 or 5. Those toddler Esotropia runs in families and usually requires surgery to correct. Acquired esotropia occurs in children usually between the ages of 2 and 5. Eyeglasses can usually correct it. seem to conjugate into one perimeter of I was too young to begin wearing glasses.
My mom had surgery on her eye, not mine. I found out later in life when my mom was alive. She explained to me that she could not deal with it, so she had surgery instead of me. I was deeply hurt as I was young and dealing with bullying not her as a grown woman. I loved my mom and always will but that hurt deeply. I learned to forgive her and move on without anger and buy more frames to accompany my wardrobe.
I told my mom I could not see well and was embarrassed about my left eye because the kids were making fun of my disability. My mom was incredibly sad as she had the same eye ailment. We can see but need glasses.
At three, four, and five I was a gregarious spontaneous combustion running around the house, playing with my Kachina dolls, my baby dolls, my mudpies and least of all of these was pretending that the toads were my friends. I was an adventurous child of sorts, and my glasses were in the way, but what was really in the way was I could not see well without my glasses. So, my glasses became a part of my wardrobe, and I had to learn to fit my glasses into my daily routine of trees, toads, and Kachina dolls.
The truth is that the significance of learning to respect and wear my glasses taught me survival and how cruel young toddlers can be. My favorite little boy on the block in our 1950s neighborhood was accepting of my disability. Back in those days people who wore glasses were called four eyes. That is a debilitating bigotry condition of certain types of personalities of certain human beings. I learned to go with the flow. My grandpa Boss was with me teaching me to read and write and music.
Those days are gone now.
I remember a little girl who was so sweet.
I remember a little girl who was so neat.
I remember a little girl who was me,
To be
Grown one day,
Along the way
As I was now a 21-year-old young lady growing up in the crazy seventies entering college after nursing school at age 19. I had a pair of frames to match every outfit in my closet.
Later I began to wear contacts mixing it up with different frames and lots of sunshades.
Now at 75, I am wearing contacts again mixing them up with different frames and reading glasses and computer glasses.
Old habits are a positive virtue in the case of a young toddler beginning to wear glasses to see carrying on to an elder age.
I now look back.
React,
To my younger self of creative play.
Today
I still suffer from lazy left eye syndrome, strabismus, astigmatism, and far-sightedness but hey folks I am human, and we are all with disabilities of some kind. We are human.
As an artist, writer, lyricist and elder I thank the Universe for supplying me with perseverance, longevity, patience, and intellectual capabilities that have helped me continue walk my life path.
To someone else reading this who might say it is no big deal, it is a big deal to a toddler and to humanity that has given humans the ability and ambition to overcome obstacles as they walk their path in their life.
My glasses and contacts are woven together into a web of sight and creativity overcoming the obstacles of a toddler in the 1950s era of bigotry and judgmental style cultures of America at that time.
The learning concave ability of learning to live with strabismus or “crossed eyes”. I had one crossed eye, and I grew up overcoming my disability by wearing many different frames. However, the stigma of bullying that was present in those days has left a scar inside my intellect that I still have to work through with my therapist.
However, I am over the four eyes syndrome bullying. I love my glasses and can shop online and offline looking at cool frames to offset my wardrobe.

It All Started . . .

After several hours filled with fear, anxiety, tears of anger, and wounds of distrust, I ended up in a fetal position on my living room floor. After struggling to roll up in a seated position,I forced my shaky left foot to plant firm and stable, as a wingback chair offered to help me to my feet. Then it happened . .

The phrase “Until I learn to love myself, there isn’t going to be any love for anybody else.” emblazoned the forefront of my thoughts. Such a popular phrase in music and literature that should make complete sense. But my emotional blindness shadowed its true meaning for all these years.

I had been throwing tantrums all day! I wailed out, “I didn’t deserve that…”, “Why would he/they/you/whomever treat me that way?” and so on and so on. After my earlier battle to stand, I started a new rant, when suddenly the image in my bathroom mirror took on its own energy. It sounds outlandish, even fictional–it’s the only way I can describe that moment. My mirrored image caught my attention and scolded, with gritted jaw:

“STOP IT! This is YOUR problem and no one else’s.
JUST STOP! Stop taking this out on others.
YOU fell for it. YOU allowed this to happen to YOU!”

The next thing I remember was looking back at my image in the mirror, grinning from ear to ear. I had finally accepted complete responsibility for my own life. I got that all familiar phrase now.

Under a scorching hot shower, I washed away the negative energy of the past several hours. I slowed my breath, as the calming scent of aromatherapy body wash filled my nostrils and then it happened . . . LAUGHTER. Then a flood of self-awareness and acute in-sight:

To enjoy relationships at any level, a balance needs to exist between self-respect and mutual-respect, mixed in with laughter, touching, smiling, debating, and knowing when to “agree to disagree.”

Painful thoughts of so much time wasted with complicated and empty confrontations throughout so many flittered years suddenly became ridiculously SIMPLE. I had not recognized the concept until that moment, because it is so ridiculously SIMPLE.

Our society has increasingly been overly multi-tasked and run-ragged! Let’s get back to SIMPLE. Here’s my SIMPLE equation:

SIMPLE = HAPPINESS = SELF-ESTEEM = SELF-RESPECT = SELF-LOVE = LOVE

“TO LOVE SIMPLY IS TO SIMPLY LOVE”

which can be reversed!

“TO SIMPLY LOVE IS TO LOVE SIMPLY”

That day was the most significant turning point of my life.
After that day, I became a certified Yoga teacher, I performed at open mic events for the spoken word, I became more adventurous and spontaneous. I loved myself for the first time.
I’ve been restless
All these hours of sleep
Tears mixed with
New-found joy and old tossed loss
Stream down each cheek
Dreams of an old self
And my true self
Vying for status of champion
As a sportscaster commentates nearby.
My true self emerges victorious
Pointing to the beginning
Of a path, upon which
The Divine beckons me
To follow in faith.

Love, Me!

Things have been hard, but that’s okay
We are reaching brighter days
Innocence stolen, you’ll soon understand
Your thoughts will scatter like shells in sand
Getting older is very hard
You’ll find yourself getting scarred
You’ll lose yourself, find her again
You’ll lose and gain different friends
But through it all, it does get better
Always think about brighter weather
You’ll be okay, I promise you this
Lots of scars, but eventual bliss

Sweet meek mouse
You refuse to let out a peep
Afraid of what will reap
Your mind shouts
You won’t let it out
Kept hidden beneath your silent weeps
The chaos in your mind begins to creep
Finding the need to express yourself
You awaken from your cocoon
A withered violet finally in bloom
Rising with the morning sun
A magical soul with a story to tell
Your words will be heard
You’re no longer stuck in your shell

I cry most nights thinking I’m not good enough for this world. I make myself believe that I’m not worthy enough to be loved or cared for. I feel like I’m in quicksand and I can’t get out or that I’m under water and the pressure is pulling me in and I can’t get out. Maybe that’s why I never learned how to swim because I’m scared of not getting out. I hid my depression since I don’t remember when I gotten really good at faking a smile and showing people I’m ok but in reality I’m not, I’m scared to disappoint because I never heard anyone say they are proud of me, I’m scared to love because I never gotten pure love from anyone not a friend, significant other, sibling, or parent it was always tough love because I was taught that being truly loved always becomes a disaster. I hear my parents arguing everyday since I was little it never stopped only gotten worse once I fully grown up, I never realized until now how broken my parents are and how they project it on me, how my mom belittles me and later argues because it gives her power over me the words and tone she represents she knows affects me and she likes it, she’s a force. My dad is just a narcissist who likes to control and throw out people, who not only couldn’t take care of his family but he was the main to break us. I guess that’s where my brother learned it from the uncontrollable range and using then throwing out people. I feel like a stranger in my own home. I don’t belong here. I cry most nights in the bathroom. I don’t tell anyone because I don’t want to be a burden. I think about how life became after a while and how broken I am. I just want to leave and start new. The anxiety and depression that has happened over the years I don’t think it would stop not until I make a change, I used to cry for my mother’s love, crave my father’s affection, expect my brother to support but that was never the case with them I don’t want to be like them ever I want to be better. I am in quicksand that’s only getting worse and worse, I dream about being underwater or having broken teeth, my anxiety takes over and there’s nothing I can do about it. Uncontrollable breath, lungs getting tighter, head pounding, hands shaking. I can’t ask for help from my own family because they think it’s a phase and it’ll be over but it’ll only be over once I’m gone. The black hole I carry in my mind sucks all good in my life and I let it be how stupid of me. The silent panic attacks I get from time to time shows how much stress I’m in and I can’t stop myself. The distraction I cause doesn’t even work. It’s hard to do so in a household of toxicity. One bedroom, broken handles, crippling walls, I don’t even have a room for privacy, parents yelling in front of me, brother nowhere to be seen for fifteen years not even a “hi how you doing” I’m tired of everything I just want to leave and start new. I cry most nights in silence so no one can hear me. I bottle up everything because I rather hurt myself than hurt someone else. I know it’s wrong to do either. I just wish it gets better sooner than when it’s too late. I hope to overcome and escape this nightmare and see some light shed soon.

So I’m a veteran now..
Help me open this
C & P exam notification.
Look at that,
a winner has been selected
for my mental health’s raffle.
Combat activity report card reads as follows:
2 deployments for me
&
93% on the subject of
American history.

I felt the ghosts
of our heroes
let their tears fall
over my shoulder,
because the heaviest pen in
the planet struggled to check the box that was applicable to me.

I’ve been feeling decently
until recently,
when I was notified,
that everything
that I try to hide
in the tombs of my psyche,
will be –
resurrected,
dissected,
&
placed under
a microscope.
Picture my ptsd..
As a protozoa in a petri dish,
just small enough that I will never
feel whole (fill hole)
unless I open up,
I will never heal my soul…

Or maybe a telescope,

for everytime I’ve
spaced
out.

There’s a dissonance
in the distance that
slightly resembles the terror that
holds my happiness hostage.
“Incoming,”
Incoming,
Incoming!

any alarm
& this action movie
shapeshifts
into the horror genre,

Michael Bay
transforms into
Stephen King.

“It” is
“The Pet Semetery”
Where
“Cujo”
Is buried,
alarms also make me feel like
Jon Coffee walking
“The Green Mile.”

The Doha Accord was signed on
29 Feb, 2020.

Despite this alleged “armistice,”
the mirage in the dark was the target of many armaments..

12 bombs…I think?

like scalping your enemy,
i’ve tried to sever
that memory from my head,
but try as I might,
it hangs on by a thread,
how could I ever forget
the bomb that knocked me out of my bed?

& the subsequent phone call
to my parents..
telling them how
f*cking scared I was.

Oh, the heartbreak harbored in their eyes,
for only a handful of times,
have they seen their son cry,
but anytime I heard
Incoming, incoming, incoming..
It was at least possible
I might die.

I genuflect to inspect
These 17 coins I have earned,
Jaded-
I helped pack the grave dirt of far to many urns.
The petri begins denting from the inside.

Still Sealed by the gravity
That re-wrote history:
the fat man who crashed
bockscar in
Nagasaki.

Or
the little boy birthed
from enola gay
in Hiroshima.

“Do alarms really bother you?”
“Yes, it’s my heart beat playing hide and seek,”
“Is it getting any better?”
“Not really,
Every time I try & get some sleep
I hear the floorboards creak,”
“Isn’t it just another noise?”

“No.

It’s every thought I’ve ever had against my life,
The Grim Reaper’s sychte felt so cold upon my cheek…”

Im thankful for all of the help
that I have seeked,
for the last 4.5 years
I have my good days &
bad days,
& I’m hopeful that
one day,
it will be
Just Another Noise.
But until then,
I hope you see everyone is different after they’ve deployed.

If I were a flower I’d be a rose.
So ready for themes of love it sheds it weight in time.
“She loves me, she loves me not.”
Petal by petal I give away until I’m simply thorns.
First love. So sweet it hurts like a cavity of the soul.
Her smile so bewitching I gave it all to the unknown.
The feeling of driving to paradise on earth.
Beauty empowering me closer to the illuminating picture on the post card.
Vacationing in her warmth.
One by one, cloud by cloud the blue skies slowly wilted a gray.
I sway, hand in hand, in melancholic bliss waiting for a rainbow to split the clouds looming over.
No cover, adoration of the ever consuming rain gives hopeless fodder.
Consumed in gluttony of thine own sabotage.
Meddling; criminally in the poetic justice of one single word.
Love.
If only I told her that.
She was my Mona Lisa.
Da Vinci knew that beauty was not his possession, but the world’s to see.
Subject to a story of myth.
Lifted higher than icarus so I may learn how to fall; down.
Deeper, fallen into an abyss by the shot of cupids arrow.
Greeted by only a sign at the entrance reading “lost and found.”
A place in time existing only for lovers whose hearts wander off to the slaughter.
The unexplainable phenomena.
Wandering hopelessly until an improbable yet possible collision sets us back on course.
My lovely Andromeda to be.
A gift of fire I wish to collide with once more.

A Moment in Time

Prologue:
Fleeting moments of crisis
Oft change our lives
Powerful lessons learned quicky
Affecting our day to day lives

I prefer to dwell
On memorable events which
Make me smile,
Understanding the world in new ways

Interlude:
Thirty years have passed
Since our eyes met
In a chance encounter
Over a fishing trawler’s prow,
Queensland’s coast in sight
You gracefully moved
Through blue waters,
Surfing the bow’s wave
Rolling playfully onto your side
Briefly, our eyes met,
As we peered into each other’s souls
Memory forever tucked into my heart,
I descended from my ivory tower,
Rediscovering my humility

Epilogue, 30 years later:
Under an African full moon
A majestic bull elephant
Paused in a small clearing
I sensed his peaceful energy

Positioning my hand
Over a puppy mill momma’s heart
I felt her sadness wash over me
In a single wave of salty tears

I will always be drawn to other species
Looking for deeper understanding,
Until my eyes and heart become
Unable to connect with others

A chance encounter
Thirty years ago
Forever altered
My life’s trajectory

-Beth Arrowsmith
October 1, 2024

A poem written to my first grandson Finnely Moon.
The day the moon stood still.
The world stopped spinning you put me under a spell.
Watching you sleep brings me such peace.
I never thought I would experience this moment and have such peace.
Here cradled in my arms how you feel so small.
But you control the oceans, light, and time.
How mighty powerful you are.
Who would ever guess how much I would love this Moon?
You’ve opened up my heart and allowed me to bloom.
Every time I’m around you I want to write poetry.
You bring out the muse in me filled with such creativity.
I’ve never felt such joy as when I became your grandmother and any darkness left over from the years dissipated at the moment you were born.
You have showered me with your light and bathed me in your joy.
It’s penetrated the very marrow of my bones and has filled my soul.
The day the moon stood still.
The world stopped spinning you put me under a spell.
Watching you sleep brings me such peace.
I never thought I would experience this moment and get to watch you sleep.

My dear,
He does not care.
I’m sorry if you think he did.
He doesn’t think about you at night.
I’m sorry if you think that he does or did.
He doesn’t see your face in a crowded room.
He could be looking at the woman behind you or next to you.
He never did care about you.
He only loved you chasing him because it fed his ego.
It made his ego bigger while making your self-esteem smaller.
He doesn’t remember the feeling of kissing your lips or being intimate with you.
He’s kissed so many lips and there have been many he’s been intimate with that he’s forgotten.
He forgot the color of your eyes when the sun hits them and the shape of your eyes…
Even though you remember the words he told you to make you feel important.
And those words?
Those words were probably the same words he told all of those other women.
You remember everything because everything with him was special for you.
The intimacy, the love, the words, the smiles, and the touch.
He doesn’t talk about you or mention you to others or tell you how badly he misses you.
He never did.
You’ve questioned that and you always will.
It’s time to stop overthinking that.
You are the only fool who does that because again, you are feeding his ego which make his insecurities go away but make yours come to light.
He doesn’t love you anymore and maybe he never did and just said those words to you to get what he wanted because he had that leverage over you.
I’m sorry honey but it’s time to let him go even if he is the father of your child and was your first love.
Even if he has been the person you’ve gone to for all of your problems.
And has been what you thought was your best friend and believed that your conversations between you two were kept between the two of you when some of them weren’t.
Walk away…
Let go of that love you are holding to.
Nothing is going to be like it was because it never was genuine.
Let him go.
Let it go.
Stop standing there paralyzed by the pain of what was done to you.
Move on.